In an effort to keep tax payers honest, the IRS is stepping up both its audit and customer service efforts at the same time. Interestingly, the IRS has created the position of Tax Advocate, an individual who monitors how tax payers are treated and makes recommendations to the IRS on how to improve its customer service.

Granted, not many of us would have a positive mental picture of the IRS when it comes to defining good customer service. However, we may want to think about taking a page from their book.

Who in your organization is an advocate for your customers? Who is checking on what the customer has to go through in using your products and services? Who is fighting for their cause in the midst of your pressures to decrease costs and improve productivity?

Decreasing costs and improving productivity at the expense of the customer is not a formula for success. In fact, is it a valid indicator that your business is at risk of hitting hard times.

There are many examples today of valued customers leaving long time vendors because of poor service. Case in point is my defection from American Airlines. As a frequent business traveler who usually travels on full fare coach tickets, American Airlines reached a nadir in its customer service which forced me to make a reluctant change. Interestingly, in the last 2 months I have spoken to 10 other frequent flyers who have also defected from American Airlines. Funny thing about these defections. Does American Airlines realize we left? Apparently not because no one has contacted us to find out what caused us to leave. Or, worse yet, they just don’t care.

If American Airlines had a customer advocate monitoring things, do you think we would have defected? Hard to say. What we can say is there probably would have been a better chance of us not defecting with a customer advocate in place because the customer service problems we experienced will hopefully have been uncovered and dealt with… assuming the customer advocate is empowered to facilitate changes and is listened to by management.

Who is your customer advocate? Are you listening to those who deal with your customer’s day in and day out? Are you listening and responding to your customer’s needs.

If the IRS feels it needs to address this situation when it is the only game in town, it is a sure bet that anyone who competes for a living must do the same thing.

On April 14th, 1978, Bernie Marcus, CEO of the Handy Dan Home Improvement Center, was fired! Stunned by this unsuspecting blow, he thought about suing his former company. A friend of his, Sol Price, founder of Price Club, asked him if he really wanted to spend his life in litigation or let go of the pain and move on. Bernie decided to let go and moved on with a plan of his which led to the creation of Home Depot.

As the new year approaches, you should be planning your goals for the new year. As part of the plan, ask yourself: “Do My Actions Support my Goals”? If you want to accomplish better results next year, you will need to ratchet up your efforts and possibly do new new things. Bernie Marcus realized he would only be wasting a lot of time and money suing his former employer. There was a bigger return waiting for him by directing his energies into another cause.

Here are the top 10 questions you should be asking yourself in evaluating your personal leadership skills for the New Year:

1)As a leader, are you concentrating on things that really matter or wasting time on things that are more comfortable than productive?

2) Are you spending enough time in front of the right customers or are you simply calling on people whom you feel comfortable talking to?

3) Are you closing business that is profitable and makes sense for your business, or are you closing business that is easy to get?

4) Are you leaving money on the table because you were out negotiated and/or unprepared?

5) Are you calling on higher level decision makers where possible to expand your scope of opportunities?

6) Are you increasing the level of conversation with existing customers to uncover more opportunities?

7) Do you hold yourself accountable for your own success and eliminate all excuses?
Are your keeping yourself mentally and physically in shape to meet the demands of the stiff competition?

9) Are you honing your skills to perform at optimum levels?

10) Are you measuring your results on a timely basis so you can make modifications as needed to achieve your 2005 goals?

Remember, personal leadership starts and ends with YOU!!!

As a leader, you set the direction for your team, company and customer. You set expectations and provide the tools for meeting them. If you don’t have the right tools, watch out. The damage from falling short of expectations will be far worse than not getting the business to begin with.

Here is an example. Two years ago, my wife and I bought a motorized awning for our deck. To this date it works well. However, we would love to have it checked out and make sure it is still properly secured after the heavy storms we have had lately. In April, we thought our questions were answered. The company that sold us the awning sent out a spring special to have the awning checked and maintained for a low price. My wife immediately calls the number, but nobody answers the phone. So, she leaves a message on their voice mail.

Two weeks go by and still no response. She calls again and leaves another message. On her third call, she finally got someone on the phone who assures her that all messages will be returned. Obviously this employee was trained in the School of Customer Dissatisfaction.

It gets better. My wife now turns to me to call and do the dirty work. So, I called the President and got no response. On my third call, the secretary finally answers, takes a message and promises to call me back in a few minutes. After not hearing from her for a few weeks, I call her back and leave a stern message.

My wife then calls again, gets the same woman and she asks, is your husband Ron Karr? My wife says yes. The secretary says she got our messages but, there is nothing she can do. They were so swamped with the mailing, they cannot handle the overflow.

To this date, this is all we have. I cannot believe companies do this to their customers. This is blatantly a case of dis-service and this company does not have long to live if it continues along this course of behavior. This marketing special was created by some executive who probably wanted to push revenues in a slow season which can turn into leads for new sales. Instead, this program failed miserably. Yes, they may have filled up their service schedule. But how many people now are hearing about this story? How many referrals have they received from us? How many people did we tell to stay away from this company?

Undoubtedly, if you are reading this letter, you are not guilty of such blatantly poor customer service. But don’t rest easy, either. If you in any way have over reached your abilities and cannot meet the expectations you set for your customers, you might inadvertently produce the same results of customer dissatisfaction and defection.Customer Loyalty? It all starts with meeting and exceeding expectations.

Imagine you are front runner to win the Olympic Gold in the men’s all around competition. That’s just where Paul Hamm was when he started his vault routine. After running gracefully towards the vault, magnificently soaring into the air, doing incredible flips and preparing for his landing approach, disaster struck. on impact, Paul’s legs gave out and he lost control. He fell flat on his butt, rolling off to the side and landing on the edge of the judges table. You could see the painful expression on his face and the image of his dream passing through his eyes.

While the next competitor was doing his thing, TV commentators kept talking about how dejected and frustrated Paul Hamm must be. Hamm had other things in mind. Yes, he was dejected, but he was intent on doing his next and last routine as perfectly as possible. He was not going to leave Athens without giving it his best shot.

His next routine was perfect and to the amazement of everyone watching the event world wide, Paul Hamm wound up winning the gold.

Lessons to be learned we all make mistakes but the superstars don’t let those mistakes keep them down. They get right back up, dust themselves off, and keep going for the gold.

When we hear “You’re Fired”, the first thing that comes to mind is Donald Trump’s Apprentice show. Yet, is the concept of firing limited to employees? The answer is a resounding no!!! How about firing some customers? Customers fire vendors for not being good. So, why can’t vendors fire customers who do not fit their sales model?

As a leader of your destiny, you have to figure out who your market is and only spend time on customers who are the right fit for your products and services.

Roy Putrino, President of Basic Home Infusion, recently dealt with this issue head on. As a supplier of in-home health care, he was finding that many national insurance companies were paying less and less for these services. Many of his national competitors wound up in bankruptcy. He started looking at this challenge and realized if he did not do something different, he was headed for the same fate.

He decided to provide less of the services that insurance companies were not willing to reimburse appropriately and provide more specialty services such as pre-mature pregnancy and MS in-home care. These services are listed as special therapies and hence command greater reimbursement from the insurance companies.

After implementing this strategy, Roy noticed interesting results. His overhead costs dropped immediately because he no longer was supplying the same amount of services. Consequently, his revenues also dropped. But, don’t get alarmed. At the end of the day, its not revenues that count. It’s the net profit (amount of money left over after expenses) that counts. Roy’s profit started to skyrocket. In addition, Roy’s stress level went down because he didn’t have to work as hard to make the same amount of money. In fact, he’s making more.

Roy figured out that certain customers were not in his best interests. He also figured out for other customers, it was not worth supplying certain services. If he continued, he would have gone out of business.
As the leader of your destiny/business, who’s your best customer? Who should you be spending time with? What services should you be concentrating on? If the answers do not add up to a profitable experience, then do something different or get out of business. If you don’t, the market will make that decision for you.

As a leader, you must help develop the strategy of how you are going to attack your market. People are too often consumed with what their competition is doing. It’s one thing to take your competition into account. It’s quite another thing to try and emulate your competition.

If your competition has gained the high road with a certain product or service, then why would you create a strategy that matches what they are doing? They already are doing it. They have more experience doing it. And they probably are the best ones doing it. Successful leaders do not try and duplicate their competitors efforts. They strive to push the envelope and create a new benchmark of success that forces the competition to now chase them.

I refer again to Rodger Ekstrom, a sales executive who knows how to win. You already read about his feat in capturing greater market share with an existing customer in this month’s sales tip. Now let me tell you how he recaptured the business of a key account. This account is a large player in his market and they lost the business for various reasons. After taking The Titan Principle® training, he realized that every time he tried to get back in the door, he led with features that basically failed to motivate the buyer to listen.

Recently, he called and asked for a meeting to assess their challenges. Instead of trying to match his competition price for price, he found out was missing for the customer and the challenges they were facing. This information empowered him to come up with a solution that would provide outcomes for the customer they were not getting from their current vendor. End result: They recaptured the business. The customer mentioned how appreciative they were that Rodger and his team came in with an open mind, discussed their problems and came up with solutions they were in dire need of.

The only reason the competition failed to keep the business is they never stayed on top of their customers issues. Rodger was allowed to come in, push the envelope, and establish a new benchmark of success that separated him from the competition. If Rodger only worried about matching his competition, he would not have succeeded.

Stop trying to match your competition! It is a game that is hard to win. Move ahead of your competition by finding out what’s missing for the customer and provide the appropriate solution. Be a leader in the eyes of your customer and help them reach their goals.

Jerry Jones, owner, president and GM of the Dallas Cowboys, is one of those people who you either lover or hate. There is no middle ground. The fans of Dallas despised him when he came to town on his high horse and quickly fired Tom Landry, the only coach the franchise has ever known. Yet, they came to love him when he brought in the hugely popular Jimmy Johnson to coach the team to a couple of Super Bowl victories. Then it all started to come apart at the seams. Johnson wanted more control and less interference from Jones, which Jones was not willing to do. For example, he is the general manager for the team participating in all meetings and making personnel decisions. You can even see him roving the sidelines.

After Johnson and Jones parted ways, Jerry Jones hired coaches who tolerated his meddling, but who also didn’t win. In the end, the franchise hit rock bottom and Jones had to bring in a turn-around artist who could swiftly right the ship.

Enter, Bill Parcells, a great turn-around artist with a long track of record of success who loses interest after he gets the job done. Parcells, also is a dominant personality who in the past sought complete control. Everyone asked themselves how long would it be before Parcells and Jones got into each others faces?

Jones knows that the foremost goal in business is winning. He knew that in order to win he had to get someone in who could do the job. While he does not meddle as much with Parcells as he did with other coaches, Jones and Parcells both decided to compromise and work with each other, accepting each other’s tendency to control things.

This year the partnership worked wonders. Parcells turned the Cowboys around and took them to the playoffs. Both admit they can’t guarantee that the relationship would be as successful if they had a losing season.

What we do know is Jones, as the ultimate leader of his organization, took the first step by being flexible in how he operated. He had a choice. Keep doing it the same way and getting the same results, or get someone who can do the job and stay out of the way as much as possible.

Some people may not have flexed as did Jerry Jones. Are you flexible in your approach to business and people? If not, you may not be winning as many championships as you would like.

Organizations and individuals often have to make difficult decisions while walking the tightrope of success, decisions that can easily throw them off that path.

For example, Dell Computer and ExxonMobil have successfully built overseas call centers in India to handle many of their support calls. The reason is quite simple. The significant savings in labor costs and the ability to maintain a seamless operation that does not interfere with customer service adds up to a profitable decision.

But at what point does this equation not hold true? Dell found this out recently when it started receiving complaints from their corporate customers who claim they needed more technical solutions – solutions that required support in their local market. Dell responded to their customers feedback by simply flipping a switch re-routing many of it’s corporate technical calls to local support centers.

All of us struggle on a daily basis with the equation of how much of our limited resources we should dedicate to support and satisfy our customers. Resources that if targeted elsewhere may result in additional sales. The key to answering this question is simple. If you are doing things that at the end of the day are highly productive for you, yet not supportive of your highest producing customers, a call to change is in order. Do you hear the signals your customers are giving you? Or, are you blind to the signs and just focused on the strategies geared towards your bottom line?

As we prepare for 2004 and come up with our personal and organizational operating plans, you may want to take a moment and “shop” your services. Pretend you are a customer and call your company to see how the process works. Are the call menus too long? Are the instructions easy? How long does it take to get a call or question answered? If you are not satisfied with the results, why should your customer feel any differently?

Take this a step further and quiz your customers to see if the level of service you are providing is strong enough to meet their needs in 2004. What areas may be lacking that you need to address? Remember, any weakness you may have in servicing your customer automatically becomes the door opener for your competition.

Finally, the Dell example also teaches us the value of flexibility. How flexible are you to respond to customer needs? In today’s market, salespeople and leaders who are flexible to meet the needs of their customers are going to outperform those who are not as flexible.

When former NY Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy worked for Pat Riley as an assistant coach, he learned a valuable lesson from Pat. Pat told him in a performance review that you need to have 4 things to get respect and results from players; sincerity, reliability, commitment and being trustworthy.

Sincerity- In order for people to take your lead and follow you down the path to success, they must believe you are sincere and that your motives are based on their success. If for any reason they do not feel an adequate sense of sincerity on your part, they will not go along for the ride.

Reliability- You can take my money, my house, all of my worldly possessions, but what you can’t take is my word. Our word is sacred and powerful. If you lose everything in life but you still have integrity in your word, then you will thrive again. People will believe in your cause and commitment and will take the chance on supporting you because of how strong your word is.

Commitment- You can’t expect your customers or employees to work hard on your behalf if you are not working hard to make things happen. Once people see your commitment to make a difference in their lives, they will then become committed to your success.

Trustworthy- Almost the same as reliable, but also includes the concept of honesty. You can say anything you want, but if honesty is not part of the equation, it will be extremely hard to gain one’s trust again. Trust is the glue that determines how strong the bond will be.

It seems like Pat Riley’s 4 keys to effective leadership go way beyond the basketball court. It affects every person who aspires to be an effective leader. How well are you doing in these 4 areas?