It Starts With Clients

Week 8 Reframe for Maximum Impact

A technology company asked me to help transform their customer service managers (CSMs) into proactive, trusted advisors to their corporate clients. As a small first step, we started with a one-day workshop for their CSMs on the skills of the trusted advisor. By the end of the day, however, I knew the effort was misguided. I needed to reframe both the problem and the solution.

It turned out their software had some significant glitches. Their sales team would go in and sell the promise of dramatic business improvements, but once the system was installed, the complaints started. Many customers, who had signed multi-year contracts, became resentful and angry. I also learned that the CSMs had vastly different levels of skills and experience, and required very different types of training. Furthermore, their customers had quite different needs. Their smallest accounts, in fact, didn't need a highly skilled “trusted advisor” at all—just someone they could call once in a while with questions.

Truth be told, I had probed most of these issues during my initial meeting with the client's CEO, but he had brushed them aside. She stuck to her vision of an army of trusted advisors serving every customer.

In my subsequent conversation with the CEO, I told her that we needed to restate the goal of the initiative. The focus should not be for every CSM to be a ...