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The Ultimate Tool: The Hierarchy Of Yes
by Neil Rosen, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 3:23 PM
In order for an organization to be customer-centric, it needs to have a strong corporate discipline behind everything that it does. It’s too easy, otherwise, for priorities to
shift, for immediate problems to take center stage, and for the company’s mission to drift away from its guiding CRM principles. That discipline is something that I call
the Hierarchy of Yes. Let’s face it, the thought is nothing new. Someone, somewhere, coined the phrase, “The customer is always right,” and probably unknowingly
unleashed untold frustration upon hapless salespeople or support personnel who knew they needed to say yes but couldn’t find a way to do it. Making the customer’s experience a positive one
is keeping that customer, and it’s at the core of good customer relationship management. So how do you make sure the customer is always right? How do you get to
yes? The Hierarchy of Yes is a corporate discipline that starts—and ends—with the understanding that only a team leader (CEO, president, divisional
president, or senior VP) has the authority to say no to a customer. All other employees are charged with finding ways, within the corporate mission and guidelines, to say yes to
customer requests. In cases where employees cannot produce a positive outcome, they escalate the request up the line until, if necessary, it lands on the desk of the singular person in their group
empowered to say no. The process of implementing and executing the hierarchy of yes infiltrates every area of corporate culture and discipline, including:
- sales and marketing
- service, support and training
- supply chain and operations
- technology
- finance
So, in a sense, this means that customer relationship management is no longer the purview of a few people in customer support: it’s the mission of
the whole company. And while the company is, as a whole, striving to create the best possible customer experience, it’s also helping itself. Case studies show how an hierarchy of yes structure
can significantly improve corporate culture, in
every area—from sales and marketing to customer service to technology, finance, and operations and training. Limiting
the options employees have, in terms of what the end result must look like (
yes), creates an amazing amount of transparency in the organization, in terms of showing the company exactly what
issues get in the way of saying yes to every customer, every day. Amazingly, the company itself changes, and what we see happen is this:
- Teamwork becomes
a priority.
- Mentoring becomes a priority.
- Success becomes a way of life.
What also happens is that each of the roles in the
“partnership” changes over time, as a result of the Hierarchy of Yes initiatives, and gradually we find that each of these individuals becomes more accountable for success, better manages
expectations, builds a higher sense of value and self-esteem, and becomes a force that energizes the entire corporate culture. The Hierarchy of Yes is one simple statement of
purpose that infiltrates every nook and cranny of corporate culture … until it
becomes the corporate culture. It is simple to initiate and impossible not to embrace, quickly
identifying the company’s winners and leaders. Companies using the Hierarchy of Yes identify leaders who can build success, empower employees to exceed customer goals
and expectations, significantly improve internal and external customer satisfaction, and build a culture driving toward success. So, it is very much the ultimate CRM tool. Think
about what might happen to your customer relationship management—and your corporate culture—if you implemented it in
your company! You might just be surprised at the results.