Recently my brother-in-law was discussing his transaction with a company. His frequent refrain was “why is everything in companies so impersonal? Dealing with a company is just like teenagers sitting in a car texting each other”. “It’s not personal it’s just business!” “I can never get a human being to talk too when I call them!”
Businesses are in the business of improving the bottom line and increasing shareholder value! Many companies use terms like work life balance, employee centric, customer focused, REALLY? Your organization has a broader impact than just on employees. If you asked your customers, vendors along with employees would they describe their experiences or impression with you as personal or impersonal? At the end of the day most interactions taken by an organization involves people and people are all about feelings and emotions on both ends of the transaction. What’s better for your organization, personal or impersonal impression?
If the general consensus is that a personal impression is the way to go why then are people saying in different ways everything in society and business in general is becoming so impersonal? Is our society just naturally moving towards being a group of impersonal, insensitive people? What are you paying attention to in your organization, your bottom line or don’t you care?
Defining personal interactions in the business world is easier when defined as the opposite of impersonal. Here’s my take. In a business environment employees, vendors and customers would say an interaction is impersonal when “I feel like I am unimportant, or ordinary, I just get the usual or even worse. Whereas, personal is, I’m important in my own way, feel distinctive in this business relationship or transaction and leave it with a positive feeling.
Look at technology, marvelous. Allows us to telecommute, improves productivity, connects a broader group of people quickly, etc. etc. Telecommuting has brought about the hybrid office. What impact does telecommuting have on reinforcing an impersonal vs personal work environment? This report by the BBC brings some interesting insights into the hybrid work environment. [BBC] There are pro and cons to technology utilization and the personal touch, here is an interesting look at both sides [S&B] as many employers push for a return to the office in some form.
Can you find anyone that has good things to say about automated answering systems or their experience with call centers? I want to hang up when I hear “your call is important to us, your wait time is ___”. A number of years ago I had coffee with the CEO of a Silicon Valley company. During our visit he asked me if I could guess who the highest paid non-professional person in his company was. I had no idea. Found out it was the individual at the receptionists desk as I came in. Along with a very high salary and an extra week of paid vacation she is recognized as being the employee with the most touches every day with the public.
How personal/impersonal are you to incoming calls? A recent survey found that customer care leaders report higher call volumes, expect volumes to increase further and employee attrition to increase. Their answer, newer technology. When was the last time you or your direct reports paid any attention to this? Ever called your general or customer service number? Amazon requires executives to spend a few days every year on the phones in their call centers.
I recently had to utilize the customer call center for Wayfair twice in the same day. A human picked up I think it was after a couple of rings. The female voice that greeted me in a language i could understand immediately gave me a mental image of someone with a great smile on their face. During a fairly long conversation to answer all of my concerns and questions she never wavered and I felt the smile never left her face. At the completion of the call I expressed to her that customer call centers are a pet peeve of mine and that it has been years since I have someone as helpful and nice as her assist me. She told me that I made her day.
Small to mid-sized companies ‘sell’ themselves as having a ‘friendly’ or ‘personal’ or family cultures. What happens when it isn’t. Is there or can there be an effective or productive work environment that is a blend of personal and impersonal? In my experience it is about being honest about what it is. At one time I was recruited into a fast growth, highly visible tech company that stated, ‘culturally we model ourselves after Apple Computer’. As a casual guy and prior to this company worked with a number of Silicon Valley companies I continued to dress casually at work. Within the first week I was repeatedly asked why I wasn’t wearing a suit and tie because it wasn’t Friday. Things went downhill from there. It is better to be honest than stupid.
Organizations can and do have personal relationships with vendors where most have a transactional relationship. I wonder how many organizations that experienced supply chain issues since 2020 have a personal relationship with their vendors? This interesting study is on The Role of Personal and Impersonal Business Relationships on Market Efficiency [IZA]. A little academic but still interesting.
When have you ever done an audit to see how your customers, vendors, and employees would answer the question: do you think this organization is primarily a personal or impersonal organization to deal with? An audit should always be tied to business outcomes like employee turnover, customer complaints, delivery times, cost, revenue drivers, etc. If it comes to changing things in your organization make sure you do it the correct way or you will make things worse. This blog takes a look at company culture and change. [SMB]