What are your leading indicators?

You're familiar with CSI and the surveys that go out to customers after purchase and service events. This is the main employee performance mechanism that many dealerships use. It can be used to view trends, but it is a lagging indicator. Successful management can't rely soley on lagging indicators; rather these should be supplements to leading indicating factors.

Let me illustrate the difference in leading and lagging indicators. Think of the cooling system in your home. Each day you set the thermostat, you may adjust it during the day and evening to maintain your comfort and then at the end of the month you receive a bill from the utility company. That bill is a lagging indicator; it shows you what you used and charges you for it. You can't change what you owe. Now if you feel that the bill is too high, you may be inclined to scold the children and holler at your wife for the next several days to leave the thermostat at 74 and not to change it. That may or may not work. If you installed a thermostat with an alarm that sounded when you began to use more kilowatts, you and your family may be encouraged as you use the power to go for a swim or eat a popsicle instead of turning down the thermostat. This type of advanced thermostat would be a leading indicator because you could make a decision as you go to use or not use more power.

So, back to our issue of employee performance. Since CSI is a lagging indicator it can only be ONE of your management tools. You've got to install a talking thermostat and that means something that you can see on a DAILY basis that supports what your monthly indicator (CSI) tells you is excellent performance. Your job then is to decide of all of the process steps listed on the survey, which items weigh most significantly on the overall customer experience. Then, how can you see on a daily basis if that is occurring to your expectations.

Please view the attachment for examples of what you can do. Meanwhile, manage performance of your department daily and those lagging indicators won't be surprises that you can't un-do.

Another Great One

Here is another fave from the eloquent Randy Pausch. He was actually quoting his football coach. I can't help but draw the correlation to our research reports...

"If you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you that means they gave up on you.
Critics tell you they still care!"

Great Quote

I just love this quote... isn't it great?

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists.
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him.
Fail to honor people; they will fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
they will say, 'We did it ourselves'."

Lao Tzu, The Way of Life

Don't Be Dead Right

We went over on our cell phone minutes. Aarrgghh! The bill looked like two line items attributed to extra minutes for the month. I couldn't make sense of it. So I got in the car and drove over to the cell phone store and waited and waited and waited and finally got someone to look at me and I asked for help understanding my bill (which I had in my hand). I was treated to a smug retort about how I hadn't honored my contract and had gone over and how it was a really good rate and I should be happy it wasn't more. We went round and round and I was unable to understand how the two lines of charges were fair.

I went home furious, absolutely boiling mad and decided to call the help line. After all, I still didn't understand the charges. I was greeted by a delightfully open and considerate operator who showed me how the calculations were made and where the "key" was on the bill to help me see the charge levels. Ah-hah! I get it. Now it makes sense. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here's the deal. The bill was accurate. The company was right. But the taste in my mouth is sour. Will I ever step foot into that store-front again? No, no, no. If I have a question I will call in – that's where I got what I needed. Will I recommend this phone carrier to anyone? No, no, no. I'll stay till my contract is out and then I'm out. But enough about me.

What's the point? What is the lesson from this customer service interaction? The fatal flaw of the store clerk is that he was so busy being right that he ended up being dead right. Don't be dead right. Don't be so invested in proving you are right. That means you are invested in excuses and your customers will never be loyal to you. You're making an expensive mistake when you need to prove them wrong or make them feel stupid to prove you are right.