De’ Nile (denial) is not just a river in Egypt as the expression goes. For example, our local county tourism officials recently learned that the general customer experience is less than satisfactory from the Chamber of Commerce to local stores. My sense is that this finding probably surprised them. Within many communities, there is an existing, fundamental belief that everything is fine here, but the problems are outside of our marketplace.
Where does belief of denial begin? Usually, the answer can be traced to the leadership of the small business or organization. When leaders do not have an open mind to see the marketplace landscape and their organizations as they really are, instead of what they want them to be, spells trouble because it cascades down throughout the organization. Now everyone or most everyone is wearing the denial lens. Occasionally, there will be someone as in the childhood story of "The Emperor's New Clothes" who will point out that the Emperor is truly naked.
Each day, hundreds of external customers (paying clients) and internal customers (employees) experience the "denial" lens from its not my job to I did not do that. For example, I was having lunch with two other women business executives at a local restaurant that had always provided exceptional customer service. Before we ordered, we asked for separate checks and received a partial denial. "Well, I can do that for you, but it will take more time." We all looked at each other quizzically given that the establishment was not busy.
How many times have you heard during the customer experience someone deny responsibility and put the blame on something or someone else? I am reminded of the line in "Gone with the Wind:" "Frankly my dear, I don’t give a ..." In other words, your customers could care less about why something was not done because the "why" is not their problem.
One of my small business colleagues, Jill Kotul of MCE, who does not believe in the denial approach to customer service stated that "Companies need to 'fess up and then fix it." Many of us in small business or as consumers have experienced companies from the top down make excuse after excuse and then attempt to blame the customers for having the audacity to want their customer experiences to be exceptional.
Small Business Coaching Training Tip: Assess your customer service by removing the "Denial Lens." Be truthful about the customer experience both internally and externally. Remember, more often than not, bad customer experiences are symptoms of far greater problems such as poor leadership to ineffective communication.
The Denial Lens Is Not Good For Small Business - To learn more about this author, visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Articles |
|
 The Denial Lens Is Not Good For Small Business
|
| |
Are you engaged in growing your small business? Did you ever think that you may unintentionally be wearing the Denial Lens? If so, how is that affecting your business results?
|
|
Promote Your Site Using Squidoo: 5 Strategies For Success
|
| |
Squidoo is a web 2.0 website that allows users to build web pages, or lenses that give users interesting information--think friendster meets wikipedia. It has become a handy work at home tool. But besides being able...
|
|
Get These Squidoo Success Secrets For Your Work At Home Business
|
| |
Many people are creating an absurd number of squidoo lenses to drive free traffic to their work at home business. You too can have similar success if you learn the right techniques to do this.
|
|
Think Link
|
| |
How to Stop Order Taking & Satisfy Customers by Selling What They Need Brought to you by Action International Business Coach Warren Coughlin
|
|
How To Quickly Get Your Website Indexed By Google
|
| |
To be successful on the web you must have visitors to your site. They must be able to find you or your efforts will have been in vain. How do they do this? The best way is to have your site indexed by the major sear...
|
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
Accessible Business Consultants
Dave Turkin, President, of Accessible Business Consultants is a full service business consultant that has over 32 years of experience working with small-medium size businesses. Dave has designed and implemented numerous business and marketing plans, designed internal programs for accounting and operational procedures. He has analyzed businesses and prepared strategic plans setting budgets for growth, expansion and business restructuring.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of various corporations as an advisor. For many years he has been the Business Coach to many executives offering advice and guidance from old and established companies as well as new companies just getting started.
Dave has the ability to analyze a business quickly and get a strong indication as to the necessary steps to improve operations, productivity and profitability. - Visit Accessible Business Consultants's Website |
|
Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Are your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales success or one of the many who have failed to change? So what are you doing to change those results? Let’s be honest, with companies moving globally and at lightening speeds, the traditional business solutions are outdated and dead. My approach moves your business out of its comfort zone and secures your competitive advantage now. If you are seeking to increase sales, build customer loyalty, create a culture of great attitudes or just achieve some sleep filled nights, then we should talk because my clients have experienced exactly those types of results. Learn more about customer loyalty at http://www.processspecialist.com/customer-loyalty.htm Give me a call at 219.759.5601 for a free strategy session. P.S. If you are seeking a motivational speaker, sales trainer or small business expert that will leave your audience smiling and remembering, please feel free to contact me at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
|
Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an Executive Leadership Coach and Team Building Consultant and creator of the TIGERS team development model. For the past twenty years she has helped leaders and teams achieve goals with high levels of collaboration and teamwork.
Crampton is a published author. Her contribution to Working Together: Diversity As Opportunity was endorsed by Stephen Covey. She has written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
The TIGERS model passed two rigorous validation studies in 1992 and 1994. The TIGERS Survey is able to measure and track team development over time.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps groups identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings.
For more information, or to subscribe to TigerTracks, a free monthly leadership and team newsletter go to http://www.corevalues.com - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|
David Barr
David Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business.
David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|
Jeff Foster
WebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|
Vwodek Wojczynski
Business Coach and Consultant Vwodek Wojczynski (pronounced Voy-chin-ski) brings fun, awareness, accountability and fresh perspectives based on his diverse experiences in life and business.
Born in Poland and educated in Greece and Canada, he is trilingual with 8 years experience in business development with clients in Canada, USA, Switzerland and Poland.
His approach is systematic and process-driven. He fuses the know-how of proven business methods with his commitment that entrepreneurs experience satisfaction and joy based on their values, motivations and strengths. He believes that businesses succeed based on their ability to generate value by providing what’s needed and wanted.
Ultimately, he trains executives and true business owners - people who work less, produce more, own businesses that run automatically after a while and make a difference globally.
His current research focus is the development of intelligent business systems and the application of emerging artificial intelligence technologies in business.
He is also an avid traveler, spoken word performer and visual artist. He resides in Toronto, Canada. - Visit Vwodek Wojczynski's Website |
|
Anne Barr
Anne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations,
networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business
ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|
Kim Castle
With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation.
BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them?
If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
