By Charles Leyman Kachitsa
Knowing you are observing someone who does not know what they are doing and that the ignorance is deeply entrenched due to miseducation or no education at all, is the most painful thing one has to endure. Perhaps that’s nature, as we can not have all people at the same knowledge level. If we were all the same in intellect life would have been not as exciting as we know it. Knowledge is power as it is said!
Enlightenment is not for all, it is only open to a few who put themselves forward with earnest abandon to follow life laws of nature. Survival as an instinct, is one of the things God implanted in all living things to desire and adopt for a harmonious and fulfilled life. To not want to survive, is therefore against the laws of nature and if one takes that path the end is disastrous. Apart from survival, another of the grandeur laws of nature is growth.
We learn, acquire knowledge mostly for growth and survival. In the modern world today, it has become so pressing for one to speed up their acquisition of knowledge so much that in some instances people have wanted their five year old children to have had a university degree of some sort. This is driven not for want of prestige but for the supposed survival and growth of both the parent and child. Watching children make obvious mistakes is an example of what has been stated above where you feel pain watching and feeling within you a wish they knew more, they had much education earlier. However, they say patience is a good virtue, we need to let nature take its course and mistakes are part of learning.
The quotes this week are extracted from a book written by the founder of one of the fastest growing banks. He gives a better understanding on what it means to have a customer focused business. I am sure the selected quotations below from his book will enlighten you to one or two life lessons that do not necessarily relate to business only but other aspects as well, read and enjoy:
FANS NOT CUSTOMERS – HOW TO CREATE GROWTH COMPANIES IN A NO GROWTH WORLD by Vernon W. Hill II
“Appearance matters, service matters, and convenience matters. —– You can never be too fanatical about service. We have a goal of 100 percent customer service every time, every day, always. While that is physically impossible, it’s what we really must strive for, and anything short of that is unacceptable. Once you start setting ratios of 98 percent satisfaction, it’s slippery slope to 96 percent, which is just not acceptable. You can never be too detail oriented. And it is everybody’s job to care about everything. Shirley, Craig and I always shop our stores. You have to treat the business like you own it. —— Metro Bank is the new and improved version of our American model. Think about it: where else will customers find a bank with extended hours that is open seven days a week? Or where the cashiers don’t go to lunch during the customers’ lunch hour? We encountered the odd London practice of branch training on Wednesdays, where they close for unannounced lengths of time to train employees about their products. Good for them, but customers don’t reliably know when their bank will be open and busy people don’t have time to waste waiting around. It will open whenever the bankers finish their training, which might be 10am, or, if training takes a little bit longer, 10.15, or even later. It’s insane, insensitive customer policy. It’s all about the bankers and what is convenient for them.”
“In most large companies there are various silos reporting to chief officers of compliance, marketing, operations, and audit, and each has a point of view that reflects their fiefdom. But what do their individual concerns do to the brand they all represent? ——- There is a NatWest bank branch next door to the Metro store in Uxbridge, west London. During the first day of our two-day grand opening celebrations, NatWest put out a sign-board in front of their store that said, ‘NatWest customers, we are thinking about extending our hours.’ It didn’t say that they would do it – or when! ——- Another NatWest office did open on a Saturday to compete with us, but they would not allow banking transactions. So why were they open? Beats us! —— One of the other high street banks extended its hours during the 2012 Olympics, but once the Olympics ended, so did the extended hours.”
“Customers can always expect us to keep our promises. And once they know they can expect this, we are in a position to shape expectation to match what we can do for them. —– Responsive and immediate action is more critical to success and creating fans than ever before. More and more businesses sell themselves on their commitment to getting things done quickly.”
“To create a great business, create a persuasive culture that executes a differentiated model. And fanatically execute to exceed expectations. —— You can’t see someone’s values, but we can see how they behave and infer what their values are from that behaviour. —- We ask colleagues (staff) to attend to every detail, and to make every one right, and to ask a second person if they’re not sure about telling a customer ‘NO.’ ——- Our values and our behaviors are the same thing. The value is that we want to attend to every detail. And the behavior is that we attend to every detail. —-“