Danny's Blog 

Disclaimer: The views expressed on this blog are my personal opinions and are not necessarily the views of Noetica, it's staff or employees.

If you wish to comment on any of the subjects raised on this blog, please drop me a line directly at:  Danny.Singer@noetica.com .

Alternatively, I have also started a discussion thread at the new Noetica Online Community, where you can post your comments so they become instantly visible to the entire Noetica community.

I will respond to all messages and posts, and will endeavour to publish all interesting contibutions on this page.

 Index:

Power to the people (29.April.2009)

Welcome to the machine (11.February.2009)

Lovely Rita   (30.January.2009)

January Blues   (14.January.2009)

What's in a name?   (17.December.2008)

A noetic vision of Christmas   (09.December.2008)

C?M   (01.December.2008)

Tender is the night   (25.November.2008)

Six months later...   (04.June.2008)

Welcome to the blogosphere   (09.January.2008

London, 11.February.2009

Welcome to the machine

About a year ago, I found myself in an Italian restaurant in London having a chat over dinner with the CEO of one of the main global technology suppliers to the call centre industry. Let’s call him Bob (not his real name). I know, it sounds like fraternising with the competition, but the call centre industry is still a pretty friendly place and competitors (in the technology space, at least) still maintain a selective yet mostly genuine regard and respect for each other. There is still some honour left on this battlefield. Long may it last.

Anyway, as I was saying, we were having a pretty nerdy chat about the future of CRM, CIM, CEM and all the rest of it, when Bob told me a story that made me think again about what our industry is all about. It’s a pretty simple story, and I can’t guarantee that all the details are entirely accurate (that fine bottle of Barolo was clearly having an effect), but here is the gist of it.

In preparation for his trip to Europe (did I mention Bob was American?), he went on to his chosen airline’s website (let’s call it Hot Air) chose a complex itinerary (London was not his only destination on that trip), and was about to go through the usual booking process (seats, connections, etc.) and as he also wanted to redeem some of his Hot Air Miles the transaction was getting a bit complex, but being a proud technology guy, he persevered.

As a frequent traveller, Bob had a loyalty card membership (he was actually a Gold customer) with the airline and in order to redeem his air miles he had to log into his account. So there he was, clicking away, when…

All of a sudden, a message popped onto his screen. It said something along these lines: “Hi Bob, this is the Hot Air support desk, my name is Beth, I can see that you are trying to complete a pretty complicated transaction, would you like me to help you? I may be able to get you an additional discount. Also, I can see that a slight change to your itinerary may give you a saving of a few hundred bucks on this trip.”

The pop up on his screen offered him several ways of talking to Beth. There was an Instant Messaging box for him to respond to her by simply typing his answer in. There was the option of talking to her through his computer using VoIP (that had the dubious (?) advantage that he would be able to actually see Beth as well) if he had a headset (or speakers and a microphone) connected to his workstation. Alternatively, he could ask Beth to simply call him on the number of his choice there and then.

So, more out of curiosity I believe, he took her up on her offer. Beth indeed managed to save him quite a bit of money on the trip and actually find him better connections than he managed to find himself. As they seemed to have “hit it off” quite nicely and Bob found Beth very pleasant, professional and helpful, she managed to set things up for him so that next time he is on the website, she would personally know about it and if he called, she would be his preferred point of contact, if she was around.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I was impressed. Not as impressed as Bob though. He was ecstatic about it and not only would he never consider using another airline ever again, but he was essentially trying to convince everyone he met (and would bother listening to him) to do so. He was an evangelist and a missionary converting everyone to the new Hot Air creed.  He had seen the promised land. I know we are a little more reserved on this side of the pond, but this story stayed with me and made me think…

Let’s try to analyse this and see where it takes us…

Why was Bob so surprised about being approached by Beth in the first place? That’s pretty easy to answer. Websites are not supposed to talk back to us. Part of the attraction of the internet is the anonymity and privacy that it offers. You could compare the experience to being alone in a vast library. You can browse through all the books you may wish to and nobody bothers you. It’s just pictures and words on a page. Or rather billions of pages.

There is a lot to be said for this and there is something rather seductive about the experience of being able to wander around this virtual universe, completely unnoticed. A bit like walking through an Oriental market without being accosted by carpet merchants.

Well, thinking about it, this is not entirely true. There are many sites that will try and take on the persona of the trinket salesman by automatically and rather randomly attacking you with various pop-ups and ever more ingenious devices (things floating across your screen, banners changing colours and shapes, bogus competitions which you have instantly won, etc.) trying to attract your attention to the latest laptop, potion or mobile phone.

These things are really annoying and I can think of very few people (not even Bob) who would be drawn by them to go and buy any of this stuff. It is simply just another form of advertising, and nothing more. It is not directed at you personally, but anyone who happens to wander through this or that web page. It is getting cleverer by the day, but the point is that there is no human being behind the website, just a robotic street vendor accosting innocent passers by.

On the other hand it is absolute madness that companies are spending serious sums of money on trying to recruit new customers or retain their existing ones by using ever more aggressive methods of approaching the public almost at random, while completely ignoring the thousands that wander through their website at all times of day or night.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting for a minute that organisations start pestering all visitors to their websites. On the other hand, if for instance somebody bothered to register and log in to your site (and therefore you know who they are), and you know what they have been doing on your site and for how long, there is no harm in my view in drawing them in by using a live agent. You may even get a few Bobs.

Even if you don’t know who they are yet, it makes sense to begin some sort of live dialogue with them. Some may object, but as long as you are never too pushy or intrusive, very few would raise an eyebrow. After all, it is a hell of a lot less intrusive than calling them at home in the middle of supper or bombarding them with junk mail and spam.

And let’s not forget one basic thing. If you would be remotely interested in anything offered to you by a piece of direct mail or unsolicited email, what would be the first thing that you might do? Come on, be honest… you will simply go on their website and check it out before you do anything else.

Now, the main reasons you do this rather than calling is because you don’t want the hard sell or to wait in a queue for 20 minutes for something you’re not sure you  really want or need. You want to be able to read about it, look at it and make up your mind in your own time before you talk to these people. You are also more likely to find the correct information on a website that has been created and is being kept up to date by experts, rather than the call centre agent (remember Rita?) who had three hours training and is not likely to have any idea of what you may be talking about.

And for some people that is fine. If someone accosts you while on their website, simply do what I do on the rare occasions when I set foot in clothes shops and am invariably accosted by the spotty teenager with the ubiquitous silver stud through their tongue: “May I help you, thir?”. “No, just looking, thank you.”. You know the drill…

There is a lot that can be deduced by analysing the trace that visitors leave on the website. Let’s think about it. If they came to you from a search engine, you can probably pick up the search terms they used to find you. If they used the “search” feature on your site, you would get an even better idea of what they were after. You will know what is in their shopping cart, even though they haven’t yet approached the “check out”. You will also have a pretty good idea of what products they looked at and for how long. You will roughly know their location, so will probably be able to infer the language or local dialect you should be addressing them in.

Similar information can be deduced from IVR. How about spotting who of your customers or prospects is trapped in your IVR maze and may need rescuing. Oh, and how about using the information captured in IVR and not asking the same questions again? What’s the point in tapping in your 20 digit account number if the first person you will speak to will ask you to quote it again? That really annoys me.

And why is IVR limited to the preamble of a call? Why do I get the distinct impression that in many cases IVR is simply used as a delaying device, in order to make the queue seem shorter? The general impression that companies try to convey is that IVR is basically used for call routing so that the few simple choice that you are asked to make would be used to connect you to a specialist in the area that you need help with.

Hmmm? It seems to me that whatever you choose you end up talking to somebody that is not particularly specialised or they need to transfer you anyway. Whatever options you enter you normally end up talking to the same person. So why bother with IVR? This is what annoys people about IVR, not the technology itself.

Again, people are not afraid of technology. They are afraid of badly implemented technology.

Now, let’s assume that the visitor to your website ends up talking to one of your agents. Is it an inbound call or an outbound call? Well, it’s neither, really. If it’s a VoIP call the visitor may have pushed a button that simply connected the call, but it certainly wasn’t a classic inbound call or outbound call. It blurs the boundaries that have been so entrenched in call centre culture for so long.

In the end, this is really what this is all about. The essence of the brave new world that is just around the corner is precisely the introduction of a level of refinement and intelligence to customer interaction that will remove the distinctions that are so ingrained today. Call centres are still divided places: inbound agents, outbound agents, chat & email agents, etc. are all segregated and regarded as incompatible skill sets.

The purpose of new technology in customer contact is simple. Our values as a society are rooted in the basic principles of human dignity and the intrinsic importance of each human life. This applies both to call centre agents as well as to customers. It is therefore the role of technology to ensure that each and every person working in a call centre is given the dignity of fulfilling, useful and meaningful employment.

In order to achieve this, it is necessary that these agents become experts in the subjects that they are supposed to discuss with the public and are treated as such, by being provided with tools and training that allow them to fulfil their task intelligently and offer a service which the company they work for can be proud of.

On the other hand, the way to ensure that the dignity and humanity of the customer is also recognised is for organisations to keep in mind that every 20 minute period of somebody’s life is important and if Albert Einstein would have had to wait 20 minutes to speak to an agent when trying to figure out why his electricity bill was so high he may have never discovered relativity, Mozart may never have written a note and Monet wouldn’t have ever touched a canvas.

How is this to be achieved? The answer is simpler than you may think. The idea is that people should only speak to a human being when they really need an expert. Everything else can be and should be automated. Not to do so is inefficient and to some degree undignified. The age of low skilled or unskilled labour is well and truly over.

Shipping all these unskilled jobs abroad to what is pretentiously known as the “emerging markets” was the last gasp of this shameful practice of using low paid people for menial, repetitive jobs. If we object to the sweatshops that pump out our cheap T-shirts, footballs, trainers and so on why shouldn’t we object to the practice of asking people on a low wage to do no more than provide the equivalent of the talking clock? Never mind about the forced lies and indignity of Anglicising their perfectly good foreign names, trying to conceal their accents, their location or the fact that the sun is always shining outside their windows (if indeed the hangar they work in has the  luxury of windows)

This trend is now coming to an end as it became abundantly clear that not only is it a morally dubious practice, but can also backfire in various ways. Some organisations are making PR capital out of the boast of “UK only call centres”. This should tell you something…

To end on a positive note, we are entering a new era in customer contact. The world is changing and this industry will change with it. Technology has a big part to play in this transformation and we, as the craftsmen that create these new tools should be leading from the front.

Danny

London, 30.January.2009

Lovely Rita

“Hello, you are through to ABC Services Ltd, my name is Rita, how may I help you?”. This is how it usually begins. Reetah is either a mild mannered Bangalore resident with a doctorate in Law, English and Aristotelian Philosophy, or a plucky Geordie with an O-level in Sex Education and several trophies from various wet T-shirt and drinking competitions won last summer in some part of the Balearics much blessed with fried breakfasts.

Only joking. The reality is much worse. The Indian Ph.D. is probably not genuine and Geordie Rita is most likely to have never made it to her O-level exam as her hands-on practice session overran.

There is a serious side to this though. Working in a call centre is not taken seriously by almost anyone as a profession or indeed a career choice. Ask any child what they would like to be when they grow up and you will get some pretty wild choices (train driver, astronaut, rock star, WAG, secret agent, etc.) but never call centre agent.

Working in a call centre verges these days on insult and can be seen by some as a term of abuse. It is almost synonymous with failure and the butt of countless comedy routines (“After working for 5 years in a call centre I got so depressed I called the Samaritans and got through to a call centre in Pakistan. When I told them I was suicidal they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.”). Working in a call centre is seen as something to be ashamed of and certainly a conversation killer at parties.

“And what do you do?”

“I work in a call centre”

“Really? How fascinating. Only the other day I had this awful experience with someone in a call centre. I called to complain that… (half an hour later)… and you know what he said…?

“Oh, please excuse me, I just spotted some wet paint over there, I’ll just go and watch it dry for a while.”

“Wait, let me introduce you to Herbert here. He is a career advisor. Maybe he can help you.”

It is an industry that doesn’t dare speak its name. Even individuals occupying more senior positions in the call centre industry tend to hide behind anodyne job titles such as Customer Experience Manager, Customer Services Director and so on. The middle management suffer from the same identity crisis. Call centres are full of Team Captains, Program Managers, Supreme Telephony Rear Admirals and any odd job titles that would not divulge the fact that they work in a call centre.

Some people have made the parallel between today’s call centres and the mills or mines of the industrial revolution. Although I can see the logic in that, as it is one of the few mass industries today where one can be employed without any qualifications and get quickly trained on the job, there are major differences and most of them for the worse.

There was no shame associated with working in a mine or a mill. One can imagine a sense of pride and camaraderie associated with it. These were professions spanning several generations where sons would follow their fathers down  the pit or daughters would walk in their mothers’ footsteps over at the mill.

I know I am romanticising this quite a bit but I’m trying to make the point that there was a certain pride associated with such working class traditions. A whole new fabric of society was created around them. Brass bands, choirs, trade unions, working mens’ clubs, and much else besides were a direct consequence of the sense of pride and community that came with these jobs.

Not so in call centres today. If call centres are the new home of the working class, then the working class has clearly lost it’s sense of purpose. But I don’t believe for a moment that this has anything to do with class but everything to do with image.

Estate agents for instance have been suffering from this problem for a very long time. In my experience, with very few exceptions, most estate agents are pretty decent, honest and hard working people. I know this is not a popular view, but these days (particularly after the massive cull of the last few months) it is nevertheless true. Sometime during the 80s boom, and the previous property bubble, some estate agents resorted to rather unpopular yet completely legal practices (such as gazumping, falsely driving prices up, etc.). The profession has never managed to recover its image.

I have a feeling that something similar may be about to happen to bankers. The credit crunch has exposed some of them as greedy, irresponsible amateurs, gambling away vast amounts of other people’s money. It may take many years before we trust anyone in a pinstriped suit again.

Back in call centre world, is there anything that can be done to rehabilitate the image of the call centre professional? Of course there is. Call centres need to brighten up a bit and inject a modicum of glamour and true excellence in an industry currently dominated by cost cutting, grim penny pinching and efficiency gains.

Mostly though, they need to introduce technology that will eliminate the need for the most low skilled agents altogether and even more technology that will allow agents to perform the tasks that require higher skills more effectively and with a clear focus on the customer rather than desperately trying to remember their training. The general idea is that the agent’s image (and self esteem) will only improve if they are genuinely viewed as experts at what they do and not just talking machines.

What do people want, when they call (or are being called by) a company? In my view, they want to talk to somebody that is prepared to have a normal conversation and help them with a problem in a competent and sympathetic manner, without trying to sell them things they don’t want or reciting words they don’t mean and sometimes even understand. If the task is trivial, they probably don’t want to talk to anyone at all, but simply get the information they want or perform the simple transaction they need quickly and without being held in a queue for an eternity.

They probably want to converse with somebody who does not rush them, talk at them and sound like they hate every minute of being in the human hellhole they are in. The gains that companies can achieve by presenting an image that is relaxed yet effortlessly efficient, delivered by people that can connect on a human level, be amusing without being vulgar or patronising are considerable. Such a company would clearly benefit from returning customers and instant growth. Good news can spread just as fast as bad news, providing it is remarkable enough.

Here’s an example. In the first years of its existence, FirstDirect developed a reputation of a call centre culture very much along the lines I just described. There were many other reasons why FirstDirect succeeded (the branchless concept, the 24 hour service, a great deal of advertising hype, large media budgets, etc.), but the perception that the call centre was important to the organisation and positioned at its very heart, properly staffed by people that had the time to talk to you had been created and persists to this day.

I have recently attended a call centre event where one of the more interesting workshops (run by Ken Wheeler, EMEA Sales Director at Sitel) was about the link between brands and customer service. It is surprising how brand image and the public’s expectations of the call centre are interlinked. One can reinforce the other or weaken the other.

FirstDirect came up as one of the success stories as far as this idea is concerned. Even though the market is these days awash with telephone banking services, FirstDirect retains a soft spot in the public’s emotions and stories of almost unexplainable customer loyalty to the brand as a result of a very positive call centre experience in the distant past abounded. A good experience can be just as powerful and memorable as a bad one, if it exceeds the norm.

Of course, good experiences create higher expectations and therefore a higher propensity to fail in the future. The bar is being constantly raised. What is surprising is that as long as standards don’t drop too much, customers that have been treated well in the past can be remarkably tolerant. They become supportive and can even begin to imagine that the service is not as bad as it really is and start making excuses on behalf of the company (“Oh, it must be a blip, they have always been so good.”). Wishful thinking, perhaps?

What does all this really tell us? A few things, actually.

First, that the negative and much ridiculed image of the call centre industry stems mainly from employing low skilled people to do repetitive, trivial and soul destroying tasks. Recent history tells us that these kind of jobs are much better and more consistently performed by machines. How many people go into their bank to withdraw cash over the counter? Not very many. Even the near illiterate can use an ATM these days.

Technology  and its unstoppable progress is forcing everyone to rethink their roles in society. The unskilled labourer has a diminishing and rapidly fading role to play in our world. Although manufacturing will continue to play a major role in world economy, factories require less and less manual labour as technology moves on. What happened to agriculture (mechanisation) and manufacturing (automation) is now happening to services (self service automation).

Yes, I know, there is this general feeling that nobody wants to “talk to a machine” and the usage of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems has been generally vilified. Everybody knows the stories of getting lost in an endless loop of options and selections (“If you want to be asked to press 1, please press 1, etc…”). Bad use of technology does not negate the technology’s potential.

People are not afraid of technology. People are afraid of bad technology.

A fundamental philosophical shift has taken place in Western attitudes over the last few decades and has accelerated considerably in the last few years. We are becoming far less tolerant of exploitation and the human cost of it regardless of the distance between the consumer and the exploited.

We want to drink ethically sourced coffee and buy clothes from socially responsible companies. We don’t wish to consume goods produced by underpaid, overworked desperate people (even if by doing so we may be depriving them of their only means of survival). We want clear consciences and a good night’s sleep.

With very few exceptions (Russian oligarchs, some Premiership footballers, etc.), the employment of an army of low paid, low skilled servants to cater for menial tasks is universally frowned upon. Nobody in their right mind would entertain the idea of a household full of butlers, maids, chauffeurs and cooks even it they could easily afford it. In a way, it is an admirable trend. We have a much higher regard for human potential and the value of each single human life. It is in many ways what defines us in the West as a deeply humanistic culture.

As Barack Obama said in his inaugural speech: ”The time has come to reaffirm […] that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness  “. And as a figure with which an entire population descended from slaves clearly identifies, he should know.

So, the big question is, why do we still expect an army of low paid, unskilled servants to be there for us at the touch of a few buttons at the other end of a phone line ? The truth is that we don’t. Not really.

Let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather press a few buttons than wait for half an hour on the line just in order to speak to someone that has had three days of training and will simply press the same buttons on your behalf. Normally, they don’t know much more than you do about the company they work in. The only advantage they present is the fact that they can be verbally abused and clearly that is far more satisfying than shouting obscenities into an IVR system.

The problem with that is that these types of agents (of the low skilled variety) have about as much of a connection to the company that you wish to vent your frustration at as you do. It is highly likely that you will be talking to an outsourcer and not the company itself. And even if it is an employee of the company, chances are they haven’t been there for more than three months and not likely to be there next time you call. Attrition rates in call centres continue to be atrocious. Staff replacement rates of 30-50% are still not that unusual in the industry.

So, save your breath. You are shouting at the hand. These low skilled front line agents are in a way the sacrificial lambs that organisations are prepared to expose to your wrath thus diverting all this unpleasantness from core staff. Even better, outsource it. In a way, this is a General Hague approach to customer interaction. Send the cannon fodder over the top hoping that the enemy will eventually run out of ammunition.

In my next blog entry I will try to provide a glimpse into my personal vision of the future of customer interaction and what technology may be able to do in order to reduce this reliance on a much maligned, unskilled army of unhappy and transient call centre agents.

In the meantime, spare a thought for the millions of Ritas and Reetahs out there.

Danny

London, 14.January.2009

January Blues

Is “slump” an economic technical term? If so, when does a recession officially become a slump? And is a slump better than a depression? If that is indeed the case, then at what point does a slump formally morph into a depression? Finally, when diagnosed with economic depression is there some kind of fiscal or monetary Prozac that we may be able to mix with the fluoride in the national  water supply to cheer us up collectively?

These are the kind of thoughts that mark the beginning of 2009. The press is full of it. The gloom is stretching into the horizon as far as the economists can see and to top it all, a blast of Arctic weather that has been with us for several weeks has driven temperatures well under freezing point and is slowly bringing the transport system to a standstill as we are yet again surprised by the fact that it is generally cold in winter.

Gordon “Prudence” Brown and his accomplice, Alistair “Eyebrows” Darling, are seriously considering printing money to pay their way out of economic trouble. How is this different from forgery exactly? And why does the law allow them to print money but not anyone else? Why isn’t the Queen allowed to print it? After all, it is her picture on the banknotes and she is formally in charge of the Royal Mint?

My worry is that as money printers go, we are in pretty dodgy company. Apart from the Weimar Republic and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe I can think of very few other example where the government resorted to money printing as a means of keeping the country going. The result is usually hyper-inflation and as the pound is already heading South at an alarming rate, I wonder how long it will be before you will be able to buy £10 or even £100 with 1 Euro.

Not all is lost. There will be winners as well. The tourism industry is likely to benefit as hordes of European visitors will be attracted to our shores to enjoy the tremendous bargains that are already beginning to be on offer. In the process, they will discover that Britain has changed and that not only do we produce some tremendous English wines but that our farm output is largely organic and of great quality and our restaurants are among the best in the world.

The goods that they will buy in our shops are likely to be made in Britain as we will be unable to afford to pay for imports and our products and services will become extremely competitive abroad. Exporters will thrive. This will also be good for the environment as we will stop flying things half way around the world more cheaply than it would cost to make them here in the first place.

In the call centre industry, I would hazard some predictions as well. First of all, off-shore outsourcing will become a less attractive proposition. The increase in the standards of living in the Far East, combined with the drastic fall in the value of Sterling will make it uneconomic to outsource abroad. This is likely to benefit UK outsourcers who are likely to see a significant revival over the next few years.

The trend of bringing outsourced call centre work back into the UK is already well established for reasons of quality, control and customer demand. This trend will only be accelerated by the economic situation and the rising cost of off-shoring. If the government had any sense, and they were genuinely interested in curbing unemployment they should be thinking about investing some money into grants and assistance for UK call centre outsourcers who could locate their growing operations in high unemployment areas as they’ve done so successfully in the past.

My second prediction is also pretty positive. Indigenous suppliers to the call centre industry (like us) will become much more competitive against imports of software and equipment from abroad (mainly the US and EU). The larger corporate vendors will struggle to cut prices and will focus their efforts elsewhere leaving more room for local companies to grow. We will also be able to expand much more successfully into other territories while software exports become more and more profitable as the pound plummets.

So, what is there to be afraid of? Well, a couple of things spring immediately to mind. First of all, quite a lot of companies will go to the wall or merge over the next year or two. Others will shrink considerably. Their in house call centre operations will either be reduced in size or closed down (or outsourced). We will lose existing business as will most systems suppliers. It is inevitable. All we can do is hope for a bit of luck (like not too many customers in the retail sector) and be careful not to lose any business unnecessarily.

The second danger is uncertainty. There is nothing worse for business than uncertainty. It is the lethal detonator for a downward spiral of decline. Uncertainty causes companies to freeze. Decisions are postponed indefinitely and particularly such decisions that may involve any kind of spending. This slows down the economy even further as suppliers starved of any new business collapse or consolidate and calcify into large, incoherent monoliths.

For a small to medium supplier (like us) the deferral of new business is much worse than losing it altogether as the cost of sale keeps mounting but no sales materialise. You know the scenario. Meeting follows meeting, lengthy RFQ follows interminable RFI (don’t get me started on tendering again!) and travel and entertainment expenses keep mounting as no new business is generated. Uncertainty is a killer and the knowledge that things will be bad is much better than not knowing what’s around the corner.

To end on a positive note, despite all this economic gloom and weird weather patterns, we (Noetica that is) are experiencing one of our best years yet. We are preparing to run several pilots with companies that we always wanted to work with and generally we are busier than ever before. Long may it continue. If all the new business that we have in the final stages of closing will actually come in, we will have no choice but to pull together, work a little harder and possibly grow (modestly and cautiously, may I add).

Recession, slump, depression, or whatever you care to call it, is not necessarily a bad thing for everyone. These downward spells are in my view periods of reflection and adjustment when a country (in this case, possibly the world) reassesses its values and goals, before embarking on the next big adventure (or bubble). And a period of true collective introspection cannot be bad for a company that has truly something exceptional to offer. Watch this space.

Danny

One of the inevitable effects of the global financial crisis is a severe tightening of regulation surrounding the world of finance, insurance, mortgages and investments. For the next decade we will be living in a much more Kafkaesque world of bureaucratic hell and endless small print.

Organisations within and on the fringes of the financial sphere will be bombarding us with disclaimers and reassuring words making us aware that they are controlled an regulated by various obscure acronyms which we never heard of and not likely to ever show any interest in.

Heaven knows what new regulatory bodies will be emerging over the next few years and what draconian measures they may come up with in order to protect us from ourselves and the dangers of the shark infested waters of the financial oceans.  In the meantime, the FSA is busily installing sophisticated locks and security devices on the financial barn door. Sadly the golden horse had bolted long before.

Now, whatever these new rules introduced by the current troika consisting of the Government, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, I can more or less guarantee that they will fall into two main categories: legal words and impenetrable logic.

The “legal words” are basically the stuff that is read out at breakneck speed at  the end of radio commercials and nobody ever listens to. You know the kind of stuff I mean: “…not keeping up with the payments on your mortgage may result in incurable leprosy, your children taken in to slavery and the possibility of sharing a house with the mother in law for all eternity…”.

These offensive crimes against the English language will become longer, more convoluted and increasingly meaningless (“In case of an aardvark, the Rulers of the Universe reserve the right to retreat behind their ancestral baboon and the instruments shall be revealed to the followers of Tosh, the Great Lord of Meaningless Babble…”).

The “impenetrable logic” bit will be the result of the evolution of the current relatively vague rules and limitations regarding financial products into a set of much more complex interrelated principles and caveats intended to ensure that financial products are correctly matched to each customer’s needs and abilities to pay.

The kind of logic I have in mind goes along the lines: “You want a loan? Great, you came to the right place. Now, I will need to ask you about 380 questions in order to establish your eligibility as a borrower. This will only take around 3 hours. OK?”.

So, after providing all your vital details (including your second removed great uncle Herbert’s shoe size and sexual habits), your lifestyle information (sorry, no loans for vegans or left handed people), and your up to the minute financial status (such as your bank balance in the last hour, and the precise APR on all your credit cards) some complex set of rules will determine your financial fate.

Why am I interested in all this? After all, it has nothing to do with contact centres and the software that they use. Or does it? In my opinion, all this new state of affairs will have a profound effect on contact centres within and on the periphery of the financial universe. More importantly, it may signal the redemption of the technology that hadn’t dared speak it’s name for a few years now, i.e. call scripting.

Call scripting means many things to many people. It is one of the most misunderstood and misused terms in the world of customer contact centres. To most people the world “script” immediately evokes cinematic or theatrical images of actors reciting pre-written lines. It also reminds us of some of the most infuriating experiences involving call centre agents that never listen but keep reciting the same inanities back at you, regardless of what you may wish to ask or tell them.

I will not deny that this does happen and may even be prevalent in some types of call centre. On the other hand, any technology has the propensity of being misused. Lasers can be used to save lives with high precision surgery or to destroy life when utilised in weapon targeting systems. The same technology that put  a man on the moon is used for ballistic nuclear missiles. And so on. The list is endless.

Call scripting was never intended to become a device that would turn call centre agents into automatons. In other words, apart from the unfortunate choice of name, there is very little in common between the concept of an actor’s script and that of a call script. With very few exceptions (and the financial world’s boilerplate legal statements is one of them), call scripts should never instruct agents to read out anything verbatim from the screen. It is unnecessary, infuriating and soul destroying for the agent.

So if call scripting does not involve any “recitation”, what does it involve? Surprisingly enough, it involves logic. More specifically, it involves the logic of the business processes that should be the basis of each and every interaction between a call centre agent and a customer. Unless a call script exists, all this business logic only resides in the agents’ heads and is the result of relentless training and subject to endless errors. In a way, the same business logic needs to be replicated hundreds of times in each agent’s memory. The call script takes that away.

If you think of an interaction as a journey between “Hello” and “Goodbye”, an intelligent and well constructed script provides the satellite navigation system guiding the agent through each conversation in the most nonintrusive, low key yet effective manner possible. At certain points it will provide useful hints and snippets of information that will move the conversation forward and present the customer with a flattering image of the agent as a well-informed, unflappable expert.

When agents don’t have to worry about what they should be saying next, what system to use, how to cut and paste customer details from one system to another, where to find bits of information and so on, they are more confident and able to concentrate on the person that they are talking to rather than trying to remember the more arcane details of their training or fathom the systems they are using.

The conversation flows and is more natural. The customer feels that they are talking to a real human being that pays attention to them and not a stressed out nervous wreck with an attention disorder. So, in a paradoxical way, call scripts, when utilised wisely, have precisely the opposite effect to what their problematic image may suggest.

There are many other benefits that the use of call scripting technology brings. Amongst them are more accurate KPI reports on call centre activity, reduced call durations (not at the expense of customer satisfaction, may I add), reductions in training requirements, flexible and instantly modifiable business processes, less errors, more consistency and much more.

So, what is in a name? Quite a lot, it seems. I have no idea who coined the term, but I imagine that whoever came up with “scripting” was hoping that some Hollywood glamour might rub off on to what is after all a relatively unglamorous technique. Of course, it backfired rather badly. I can think of many other possibly less damaging names for it.

We have been trying to introduce the term “call flow” (and “web flow” for the web based variants) for the last 8 years or so with limited success. How about “intermap” (as in “interaction map”), “callnav” (as in “call navigation system”), “interlog” (as in “interaction logic”), “interithm” (as in “interaction algorithm”) or “noerithm” (as in “noetic algorithm” – for those of you not yet familiar with the term, “noetic” is the main characteristic of something that you know but you don’t know why you know it as you never learned it)?

Anyway, a box of M&S’s best mince pies is on offer for the person that can come up with the best new name for call scripting. A name that will remove the stigma from a much maligned technology. My thoughts go to all the unfortunate Osama Bin Ladens (there must have been hundreds of the poor buggers around the Arab world), Pol Pots, Idi Amins or Radko Mladics who had to change their name by deed poll over the years hoping to shake the CIA off their backs.

As I don’t imagine that I will be posting another entry before Christmas, let me take this opportunity to wish you, my reader, a very peaceful and happy festive season and a successful and prosperous 2009, hopefully as free of financial legalese babble as the regulations would permit.

Danny

London, 09.December.2008

A noetic vision of Christmas

Last Friday, as I was propping up the bar at our annual Noetica Christmas bash (trying to ignore the frowsty ambience enveloping our area of the venue at the beginning of the evening), I allowed myself a brief moment of quiet self satisfied contemplation. Looking around the room, at the several groups engrossed in animated conversations it became abundantly clear to me that at no time in our 12 year history did we field such good and strong a team as we are now.

Of course, being realistic, nothing is ever perfect and there is always room for improvement (even for platitudes such as this one), but I am certain that the passage of time has made us stronger, more experienced and simply better at our jobs. The people that didn’t really fit the mould of Noetica have been and gone (and, boy, do we have some stories to tell!)  and we are now a homogenous, coherent and much more efficient bunch than we ever have been. Let’s take a tour and count our blessings for once.

Where do I start? I think the best example of how much things have improved is Mel. This also gives me the opportunity to thank her on all our behalves for organising the Christmas party and in particular the rounds of shots that kept appearing at regular intervals containing a variety of obscure sounding cocktails that we were told in no uncertain terms to down without the use of our hands (which was just as well, considering the shaky state of our limbs by that stage…).

We can be a rather infuriating bunch to look after. We don’t like bureaucracy of any kind (filling in forms in particular). We work under pressure most of the time and tend to snap at the first person we come across. We need awkward and sometimes impossible last minute travel arrangements organised at the drop of a hat and we are fussy about which hotel, airline, train or restaurant is to be booked.  And we want it cheap. The list of our whims goes on and on.

Nothing is too much trouble for Mel. It is all done in a manner that looks effortless and with a smile on top. At last, Noetica has a face we can all be proud of. And I don’t think this is just us being grateful for any improvement after the regime of the previous 9 years. It is genuinely a pleasure to work with Mel . For the Catholics amongst us, please could you have a quiet word with the Holy See in Rome with a view to a canonisation. I don’t think that there has been a St. Melanie yet, has there?

Just checked and yes, there has been one. And he was male! Born in Placet, Brittany, he was a monk in the see of Rennes. He wiped out idolatry in his diocese , helped draw up the canons of the Council of Orleans in 511 and was highly revered by King Clovis. Feast day: January 6. Perhaps we should have a special feast (mini muffins and flapjacks?) each January 6^th.

The next stop on my tour is Kamil (let’s hope he can make it to next year’s party), who despite only being with us for a relatively short time has rapidly grown into his role and is providing tremendous support for our technical infrastructure. Kamil has managed to learn pretty quickly the intricacies of Synthesys installations, the Aculab hardware and the complexities of our constantly changing and frankly bafflingly named array of physical and virtual servers. I truly believe that Kamil has a bright future in the company.

Now, to our core development team (Paul, Martin, Mark & Camelia). This has been a tough year for them. As Synthesys.NET emerged from cosy childhood into petulant puberty the stress on the communal parents has been palpable. We are ending the year with a much more solid and manageable product and that is in no small measure thanks to them. The development “crew” is now a close knit team of very experienced and talented people and I sincerely do hope that they will have an easier and more rewarding time next year as a more mature product will hopefully allow us to start writing more interesting new code again.

Talking about the difficult transition of Synthesys.NET into adolescence, I have to mention the tremendous pressure that this has been putting on Joe and his testing lab (“Joe and the Robots” sounds like a pretty good name for a band, don’t you think?). He has always managed to keep his cool and good humour under pretty adverse circumstances. In many ways, he has passed his test of fire and has grown to become a crucial member of the team.

Let’s not forget our Russian colleagues (Vladimir, Sasha, Oleg, Max & Yaroslav). Over the last year we have seen an increase in productivity there and we are relying more and more on the Russian team for Synthesys projects and more recently for .NET development. Although we rarely see them, their impact is great.

On the operations side, it has been a year of flux. In Stephen and Emmanuel we have finally found the kind of people that fit the Noetica culture to join Yagna and Matt, who are now relatively “old hands” (not old people though, OK?) and together form a team of product specialists that allows me to sleep much better at night. A special thank you to Matt for his super human efforts earlier this year during and after the Microsoft upgrade.

Our all female team of project managers (Rebecca & Su) are constantly bringing not only grace and beauty to the harsh world of systems’ implementation, but also cool thinking under fire. Rebecca will be temporarily leaving us at the end of March to put the finishing touches on a different kind of project, and I’m sure everyone in the company will join me in wishing her a smooth project delivery… I’m sure she has a detailed plan…

A special word for Wendy and Darroll on the Noetica helpdesk. 2008 has seen dramatic changes for the better in the way in which the helpdesk is managed. Our customers are benefiting from all these improvements and the company presents a much more professional image. That aside, and not undervaluing it one bit, I will always be firm in my belief that the overwhelming contribution that Wendy and Darroll have been and are continuing to make is to our general wellbeing by keeping us all on our toes and making sure we never take ourselves too seriously. If wit and humour is the highest form of intelligence then we couldn’t hope for a more intelligent helpdesk.

Brigitte is a Noetica institution. Her hard work and professionalism are legendary. As is the strict discipline she imposes on her students. I have never heard anything but praise (possibly accompanied occasionally by a muffled scream, pleading for mercy) from anyone that has ever taken a Noetica training course. I’m sure that we are all delighted to see her walking again after her operation earlier this year and I very much regret that there was no dancing at the Christmas bash, as she had promised me the first dance.

This year we also implemented a major shift in our approach to sales. The main aspect of this change is the decision to stop employing sales people as such. This reflects our belief that Synthesys is not a product that can be sold in isolation but as part of a consultative approach and this can only work when skilled, technically capable people are in charge of the process.

The net result is that we have placed a great burden of responsibility on Sandee’s shoulders as she is solely responsible for new sales and needs to draw on other company resources as and when we achieve traction on any new accounts. I must say that Sandee has responded extremely well to this challenge and has taken on this task with the energy and determination that had always characterised her. In a roundabout way, her sporting career must have honed these competitive qualities in her and we are benefiting as a result.

Despite his protests and arguments to the contrary, Daniel has become over the last few years a crucially committed mujahid dedicated to the Noetica cause. He is our guerrilla soldier, our Mossad agent and terrorist (freedom fighter?) all rolled into one. I think that his tenaciousness has done a great service to us all and his extensive knowledge of the market (he now knows everyone in the contact centre industry personally) has been instrumental to our progress.

One of this year’s great revelations has been Alun. He is living proof that the well known cliché about round and square holes and pegs is absolutely spot on. Since taking over the responsibility of looking after our customers and channels from a business perspective, Alun hasn’t looked back. An absolute joy to work with, and extremely knowledgeable about anything even if it’s not always related to Liverpool FC, Alun has single handedly been able to revolutionise the way in which we relate to our customers and partners and significantly increase our revenue stream and customer satisfaction. All in the space of one short year. Not a mean feat.

Jens has continued to improve his artistry in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and ensured that Noetica is always on the first page of Google, whether anyone may be searching anything from “call centre software” to “CTI” and from “CRM” to “Unified Agent Front End”. You, of course, realise that by simply mentioning these terms (as well as “call scripting”, “predictive dialling” and so on) on this blog, I have made my own small contribution to our rankings. Of course, Jens is doing a great deal more along the lines of our new strategy of focussing almost exclusively on the web for our marketing communications.

In Germany, Roland has been concentrating his limited time on a few high quality, high volume opportunities and as a result, we are now on the verge of closing some very significant deals. I am very optimistic about the possibility of expanding further into Germany and perhaps leveraging our success there to create a European bridgehead for Noetica in Europe.

Finally, last but not least, our management team. Luke, Kim, Elliot, Oran & Steven have managed (excuse the pun…) to put in place the structures and processes necessary in order to allow us to mature as a company. I must confess that it hasn’t always been easy, and the arguments have always been passionate, heated and let’s face it, loud. On the other hand, it is a testimony to the fact that these are important issues and that they all care deeply about the future of our company. I cannot thank them enough for putting in the long hours, coping with the stress, and possibly worst of all, coping with me.

We are facing uncertain times. The world economy is in turmoil. The experts cannot agree whether what is coming is a cataclysm or just a disaster. Whatever it is, one thing is certain. When we eventually emerge from this recession, the markets that we operate in will look nothing like they look today. The dinosaurs of today will disappear and the most nimble, well adjusted and efficient creatures will dominate the new landscape. If we navigate correctly through this storm, I am confident that with the quality of our team and a little bit of luck, we could be amongst the winners in this brave new world.

Danny

First of all, my apologies to anyone that may have been offended by last week’s tirade against the barbaric practice of competitive tendering. None of it was intended as a criticism directed at the good, talented and hard working people who get lumbered with this extra-curricular task, but as a general critique of the system itself, which in my view does not work and is utterly discredited.

 I was surprised to have received a few emails of comment (I didn’t dare hope that anyone might actually be reading this blog), most of them in encouragement and complete support of my views, but one or two suggesting that I may have offended some people. If I did, my apologies. The fact that I may occasionally be critical of totalitarian communist regimes does not mean that I have anything against the good people of Pyongyang.

Moving on, this week I will try to look at the ever growing family of TLAs (three letter acronyms) that the wonderful world of customer contact centres is blessed with and to belatedly rejoice in the arrival of a new addition to this happy and growing family.

In the beginning there was chaos. Contact centres had telephones and bits of paper that eventually evolved into post-it notes. Then, over many years,  the hideous, humungous and excruciatingly slow dinosaurs known as home grown software systems emerged. Like the original dinosaurs, they took an inordinately long time to become extinct. Rumour has it that some of them still roam the earth in remote corners of the industry.

Then, just as the twentieth century was coming to an end, a couple of interesting mutations were to change all that overnight. CIM (Customer Interaction Management) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) were born. For a long time, nobody could tell which was which. Like identical twins, almost everyone had been confusing one with the other and could never tell them apart.

By the turn of the century, it became pretty clear that CRM was getting most of the attention as it had really pushy parents who invested a great deal in drama lessons, voice training, violin practice and private tutors. Little CRM had to grow up pretty quickly as his parents wanted to cash in on their huge investment in school fees, stripy blazers and boaters.

And indeed CRM grew into a promising young man with a glowing future. He was everything that everyone ever wanted or dreamt of.  The young girls who were at the time leading most multinational corporations were furtively writing his name in curly letters in their secret diaries surrounded by pink hearts and coded messages of eternal love.

His parents were delighted. They bought a house in Beverly Hills, one in St. Tropez and a large rambling mansion in Surrey. There was the Bentley, two Ferraris and the private jet. Life was good. Young CRM was on the VIP list at all the trendy clubs, invited to all the “in” parties and generally feeling on top of the world.

Then a terrible thing happened. He fell in with a bad crowd. Drink, drugs and fake sheiks followed. The tabloids were full of pictures of a dishevelled CRM arriving home at 5am shouting obscenities at the paparazzi. The young girls’ parents discovered the secret diaries and banned them from getting anywhere near young CRM ever again and cut their weekly pocket money allowance.

Several spells in rehab, promises of good behaviour and an entire team of PR gurus didn’t really help. CRM was discredited. Then one day, a wonderful thing happened. He met a girl and fell in love. She was pure of heart and as fair as Snow White. Her name was CIM. Remember her? She was the one nobody could tell apart from CRM at the maternity unit.

 It was a whirlwind affair. Love at first site. A classic story. The real love of his life had been there in front of him all his life. He just couldn’t see it with all the glamour models chasing after him. Elvis officiated the marriage in Vegas and they honeymooned at a secret tropical location.

A few months later, a baby was born. They called it CEM (Customer Experience Management). It is unclear yet whether the genetic proximity of its parents has adversely affected little CEM (in ways similar to rumoured trends in the less reachable parts of Norfolk and the more remote areas of Alaska) as nobody really knows yet what he is about.

The main question is in what way is CEM different from CRM or CIM? Well, I have been asking this very question recently at an industry event and the answer was that CEM is CRM in reverse! (shouldn’t it be called MRC, then?)

To elaborate on this theory a little, the meaning of it is apparently that in the same way that CRM offers the enterprise a complete 360° view of the customer, CEM offers the customer a 360° view of the enterprise. Make of it what you will.

It sounds to me that the pushy grandparents have been meddling a little. Now that CRM has settled down and moved to suburbia, they are trying to push CEM in the same way that drove little CRM into the arms of Amy Winehouse. My personal feeling is that the fans have moved on and having had their fingers burned once they will probably think twice before deciding to join the club.

On the other hand, it may very well turn out that little CEM is a little smarter and more balanced than his parents and it may be able to strike that wonderful middle path between indifference and hysteria. If that turns out to be the case, I think everybody will benefit.

Danny

London, 25.11.2008

Tender is the night

Credit crunch, global financial crisis, subprime mortgages, the rise and rise of Robert Peston… Gosh, hasn’t the world changed since my last entry on this blog?! In the US, Obamania gripped a dazed nation as the chosen one is expected to walk on water (or perhaps do a Michael Jackson style “moonwalk”) and deliver the overweight children of America into the promised land. Or perhaps OUT of the promised land if a relatively quick exit from Iraq is indeed on the cards.

In the meantime, trying to steer a small-ish call centre (or shall I say “call center” as we are all US friendly these days?) software company through these treacherous waters is becoming more of a challenge every day. Customers and prospects are becoming increasingly careful to commit to anything as their IT budgets shrink and shrivel into nothing.

Here at Noetica, despite having our best year ever, we had our fair share of disappointments since the start of our financial year in March. Most painfully perhaps, we managed to lose at least three or four tenders (with a medium sized outsourcer, a public body and a large publisher) after investing inordinate amounts of time and money responding to literally hundreds of pages of questions and producing vast amounts of architecture documents, diagrams and the usual paraphernalia that needs to accompany these cumbersome documents.

In the end we lost these deals for silly reasons despite, in my humble opinion, being clearly the most suitable solution to the problem in each case. But I would say that, wouldn’t I? Sour grapes and all that… but I don’t think so. I think that the economic climate is panicking organisations into false economies. Bad decisions made today in the name of corporate frugality are most likely to haunt those organisations long after the people that took those unfortunate decisions and the financial crisis that drove them to take them are truly gone and forgotten.

Looking at the slightly bigger picture, I strongly believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with the process of tendering for contracts. Smaller suppliers are clearly at a disadvantage as they cannot afford teams of specialists dedicated to the sole task of answering lengthy and complex tender documents or the investment required in order to develop the specialist expertise needed in order to be successful at this game. And a ridiculous game it is.

And what a waste! A tender document is first of all a huge drain on the company issuing the tender. Months and sometimes years of delay are introduced before a selection process can even start. There is no better way of kicking a project into the long grass than saying that it will require a tendering process. Even once the decision to issue a tender has been taken, the process requires endless meetings involving everyone in the organisation from the CEO to the tea lady to ensure “buy in” (another way of saying bottom cover) from all involved.

As in anything designed by a large committee, the resulting document is usually an amalgam of irrelevant badly spelled information, endless legal boilerplate jargon, and a litany of repetitious, self contradicting and clearly irrelevant set of “requirements”. Senior management rarely have the time to get involved in the creation of these documents and clearly don’t bother to read them let alone participate in the writing, so it is typically left to a junior hapless and bemused member of staff who managed to pull the short straw and is lumbered with this joyful task in addition to her/his day job.

 In some unfortunate cases, an “independent consultant” is drafted in at great expense to put together the tender document. I can only assume that this only happens when no junior is available for the task or anyone asked to do the job internally goes on long term sick leave, resigns or commits suicide. The “independent consultant” typically turns up to be an old mate of the MD (or some other director) who is simply unemployed or unemployable (possibly due to a recent spell at Her Majesty’s pleasure for fraud, pillage or murder). As to their independence and impartiality, let’s not even go there…

What happens next is even more bizarre. As the document approaches completion, the question of who will actually be asked to respond emerges. This is where it gets truly ridiculous. There is no method to this madness. First of all, there are normally some incumbent suppliers who already do business with the issuing organisation and they hear it by the water cooler. They will ask to be included regardless of what the tender may be for. After all, they are a “known quantity” (i.e. better the devil you know).

Then, the junior in charge of the tender will undertake some in-depth “research” to find the best and most suitable possible suppliers. This usually involves a couple of Google searches. So, as long as I manage to appear on the first page of Google when anyone searches for “enriched uranium rods”, I am more than likely to be invited to tender for anything in the nuclear industry. I must try that one, and see if I get any tenders in Iranian. On the other hand, the Iranians are probably better organised at this than us.

At this stage, as most of the senior people are on their summer vacation or at some conference in Barcelona, all of the suppliers that have been trying for years to beat a path to their door and may have sparked the interest that triggered the tender in the first place are promptly forgotten. Little wonder that this is happening, as the senior management have probably forgotten by now that a tender is about to be issued as many months have now passed since the need for such a tender managed to flash briefly before their eyes.

So, a bunch of totally unsuitable possible suppliers are invited to tender. This is where 5 to 10 companies need to start spending significant time and money (usually at a time of the year when they have hundreds of other, more profitable things to do) to put together an answer to the hundreds of “requirements” and assemble a response to the tender. I estimate that the total cost for each company to put together such a document is in the region of £10,000.

This is before you start counting the site visits, lavish client entertainment, endless presentations and the time and travel costs associated with them, if you happen to have the misfortune to be selected for the shortlist. The costs then quickly double to something approaching £20,000. So if a company makes 10 bids each year and is selected for the shortlist in 5 of these cases, the annual cost of tendering is well in excess of £150,000 per annum. Just to put it into perspective, this sum is larger than the total amount bid for some of these tenders.

You can calculate this the other way around as well. For one single tender, the tendering company will probably spend something in the region of £40,000 (if you include the time of all the people that are involved plus the “consultant” fees, expenses, etc.) to produce the tender. Then, if 10 bidders emerge, each one will spend £15,000 on average. All in all, including the selection process and so on, a relatively small tender would involve costs (on all sides) of well in excess of £200,000. This is sometimes more than the value of the contract itself. What’s the point?!!

Ah, but this process guarantees a wise choice of supplier and an excellent price, I hear you say. Really? Only yesterday I read in the paper that the government has spent £200million last year on IT contracts that were later ditched, stopped or never delivered. £200million! In one year! And you know what? I am absolutely sure that all these contracts were awarded following an exhaustive and formal tendering process with all the checks and balances in place.

It is about time that someone put this old sacred cow of “competitive tendering” out of its misery. The process doesn’t work, it is simply an arse covering exercise and it is a huge drain on the economy. It stops smaller companies from growing and getting access to contracts and it allows larger companies to become fat, wasteful and complacent. It is a huge waste of time and money.

The main source of waste is that each Invitation to Tender has its own different format and asks questions in a different way (after all, the “independent consultant” must justify her/his exorbitant fee). This means that very little work that has been invested in one response can be reused for another. So, apart from some product documentation and legal blurb, each response needs to be written from scratch. This can put an enormous strain on smaller suppliers.

In this day and age, the internet should provide much better solutions for the selection of the right supplier without the need for all this Kafkaesque anachronism. I would suggest a central moderated repository of company documents where suppliers can post a “standard tender response” document written to a predefined format (the same format for all suppliers) including a knowledge base where potential customers can find answers to most of their requirements without even contacting the supplier until they are reasonably satisfied that it can satisfy most of their requirements.

This can, of course, be followed by specific discussions and additional questions as each customer clearly has unique and specific requirements. But 90% of the tedious, expensive and totally unnecessary work can be easily eliminated.

Anyway, apologies for this rant, but I had to get it off my chest and I truly believe that something needs to be done about this madness.

I will be posting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis blog entries (not all as lengthy or as bilious as this one) on this blog from now on. Promise. Really. Unless I have a long tender response to write, of course…

Danny