Awkward Enterprises are Everywhere

Enterprise Awkwardness is what happens when internal processes are jarringly at odds with customer expectations.

The Bank

My Twitter feed recently served me up this slightly vexed Tweet from SafeStack CEO Laura Bell.

Laura couldn’t understand why her bank seemed to have forgotten where she lives, despite providing a mortgage on the property.

This Tweet stood out to me because I’d recently had exactly the same experience with my bank, who insisted that — while a statement from some other bank would suffice as proof of address — they couldn’t possibly accept a statement they had sent me themselves as evidence I do, in fact live there.

And this sort of thing seems to be happening to me all the time lately.

The Insurance Company

A few weeks ago my wife and I noticed rain leaking in through a join in our roof at home. As I usually prefer not to have rain water pouring in to my house, I thought this was a fairly urgent matter to get fixed so I immediately called my insurance company.

The person who answered the phone spent some time taking down my details, a description of exactly what had happened, and promised somebody would get in touch.

“Will you send someone to fix my roof?” I asked. I was told that was a question for the claim manager, who would be in touch within the hour.

The next communication I received was in the form of a text message, telling me the name of my claim manager and giving me her phone number to call in case it was urgent. I called it. Nobody answered.

About an hour after that I got an email telling me my claim had been assigned to an assessor. He would be in touch with me within 24 business hours, but if it was urgent I could call him.

By this point I was feeling very nervous about my leaky roof. This was Friday afternoon so 24 business hours was going to mean a very wet house by the time I received a call. So I called the assessor.

The assessor, of course, told me that they would not be sending somebody to fix my roof. That’s not how this works. I need to find my own roofer.

Why so Awkward?

Both of these are clearly examples of negative customer interactions.

In the case of the insurance company, it may be said that I held unrealistic (or perhaps simply naive) expectations of the service they provide. But what turned it into such a negative experience is their inability to address that incorrect expectation.

In the case of the bank, my expectations (and Laura’s) seem perfectly reasonable, but the bank is unable to match them.

Thanks to a recent webinar by Milan Guenther of the Intersection Group, I recently learned that these sorts of interactions have a name: Enterprise Awkwardness.

Enterprise Awkwardness occurs when an organisation's processes and systems are misaligned, overly complex or not focusses on the right outcome. In the case of the bank, they clearly have my home address in a system of record, but this is not aligned with their process for opening a new account.

The insurance company is an example of a process that is inward focused, rather than customer focused. It is therefore not aligned to customer expectations. Even though there was communication with the customer at each step, this communication was unidirectional and of very little value. Why, for example, did I need to know about the claim manager? I never interacted with that person in any capacity.

What Can Be Done?

To avoid awkwardness, enterprises must take steps to obtain a holistic view of their systems, processes, data and purpose.

With that holistic scope, we can chart a path away from awkwardness and towards easy, positive interactions with customers.

In upcoming articles I will look at some of the tools available for building this holistic understanding, as well as relaying one more story of enterprise awkwardness that left me nervous about how a New Zealand company was handling my personal information.

As always, contact me if you're worried about this sort of thing in your organisation. I can help!