Overview

The negative fallout from keeping customers “out of the loop” has created glaringly critical outcries from the public. Witness the recent scandals involving cars and tires that were sold despite the companies’ knowledge of dangerous deficiencies or medical offices that fail to tell patients their doctors have been convicted of malpractice in other states. Participants in this exercise are asked to consider what customers want to, need to, deserve to, should, or shouldn’t know about the product or service participants provide.

Purpose

To stimulate thinking about the kind of information that can or should be shared with customers without jeopardizing organizational policies.

Group Size

Any number of individuals can participate. The group should be divided into subgroups of four or five.

Room Arrangement

Arrange seating flexible enough to accommodate groups of different sizes.

Materials

Handout 27.1, “Information: Inside/Out”

Small scraps of paper, one for each participant

Method

1.Elicit examples of organizations that make their customers feel included and/or important by sharing “insider” information—delivery companies, for example, that allow the customer access to tracking information so that they can learn the transit status of their packages.

2.Ask participants to write a number from 1 to 5 on a scrap of paper. The number indicates the degree to which their own organizations share information with customers: “1” indicates very little “insider” information is shared; “5” indicates the company is exemplary in sharing information with customers. The numbers in between represent gradations along the continuum.

3.Form groups on the basis of the numbers—all the “1”s will sit together; all the “2”s will sit together, et cetera. (The groups need not all be of the same size and probably will not be.) Have them briefly discuss why they assigned the numbers they did.

4.Distribute Handout 27.1 and allow 10 to 15 minutes for completion. (Note: If participants are not all from the same organization, have the subgroups select one representative organization to use in their handout matrix.)

5.Conclude the exercise by having one group sit in a “fishbowl” with the other participants seated in a circle outside the fishbowl, inner circle. Have the fishbowl group explain their handout answers while the others assume the role of customers.

6.Wrap up by having the “customers” provide feedback on the report they heard from the fishbowl group.

Variation

Consider using a real focus group to learn how customers feel or would feel about certain information-sharing changes your sales team may be considering.

1.Assemble a group of six or seven representative customers.

2.Advise them that you’d like to tape record or videotape their meeting.

3.Create a relaxed atmosphere within a structured (agenda-driven) framework and with a moderator who can refrain from becoming involved in the responses to the questions he or she poses.

4.Have the sales team in the background, taking notes on their observations but not participating in any way in the discussion.

5.The sales team should meet as soon as possible following the focus group meeting, with the original problem-solvers/ decision-makers. They should evaluate their impressions and compare them to the actual tape recording. Focus group input is one valuable means of determining what customers would like to know and what they feel they need to know.

Discussion

What information is “closely held” in your own organization?

Does your organization have its secrets?

Does the withholding of this information from your customers cross any ethical barriers?

What information not now provided to customers do you feel they would appreciate having?

Quotation

“The man who is denied the opportunity of making decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to make.”

—C. Northcote Parkinson

Points of Interest

In keeping with the Quality movement’s definitions of “internal customers” (those who receive the output of our work) and “external customers” (those who purchase the actual product or service provided by the organization), you can extend the need-to-know idea to a Supervision class or a class dealing with Interviews or Hiring and Firing.

An important distinction supervisors need to make is that between disability and inability. According to the Supervisor’s Guide to Employment Practices, an employee who cannot read because of dyslexia is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, in all likelihood, will have to be accommodated on the job. On the other hand, someone who cannot read because he or she never completed school may have an “inability” rather than a “disability” and therefore may not be covered.

Basically, the act states companies cannot discriminate against individuals with disabilities who are otherwise qualified to perform the basic functions of the job. Reasonable accommodations must be made to allow such individuals to do their jobs.

The difficulty in many cases, of course, is in the acquisition of the information you need. Extreme sensitivity will be required to learn what you need to know.

HANDOUT 27.1