Perception is reality. A majority of the world, despite what you may hear on the evening news or read in the newspaper, is leery, at best, at the state of the economy. When I read the headlines about mega-financial institutions yanking a bonus trip for the “troops” after public pressure made their phone ring, it makes me sick!
In the first place, a note to all those “talking heads” that love to hammer away at a target like this. The damn trip was already paid for! Anyone who has ever booked group travel will attest that the money is spent a long time before anyone shows up at the door! What’s more, Wells Fargo had to make it up to the employees who had earned the trip in the first place! Frankly, the cost per person of the incentive was minimal in the scheme of things. Bottom line, instead of standing up and saying that the trip was paid for months, or years ago, they slumped down and cancelled the trip. What a crock!
On the other hand, when I hear that a company who needed the TARP funds to survive, has an average salary of $700,000 for 31,000 workers I am appalled. In case you need a math refresher, average is where you add up everyone’s salary and divide by, in this case, 31,000! I don’t care who you are. In this economy, you should be ashamed to accept your check! As for the boards of directors for these free-spending companies, they should all be given permanent residence at a penitentiary near you. Their lack of guidance, and social responsibility makes me sick.
You may be asking yourself, how does this fit into customer relationship management? It’s easy. Your customer’s impressions of your organization are formed on many levels. In this case, I don’t care how nice the person in the local branch is — I’m not going to do business with a bunch of folks that are so out of touch. I’ve heard from many others that feel the same way.
The bottom-line is to watch what’s going on around you and be aware of the impact that it may have on your customer’s and potential customer’s loyalty to your organization.
