Even the giants go back to basics

Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications body, formerly government owned until 1997 when it began several stages of privatization, is a behemoth. It's emerged from it's days under the Post Master General and morphed and adapted to the changing technologies and markets over the decades, but the end result is a mix of organizational structures, processes, and internal politics. This has naturally led to ongoing customer dissatisfaction, and now the giant is making moves to shake itself of the reputation for being disengaging to its customers.

The eternal problem for "big" companies is that the more complex they become, the easier it is for customers to get lost in the system, and this is a huge trigger for dissatisfaction and churn in the customer base.

Recently Telstra recently tapped Gerd Schenkel to revamp its websites in an effort to make it easier for customers to access information and services online, a feat being mastered by the banking industry. Telstra is eager to engage its customers through online strategies that make dealing with the massive company and its various internal units more straightforward. Not a small task, but well worth the effort.

Now, they've announced the appointment of a Chief Customer Officer, who'll head the companies newly formed sales and customer service divisions and focus on turning around operations and streamlining internal processes with a focus towards improving customer satisfaction with Telstra services.

It's a smart moving combining sales and customer service because it recognizes the flow of value from sales to service, and having it centrally managed gives the opportunity to bring consistency, remove barriers and roadblock, and ensure a consistent theme of "customer first" across all angles. What it says to the general public is that regardless of whether you're about to buy from them, or have already bought from them, we're here to serve you. All too often, companies focus on the sales side and make customer service its distant cousin.

The new Chief Customer Officer doesn't have an easy job ahead of him, but if Telstra, or in fact, any company, is truly serious about customer satisfaction, it absolutely must build it into the organizational structure for any efforts to have a chance of making a difference. Sweeping powers and authority, overarching accountability, and central principles are all key to this challenge, and at the very least, Telstra seems to be making genuine moves to make a real difference, rather than implementing superficial steps that appease no one but the PR department!