Posted On: April 26, 2009, 2:12 pm CDT

Posted By: Bernard

Somehow this blog about retention has become a State Farm Sucks commercial. Lets take a step and look at this SF thing objectively.

State Farm is the largest carrier in the country with, arguably, the strongest brand ever for any insurer. A company doesn't get that way by doing things poorly to the scale that some suggest. This brings us to the really difficult task of staying #1, retaining customers and growing by positive word of mouth.

The challenges large companies in America face are really the same as those that smaller companies face. However, those large companies, because of their size, have a much more difficult task when it comes to maintaining a culture of true customer focus. When the focus becomes even a bit fuzzy, small problems or mistakes get brushed under the carpet when they really should be revealed, investigated and learned from. Those small problems stay alive and fester - sometimes for years or even decades until they blow up. I suspect thats what happened in the case of this verdict.

So as we see problems within our own companies and in others, we need to ask what the root cause of the problems are. Is it the mistakes made in the field? Were the mistakes REALLY mistakes or were they done out of greed or 'the need to get ahead'? And if the latter, what can be done to bring the company back to the values that got it to be successful in the first place?

I recently learned that the Toyota Motor Company has both a 50 and a 200 year strategic plan. Their strategy way back when was to become the largest car manufacturer in the world...and to get there by staying true to quality, customer and ensuring that the front line employees in both manufacturing and sales, had a way of communicating value vs. waste (as seen by the customer). They think about increasing value and removing waste at all levels of the organization once activity, one widget at a time. Its a great org., and one that our industry might be able to learn some things from. GM didn't - and look where they are now.

Bernard Rosauer
President
Evenbetteryet, LLC