Community : WE Net Article

This item is an extract from a P&G internal site, which is included here to illustrate the importance of Consumer Relations and to highlight the importance that P&G places on listening to "The Boss"

Consumer Relations - Your Direct Line to "The Boss"....?

Yes, that's right, Consumer Relations is your "direct line to The Boss". Do you know who we are? Do you know what we do? Do you know what great value we can bring to the business - Yes your business? No? Well read on ...About 2000 consumers across Western Europe contact us every day to talk to us about P&G's brands. This equates to something in the region of a massive 700,000 consumer contacts a year. Imagine paying for that level of consumer research !!

Sometimes they tell us how marvelous they think Brand X is, sometimes they ask us questions and want advice, BUT - often they are contacting us to say that they have been disappointed in some way and telling us how we can make improvements to our products or packaging that will really change their lives!!

• By the way, 90% of those consumers who contact us claim they will continue using our brands following the call - so we do a lot to keep your loyalist loyal!

Can we afford not to listen?

A G doesn't think so. In fact a key strategy for winning in his Corporate OGSM is via a "Consumer is Boss" approach to the business, which is something that we in Consumer Relations have known for a long time! So we have had to make sure that we "wear two hats" and not only delight our consumers by satisfying their wants and needs and making them feel valued, but also making sure that we advocate on their behalf within P&G .... and to make it even more difficult - CR only has an average of 30 seconds to answer each call to avoid the consumer becoming frustrated, and 4 minutes to complete the call in order to reach our service level targets and drive contact handling efficiency.

We really can be your "direct line to The Boss", and here's how - we can help you identify how you can improve products, we can share with you what our consumers want and share their ideas for new brands - and really get close to "The Boss" - how powerful is that!!..... and what better way to build consumer loyalty and keep on winning. We're all familiar with the WE OGSM and our main objective of making WE a major volume and profit contributor - well one way of meeting this objective is through getting even closer to the consumer and consistently winning with consumers and customers vs competition. Even with innovative new products that we haven't seen before, our CR Advisors are very good at predicting all those things that a consumer shouldn't do, but usually does, simply from our wealth of experience from listening to consumer calls. For example, remember the advert when we claimed that one of our new detergents was guaranteed to remove fat?

Well, what would you say to the lady who called us to complain that she had taken a bath in the detergent over a period of two weeks but still hadn't lost any weight?!!!! ....... and sorry, but laughing at the consumer is not one of the options we give to our Advisors !!

Or how about when a new body wash was launched - the packaging claimed "30+ uses with Puff". Unbelievably, we had several consumers contact us to ask what the other 29 uses were !! These are true stories, but here in CR we were able to help and advise the consumers in a way that did not embarrass or patronize them and, importantly, ensured their continuing loyalty to our brands.

Let me give you more great examples of how Consumer Relations has helped make a difference to the lives of our consumers. Quite recently we launched Pampers Kandoo toilet wipes and received tremendous positive feedback from consumers, who told us that they absolutely loved the product and that the wipes were really helping them to potty train their children, and at the same time giving their youngsters a sense of independence and achievement. However, part of the feedback reflected some concern that there was no hygiene message on either the advertising or the packaging. Consumers suggested that a message that children should "then wash their hands" after using the wipes needed to be highlighted. This was fed back to our internal customers, with the result that changes to future advertising and packaging is being actioned to incorporate this. Another example is how a formulation change for Lenor was brought about as a direct result of CR receiving a huge increase in complaints about Lenor causing blue stains on fabric. As the numbers of complaints steadily grew we became increasingly alarmed and alerted our R&D people to the problem. On investigation, they discovered that one ingredient in Lenor was causing the staining. The resultant formulation change solved the problem. You could say we helped to avert a major crisis, but hey .... you have to "Listen to the Boss".

We receive unsolicited contact from thousands of consumers every day, and listening to them is very powerful, hearing their emotion and the clarity of how they explain their problems makes us really want to do something about it. In fact, as A G Lafley has said after listening to consumer calls, 'Hearing the frustration in consumers' voices when our products don't perform, or their delight when we exceed their expectations provides a ...feeling of consumer in the room that no report can match'.

And you too can listen to real consumer calls by visiting the "Listening to the Boss" sites - we now have these sites in the UK, France, and Germany, as well as the US - with more on the way. Why not give it a try - you'll be amazed..... when you listen to what consumers say and how they say it, you will be motivated - either by their sheer delight, or motivated to do something about their disappointment.

Click below to 'Listen to the Boss' - hear genuine consumers talking about our brands: http://bru-intra016.eu.pg.com/stdapps/gts/listentoboss01.nsf/ - This link is only available internally in P&G

...... and more and more we are making use of other new technologies that are being developed to help us work smarter, and reach our consumers in the most effective and efficient way. There is close collaboration between our External Relations and Consumer Relations teams which is ensuring that the vision of using modern technologies to share knowledge and communicate both internally with all areas of our business, and externally with our consumers, becomes a reality. For example, we are working to create several tools that will give 24 hours a day, 365 days a year access to key information that can both help you in your role, and allow our consumers to obtain information about our brands, and will also provide an additional opportunity for them to contact us.

To further illustrate how valuable Consumer Relations work is, we have now been recognized nationally within the UK. Ahead of extremely stiff competition, the UK Consumer Relations team based at Cobalt Park have just won a very prestigious award - The National Customer Service Award 2002 for Best Complaints Handling Team of the Year - to add to their ever increasing collection of trophies. And the UK are not the only P&G CR team to achieve external recognition - during the last year or so other awards across Europe include our German CR colleagues coming first in a test of a journal called "Teletalk", and achieving second place in the scoring of the call center "Teleperformance".

And there are many more achievements being made, and ideas being put forward and developed by our very talented pool of CR people. And so the innovation continues.

The possibilities are endless.......................... now it's up to you!