A Public’s Company Inertia

RATP is the company behind the transportation service and the metro in Paris. RATP is broken. Every beginning of a month inside the metro stations we can see huge lines of people waiting to solve their problems with their monthly passes to access the metro.

After these huge lines of people we can spot a few unmotivated employees, usually two or four at a small office trying to deal with the crowd demands, which can span from acquiring their passes to technical problems solving or a need for more information in determined issues.

These small offices are present in a few key stations, 28 in fact within the whole Paris area (which has about 400 in total). The recharging machines also see huge lines of people as everyone tries to recharge their passes within the same day to not lose a single dime in the monthly period.

The fact that is a public company might be a strong reason why people from top to bottom actually don’t care that much about what happens. Not only this is normal here but also in many other countries throughout the world, as the key goals that drive state owned companies seem not driven to improve but to maintain. There is a complete inertia in RATP and also a lack of care in fact for the people who use the service.

Now, if we changed the scenario from this essential transportation service natural monopoly by RATP to a product or service fitting in whatever existent category, the result would be interesting to see, I guess in a 6 months’ time the company would have closed.

You don’t have to pay consultants to realize that if you change the configuration on the pass to start-end whatever day instead of first-last day of the month, or add more people for support at peak days, or get more machines rolling at the same days, or divert the crowd by days within increasing timelines, etc. You just have to do it as you would do it if it was for yourself. Effectiveness unfortunately is still very scarce in public companies and just makes Paris in this aspect definitely not a fast moving forward thinking European capital as others nearby indeed are.

: : :

Three rugged basics

Across the street of an hotel in Indonesia there is a restaurant with good food, pleasant environment and a key person who welcomes everybody who gets in. This key person gives away thousand smiles and says goodbye in your home language when you go away. Probably it is able to keep the restaurant reasonably full on everyday basis. Price is on the average – it is not expensive according with the surronding average pricing and all seems good, specially when the food is quite tasty. 

On the other hand, all goes bad when it turns out the tasty food to be very scarse. Maybe their vision on the business model is to save on the food to save costs, which is one of the worst strategies they could come up with. To complement, when this key person is not at the restaurant, the employees seem to act worst and take orders without any attention to the client, specially with the customers that often go to the restaurant (perhaps taking them for granted).

All this reasons finally result in a break of a everyday relationship, and which actually has lead to find a more friendly, cozy, cheaper, and higher quality food restaurant. 

What to take from here:

1. Sympathy is not a item to be used or sold. If you’re not natural, don’t pretend – its worst, but you should deliver sympathy on your service together with attention.

2. Value means many variants surrounding your product and service. Don’t price average and deliver low. If you deliver low and price low, at least your customers will expect that from you, and if they like, they will stick.

3. Monitor your employees and treat them as your first client. They are the only and most important link to your customers. 

: : :

 

small makes Big

In February this year, I received an email from a University introducing me a value added option to enrich my studies. With some equivalences, in a short time I can get another degree.

The person in the email, kindly referred every aspects of this upgrade with a resumed and effective text. In the end of the email, clearly stated that at any time or circumstances this person will be available to reply promptly to any inquiry.

Well, my interest was limited due to lack of availability; even though, after reconsider, I wanted to know more details and become aware of this process to possibly consider it in the future.

So, I send an email asking for more details to this person. No reply. The following week, I send another email. No reply.

In the next week, I don’t want to send an email, probably I want to call, but most likely my interest is already gone to another university, which without delays is replying to my inquiries, is friendly, and even enjoys more reputation than the other.

In a competitive scenario, if you’re not prepared for it, don’t even bother to try to pull attention, especially if you are a marketing and business school.

: : :