Words as metaphors shape the culture of companies large and small. One of my new heroines in the battle for customer experiences that matter is Sallie Krawcheck, Merrill Lynch’s president of global wealth and investment management. In a January 31 article by Aaron Elstein for Crane’s, Sallie says
“I’ll tell you words we’ve outlawed [in my division]: Cross-sell. Financial services supermarket. Distribution channel. Any of the words that imply an underlying product push to clients,” she says. “They have a history of simply not working.”
She gets it.
I found it odd when I first came into banking that many (admittedly big bank) bankers seemed to have this weird 3rd party lexicon for customers – accounts, cards, units… but never people. Changing the language to move from widget pushing automatons to customers as people that need our help may seem small, but it starts to overcome over two decades of acquisition addiction in the industry.
Good for her and good for all customers.
