Focus on ‘Consumer Focus’

Consumer Focus may need to focus on itself; what is in store as the restructured organisation seeks a new Chief Executive?

 

Consumer Focus is described as ‘the new statutory organisation campaigning for a fair deal for consumers ….’. Its statement which accompanies application details for the new post of Chief Executive says that its ‘role is to put consumer across the UK at the heart of business and government decision making.’ The literature goes on to say “We will be the voice of the consumer, and work to secure a fair deal on their behalf. We were created through the merger of three consumer organisations – Energywatch, Postwatch and the National Consumer Council (including the Welsh and Scottish Consumer Councils). The new approach allows for more joined-up consumer advocacy, with a single organisation speaking with a powerful voice and able to more readily bring cross-sector expertise to issues of concern”.

Consumer Focus has strong new legislative powers. These include the right to investigate any consumer complaint if it is of wider interest, the right to open up information from providers, the power to conduct research and the ability to make an official super-complaint about failing services. Its first challenge may be provided by public services. Will Consumer Focus track the work of public services under emerging expectations, given there are likely to be spending cuts? Will a statutory body consider it appropriate to follow and ‘expose’ the dynamics of the public sector of which it will be a part?

This is what Wikipedia has to say on advocacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advocacy):

“There are several forms of advocacy, which each represent a different approach in the way change is brought into society. One of the most popular forms is social justice advocacy.

Although it is true, the initial definition does not encompass the notions of power relations, people’s participation and a vision of a just society as promoted by social justice advocates. For them, advocacy represents the series of actions taken and issues highlighted to change the “what is” into a “what should be”, considering that this “what should be” is a more decent and a more just society (ib., 2001.) Those actions, which vary with the political, economical and social environment in which they are conducted, have several points in common (ib., 2001.) They:

• question the way policy is administered
• participate in the agenda setting as they raise significant issues
• target political systems “because those systems are not responding to people’s needs”
• are inclusive and engaging
• propose policy solutions
• open up space for public argumentation….”

The key issue for Consumer Focus is whether it sees itself as a B2B, a business to business organisation which only talks to organisations similar to itself. There is some merit in this approach in that it can access accumulated knowledge and experience of the 200 odd organisations that it claims to have consulted. However, how will it engage with the general public?

The organisation admits to being well-resourced to use these powers and campaign on the issues that matter most to consumers and further saying “we’re the largest and the best-resourced advocacy body in the history of the UK consumer movement”.

The statement goes on to day Consumer Focus is “not an advice agency nor are we a statutory regulator. Other bodies such as Consumer Direct, Citizens Advice, local authority trading standards and the Office of Fair Trading play these roles. We do have an Extra Help Unit (EHU) for vulnerable ‘energy’ & ‘post’ consumers”.

This background information clearly shows that Consumer Focus has a great deal to do in sorting out in its own backyard before it can provide a cohesive and strategic service to the consumer. It will face a number of challenges.

This analysis did not aim to simply challenge the merits or demerits of its positioning. Is the structure likely to delimit the delivery of the stated goals? Which came first; the goals or the structure? It is hoped that the structure does not impede the delivery of goals. It would be interesting to know if the organisation’s corporate business planners had first created a series of customer focussed goals and then created an appropriate structure for delivery to facilitate the implementation plan; if form has not followed the function, there may be serious challenges for the new administration.

Delivery – the present organisation structure appears to be cumbersome and reflects a more of a civil service operating culture than that of a proactive and forward looking service organisation which can become attractive to clearly defined consumers and customer sub-categories. The organisation chart also shows country bias and focus where vertical structures are connected to each other to form a business model. However, the lack of clarity in relation to identifying cross-cutting service drivers may create problems in the very near future. What a new organisation cannot afford to carry on is to repeat its bureaucratic model where each country director may have to create a probably isolated knowledge base as opposed to joined up the cross-cutting campaigns to reflect modern trends in customer service delivery model and its evaluation on a thematic basis.

The consultation process has identified four strategic campaign goals to achieve a fair deal for consumers; they are Value, Service, Access and Sustainability. Assuming that these goals represent a reasonable stating point, the challenge for the new chief executive will be to position these goals as service drivers and how they will deliver consumer benefits. Are the goals of the new organisation going to be congruent with the benefits that the consumer expects? What does ‘repositioning’ entail? This will depend on how Consumer Focus defines its primary markets.

The other key principles of the new organisation’s consumer strategy appear to be sustainable. Consumers are going to be helped to exercise greater personal responsibility and will be supported to do so through greater transparency and information provision; not a problem in itself but it remains to be seen how Consumer Focus will be empowered to benefit from this principle. Enforcement will ensure that business that ‘behave fairly are not disadvantaged by the few that attempt to break the law’. If the new org is not going to be a regulator or an advice agency, how are these principles going to be converted into targets for the organisation’s action plan so that they are stretching and measureable? The principle of change presents many exciting opportunities; consumers are going to have information about emerging consumer markets and the enforcers will be expected to deal with them. Does this suggest a watchdog function? If today’s announcement of the merger of Orange and T-Mobile telephone companies were to be approved on competition grounds, how and what type of information will Consumer Focus provide to ensure that it is objective advice to consumers and what action will the information providers expect from the consumer lobby or actual users? Given the need for clarity in the new organisation’s purpose, what will Consumer Focus expect from customers of these companies assuming that they get information on the new business model of the merged operations and insight into its cost and volume implications which will impact on customer service and best value?

Assuming that these concerns can be dealt with, what is the type of business profile and customer service ‘value image’ will the new organisation present? Consumers are more likely to ‘warm up’ to the new organisation if they can relate to the proposed impact that it hopes to make consumer issues? Will Consumer Focus be able to discard its rather staid and civil service presence and realign itself to become a proactive and consumer friendly organisation which will be driven by creative digital technology to maximise its access to consumers? Could it be argued that Consumer Focus should more likely direct itself at lobby groups, delivery organisations and government departments? There is no doubt that there is a viable job to be done and Consumer Focus will find its feet but how long will it take for the new organisation to become effective and useful? There are two or three things the new Chief Executive will be able to say. The first is “Give me time, I am reorganising before I can deliver” and the consumer may have to wait for 2-3 years before visible results can be seen. Or is it likely to happen that the first chief executive may only be able to reposition and realign the organisation and that it will be the second incumbent who will more likely be able to make an impact?

Whatever the outcome, Consumer Focus will have to become very slick in its campaign if it is going to win the trust and respect of the public and the consumer in a relatively short time. The new chief executive will have a very demanding and visible role to deliver but given the concerns about the structural issues and the current business model, Consumer Focus will have a major challenge on its hands. The above analysis has tried to reflect the concerns of a lay member of the public.

What plans does Consumer Focus have to respond to these questions other than to rush to defend itself?  Our experience of challenging other service providers is that they either do not take bloggers seriously or they do not have the mechanism of responding to challenge or both. If this single blog is considered to reflect the opinion of one hundred silent observers, it may be doing a worthwhile job. Nevertheless, this blog is quite used to being ignored.