Improve customer service

You know what’s wrong, so what stops you fixing it?

Many organisations believe they are doing all the right things but results show that their customer-related performance is not improving as they would like. The right senior executives are accountable and have responsibilities for the customer written into their personal objectives but corporate results show that accountability is not translated fast enough into action. Consistently delivering measurable improvements in customer management processes, week by week, is not happening.

So what’s wrong?

Our experience of working with customers, as well as results from Budd’s Fast+Simple™ 2005 senior executive survey tells us there are four reasons why companies can’t fix things:

• too many one-off projects open and competing for resources
• lack of a proper, consistent, end-to-end tracking process within companies
• lack of a cross-organisational focus and consequent issues prioritisation
• not able to drive internal change effectively, despite good in-house skills.

Change is not always complicated but it is invariably hard to do successfully – and may require outside help.

‘Doing-It-Yourself’ risks loss of time, customers, and money.

Many organisations have a strong customer-focus, and a ‘can-do’ culture. They have excellent analytical skills, Six Sigma quality projects running in the organisation, use lean tools to improve processes - but still encounter problems, because they don’t have a proper cross-organisational tracking process in place. Six Sigma and lean tools are optimised for manufacturing not for customer services. Projects can become overly detailed and result in analysis that leads up blind allies. Companies struggle to find the ‘helicopter’ view of operational and project priorities.

Success requires focus, good internal communications and speed to drive actions that improve the impact to the customer. Opening the communication channels to define contact codes in the right way or providing objectivity in helping to engage senior executives in accountabilities are just two of the benefits of outside help. For example, it took one company five quarters to get from prototype to kicking projects off, on their own. That’s why you need outside focus and help.

Making your business Fast+Simple for your customers

Companies who are delivering successful customer experiences are able to:

• hear the customers’ frustrations and ideas
• focus projects according to these customers’ priorities
• actually make a difference to the way they operate

Amazon is an outstanding example of a company who designed a continuous tracking process (known as Skyline) that has enabled the company to improve customer service innovation, cost reduction and competitive advantage, whilst massively growing customer volumes. Other companies in Europe, USA and Australia have followed Amazon’s lead and proved that Skyline is an effective way to address the underlying root causes and drivers of service demand across the business, cut OPEX and grow revenues.

Source: “How do customers get Fast+Simple experiences from companies like Amazon and what can you learn from that?, Budd 2005 report, download free at www.fastandsimple.org

The key differentiator for these companies is their ability to “close the loop” between
voice of the customer, programmes and operations, as outlined in the graphic below.

In 2005, it’s rare for companies to get beyond first base in demand analysis. They still find it hard to put in place processes which continually sense and improve customer frustrations and remove costly service needs. And drive great product and service development opportunities back into the business.

There is a right way to do things, for right first time – and there is a right way to capture and classify codes and a right way to eliminate what is a waste of time.
If you have a business problem that you can’t fix, you may need help, because either
you haven’t the right components in place or you have the components but they don’t glue together. In either case, you can’t achieve the desired changes.

To see if this process would benefit your company, check out the list below

Conclusion
If you know what’s wrong but can’t fix it yet, look for capabilities that you can’t replicate in-house and expertise that can deliver those critical pieces that will save you time – and probably money. The ability to close the loop is an opportunity to differentiate your offering. As services and products get more complex - and more vital to doing business and staying in touch - so the need to address these long standing issues intensifies. To the winner the spoils!

If you would like to know more - contact Peter Massey, Managing Director of Budd and
co-founder of the LimeBridge international alliance. www.budd.uk.com

© BUDD UK