“Consistency is the key to success” is an oft quoted aphorism. But is it true?
In business why should we care about consistency? What does ‘consistency’ actually mean within a business framework? Is your business consistent, is mine? How do we go about achieving consistency?
In a business context consistency could be defined as “giving each customer the same experience and level of care”. Now if you deliver a tailored service you may be thinking “OK, let’s move on, there’s nothing to read here”, please bear with me; I think you’ll find that there is something to be gained for you too.
Giving our customers a consistent experience is important…
Imagine that ‘customer A’ gets fantastic service from your company and sings your praises to all of their friends, colleagues and acquaintances . This is great, word of mouth is the best form of referral that you can possibly have.
Now imagine ‘customer B’, the customer that didn’t get the quality of service that you normally provide; the exception to the rule, the one where something was missed. What kind of word of mouth is given by this customer, what reputational damage does your business suffer from all the ‘customer B’s?
The key to getting repeat business is to treat ALL of your customers well – we all know that, right? But what’s the key to making sure that we can do this consistently? The key to eliminating those little errors that turn our customers from evangelists for our business into prophets of doom?
The answer is: documented processes.
Now that you’ve finished groaning out loud, let’s stop and think for a while as to what we mean by this and why it’s so important.
Everything that we do in our businesses follows a process; from how we keep on top of stock levels to how we deal with clients on the phone. How nice a cup of tea you get in the morning is also governed by a process (albeit one that is possibly of less importance to the business than the other two).
The only way in which we can ensure that our clients receive a consistent quality of service is if these individual processes are carried out in the same way every time. A simple example of this is how the phone is answered; it’s a very different customer experience to hear: “Good morning, Bloggs Corp, this is John speaking how can I help you?” compared to “Yes?”
The only way in which we can control how our processes are enacted is to document them and to make sure that everyone follows the documentation.
Now here’s where things get subjective; only you, as a business owner, can know how many processes you want/need to document in order to ensure consistency in the key aspects of your business. The size of your business is immaterial, the key here is to look at the areas that are important to you, it’s your business; be honest with yourself.
Start by documenting what happens now for the ideal iteration of a process, for example how you perform invoicing or ‘goods in’ or answering support calls… whatever it is that’s important to your business right now. Document how it is that this should be done for all of the ‘customer A’s
Repeat this documentation task with each important process within your organisation and you then have the basis of an operations manual that everyone in your business can follow – thereby giving your clients a consistent experience no matter who they are dealing with from within your business.
Simple huh?
If you need help with documenting these processes ask your business improvement/process improvement specialist to help you.
Now that you have your processes documented so that you are providing consistent service to your customers you are in a position to take the next step….
Improving and automating your processes… but we’ll leave that for another article.
Was an interesting article, thank you..