Tip & Trap: Customer Service - Look for Points of Failure
It’s a busy month, I’m headed off to a conference and I’ve still got write my usual Tips & Traps e-letter. So, in the meantime - here’s a mini T&T re service. If we’re selling something - we’re ALL in the service business.
Tip: “Walk” your delivery process and look for every “Point of Failure”
Trap: Getting so caught up in the process methodology and documentation, you forget the human factor.
Recently met with one of my “sanity check” clients - he’s building a new type of car wash (with cool technology, really)…Biz plan looks sound…good location…but…recommended he look at everything that can go wrong. The combination of technology and humans vastly compounds the potential problems. People push buttons they shouldn’t. Park in the middle of the traffic flow to get something out of the trunk. A computer spazzes out and the employee can’t get tech support on the phone. And so on. Car washes. Web sites. Retail stores. Software development and delivery. Doesn’t matter what you do - you always need to identify “Points of Failure” and plan accordingly.
The downside is that you can process something to death. You end up serving the process versus the customer. (”I’m sorry, we can’t do that.” “That’s against policy.” “You’ll just have to keep trying the web site.”) Customers don’t care (and it’s not their job to care) that you spent a gazillon dollars on the systems, have piles of documentation and need to make a profit. They just want good service. You’ve always got to be prepared to step outside the box and do what’s right - for both your and your customers’ sakes.
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