With all of the disruption that is occurring across numerous industries, a new race has been created.  The race is not just about running a successful business or organisation, it is about doing things in a faster and more effective way than your competitors. 

This is not a new occurrence as business has always had this dynamic, the real difference is that now it is about how to make a number of things click at the same time in a way that integrates technology, your people, and the customer experience.

I was speaking with a client who was complaining about the customer satisfaction surveys that their organisation used.  Because his scores were not what they should be he was starting to complain about the survey and about how picky customers were becoming.  To try to address this, he was having sessions with his staff to get them to pay more attention to the customer.  The challenge was that the internal operations and systems that they were using made it harder for their staff to look after customers.  They had not fully integrated a user-friendly IT platform that both staff and customers could use.  Because of this, staff did not have the capacity or time to do what they wanted to do with the customers they were interacting with. 

This is a common situation that I come across when an organistion does not look holistically at how to create best practice.

To keep up with business today, there are 3 key areas that need to be focused on at the same time to enable your organisation and people to stay in front.

1. People.  Everyone knows that people are the heartbeat of any organisation.  There are 3 main principals that need to occur to enable your people to achieve best practice:  Attitude, They need to have the right mindset and want to make things happen.  Skills.  They need to be competent and have the capability to do what their role and organisation needs and Capacity.  They need to have the time to do what they know that they should do.  This means ensuring that the systems and IT systems provide them with more time to get things done.
2. Operational Approach.  Given how quickly things are changing the operational approach needs to be a high priority.  Standards.  There needs to be clear standards and procedures that everyone is aware of.  Benchmarks.  There need to be clear targets that allow staff to identify how they are performing and give them the opportunity to influence the standards/operations if they are creating obstacles to reaching these KPI’s.   Leverage Technology.  This is the area that many businesses are falling behind on.  They are not using or integrating technology to enable their staff to be more productive or enhance the customer experience.
3. Customer Experience.  The customer experience needs to have 3 key ingredients.  Quality.  Whatever the service or product is that you are delivering it needs to be good, people need to agree that it is reliable and that they would purchase it again.  Value.  Customers need to receive value not just from the product or service that they are purchasing, but also in the entire purchasing experience.  We need to do things that ‘value add’ to enhance the relationship.  Convenience.  This is now the new focus for most customers.  Given how fast society is people want it faster and quicker than ever before. Often they will pay more if they can get it in a way that suits their busy lifestyle and more importantly they become advocates for businesses that can make this happen.

Why is Amazon scaring so many retailers?  The speed at which they can get their products to customers is great.  Amazon Prime members in the US can order an item from Amazon and receive it in 3 hours.  They have been able to achieve this because they have nailed all 3 of the key areas. 

So what are you going to do to allow your organisation and your people to create the worlds Best Practice?  By using this formula as a guide you can help make things happen faster and take things to the next level.