Virtually all companies say it. They want their customer service to be the reason customers contact them and then continue to come back. And in many companies they achieve that aim every day, with the loyal and growing customer base to prove it. But many other companies don’t, and here’s why.
When service continually falls short, the problem is often the process a business uses for service delivery. Fundamentally, that process is dysfunctional, and any number of things within the company can contribute to what goes wrong. Mergers and acquisitions. Changing technologies. Changes in management, and in philosophies. Cultural issues — “We’ve always done it this way.” Or worse, implementing a new service offering with little thought of how it might impact processes in other areas of the company.
When the service experience leaves a customer dissatisfied, they don’t care exactly how the company went wrong. All the customer knows is, their issue wasn’t resolved the way they thought it should be, and they’re unhappy about it. Consequently, the company has to care. To deliver an exceptional customer experience, they must be smarter in how they deliver service, from beginning to end. They must find ways to turn a dysfunctional process into a smart one.
How do companies try to fix “dysfunctional”… and why do they fail?
When the process for service delivery is full of workflow problems, the only way to expose and fix such problems is to go straight to the root cause. Let’s be honest, however. Unless companies are absolutely forced to do it, most don’t make the commitment and dedicate the resources necessary to correct the process issues.
Instead, companies take a Band-Aid approach and temporarily mask whatever issues they find. Other companies take a “patchwork quilt” approach, in which multiple departments work together to revise a process flow that’s ineffective. The patchwork problem is, all the departments work within their own silos to resolve issues. They fail to recognize departmental interrelationships in the process, and never actually resolve the end-to-end process problems for the company as a whole. The root cause of process break-downs is never really corrected.
Or, companies take a tunnel vision approach, looking internally to find the cause of a process problem without ever considering the customer point of view. But consider the problem with this particular tactic. Without knowing fully what the customer expects their service experience to be, how can a business improve that experience? What matters is how the customer perceives the experience they have, not your business.
How do you start to fix the issues?
We’ll reiterate. Understanding and addressing the root cause of issues in the service delivery process requires a strong commitment organizationally, beginning with senior management. This is a commitment of time, perseverance, and the appropriate resources. It starts by taking these four steps:
- Establish a cross-functional team of key stakeholders within the organization, commissioned by senior management. Buy-in from senior level managers is critical. Outside professionals who specialize in process efficiency and who understand best practices in this area might also be required to augment the cross-functional team.
- Conduct whiteboard sessions to identify major issues within the organization. Wherever possible, this step should include customer feedback, either directly or via survey responses. The goal of these sessions is to identify key process and workflow issues within the company overall. At a high level, the goal is additionally to document the impacts of the issues on your internal effectiveness, and on your customers.
- Once the key issues have been identified, put the expertise of the cross-functional group to work. Develop a plan to prioritize the process issues, determining which ones to address first. It’s critical to understand how each process impacts other processes/workflows organization-wide. The plan should include a high-level timetable for addressing each process.
- Present the findings to senior management and secure their buy-in. Once you have the required buy-in, create the appropriate team to address each prioritized process/workflow. In creating this team, include individuals involved in other processes/workflows that intersect with or impact the particular process you’re addressing. The team’s makeup can range from front line staff who are intimate with the details of a process/workflow, to decision makers who can help team members work through organizational barriers, monitor progress, and determine whether the team is on the right track.
The team is ready
Participants in this effort must understand a critical reality before they tackle existing issues. The problems they’re addressing didn’t appear overnight, and they won’t get fixed overnight. The key to solving any process/workflow issue is to follow a proven, defined methodology to identify and ultimately deal with the root causes.
Step 1: Document the current process, including communication flows
Observe staff such as contact center agents as they perform customer service work. Meet with and interview individuals who are involved in the process. And potentially, meet with customers if possible, who can provide the external view of what it’s like to interact within a certain process to achieve a result. To perform this step effectively, any combination of these activities might be necessary.
Documentation in this step should include (but not necessarily be limited to) these points of emphasis:
- Systems that are used in the process. Or rather than actual “systems,” it might be spreadsheets or other manual tracking mechanisms that don’t provide an end-to-end view of the process. Regardless, all of these components need to be documented, as that’s the only way to recognize potential process problems like redundancies and inefficiencies, lack of error tracking, insufficient quality checks, and workarounds to circumvent existing issues.
- Individuals who have a role in the existing process.
- Current levels of documentation within the process, regardless of how manual they are.
- Existing SLAs.
- Current escalation points.
- Existing timeframes associated with process completion, at an activity level, and at an end-to-end level.
- Existing methods to measure the effectiveness of the process.
Step 2: Document how the process touches or intersects with other processes
Determine just how far-reaching this process is, and how potential changes will impact other workflows within the company. It’s not uncommon that each process will have multiple interaction points among multiple departments across the organization, so avoid the “patchwork quilt” approach by at least being aware of potential impacts.
Step 3: Objectively analyze the current process
Review the documentation of the process, and ask questions that will help you derive just what needs to be done next, including, but not limited to:
- Are the systems/tools currently used effective?
- Is there consistency in performing the process — if several people are performing the same functions, are they doing it the same way; have they been trained consistently, etc.?
- Is documentation available for this process?
- Are there current SLAs for steps within the process?
- What happens if those SLAs aren’t met?
- What’s the impact of the timeframe it takes to complete the process?
- Is there currently a methodology to measure the success of the process?
Step 4: Based on the answers to the questions in Step 3, start to develop a plan
Now that you’ve analyzed the existing process, it’s time to start developing a plan to address the issues. At a minimum, you should:
- Document all trouble points within the process.
- Assess and evaluate how these “gaps” can be addressed.
- Document the “to be process,” addressing the gaps you’ve identified.
- Develop and document a plan to address all activities required to effect change. For example, new systems and technologies, employee training, cultural shifts, customer education, and changes in interactions with other processes.
- Evaluate whether technology can be used to streamline or automate the process. For example, will business process automation (BPA) and analytics help you to better measure the effectiveness of a process and recognize and address issues on a timely basis?
Step 5: If appropriate, look for the right technology and technology partner
By this point in the methodology, you’ve gone a long way toward getting the business end of the process right. Still, securing the right technology — BPA for instance — might be necessary to achieve final success. Readiness to adopt that technology is critical, as is having the right partner to carry your vision forward and make sure you implement the technology effectively.
Step 6: Post-change calibration
Business dynamics change, both internally within the organization and externally from a customer perspective. To deal with change effectively, and to be proactive in dealing with it, the entire organization must adopt a culture of continual improvement. It must constantly measure process effectiveness and adjust the process, as needed, to adapt to change. When done attentively, it helps a company avoid the pitfalls that can cause problems in the customer service delivery process in the first place. 
This article is adapted from the white paper “The Exceptional Customer Experience: It’s All About the Process” by Diane Halliwell, Director of Contact Center Solutions at Align, LLC, and Gina Clarkin of Interactive Intelligence, Inc.
Download the full white paper at www.inin.com.