Be Different or be dead

August 26, 2019

How a winning customer service strategy can be simple to build

Source: Pexels

How a winning customer service strategy can be simple to build.

It’s all very well to say that you intend to compete and win in the marketplace by providing unmatched customer service, but exactly what does it mean?

How can you make this vision more than merely an aspiration?

What does it look like when your business plan’s strategic intent is being successfully executed in the field?

What behaviors do you witness? What customer feedback do you get? What service quality metrics are relevant?

The service strategy

Your service strategy is the call to action for how you intend to deliver the ultimate in serving customers; without a service strategy you won’t have the execution elements in place to see your vision become reality and you’ll be like many other organizations that want to dazzle their customers but fall short of the mark because they can’t execute.

The service strategy is intended to breathe life into your service vision by specifying the exact deliverables you intend to deliver to customers and the results you expect.

It is the promise, if you will, you intend to deliver to the marketplace that makes you unique in the crows of organizations all wanting to be the service Czar.

Lack of a service strategy clouds the issue. People are not clear on how to behave, on the results expected and on the measurements that are relevant.

Your service strategy should reflect two components:

#1. Core service

Core service is the basic good or service you produce, without which your business doesn’t exist. Core service is WHAT a person GETS when they do business with you.
— In the financial business it’s an investment plan that protects the client’s assets and grows them according to their personal lifestyle goals;
— In telecom, it’s a video channel that functions with no intermittent breaks in transmission;
— In the air travel space it’s delivering passengers and their luggage safe and when they were promised;
— For the movers of households, it’s delivering someone’s personal belongings to their destination on time, on budget without breaking anything.

People expect your core service to be provided flawlessly every time they engage with you and they don’t give you plaudits when you do. For example, I’ve never heard anyone say “WOW! it’s absolutely amazing that you delivered my furniture from Toronto to Vancouver without anything being broken!” 

But the converse is also true. If an organization can’t deliver its core service consistently, they are criticized and the word is spread about how bad their service is.

#2. The service experience

The second component of a service strategy is the service experience they enjoy when they engage with you…. HOW they FEEL when they do business with you; how they FEEL when they are receiving your core service.
— When buying online, is it easy to navigate the pages to find what you want? Is there a chat function that allows you to ask questions rather than have to browse the FAQ page?
— When ordering internet service, how long do you have to wait before you get a call center rep?
— Does your financial analyst make themselves available when you need to see them? Are they respectful of your needs and wants?

Unlike core service, providing a delightful service experience gets you plaudits. People remember what you did for them and they tell others how great you are. AND they stay loyal for as long as the same service experience is created for them.

Both core service and the service experience must be addressed in your service strategy. Here’s and example of a service strategy my team developed for a business organization I lead:

“We are easy to do business with. We care.
We provide and support innovative quality solutions.
We make promises and always keep them. If we fall short of our strategy, RECOVERY will be our #1 priority”

Core service elements are covered — solutions are provided (not products); promises are kept.

The service experience is addressed — a caring attitude is expected; recovery is invoked when a mistake is made; systems and processes are created to make it easy for people to transact business.

Once your service strategy has been articulated its a great idea to workshop it with all teams in the organization to define what each function must do to play their part.

For example, what does the strategy mean to sales? In the above case, sales must focus on developing solutions for customers; flogging products is verboten. And relationship building skills are required with a caring attitude. Do the same for every part of the organization so that everyone is working together toward the common service goal.

And build the performance expectations into everyone’s annual performance plan to ensure it’s given the priority it deserves.

If you pay attention to these tactics you will see your service vision come to life!

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 8.26.19 at 12:24 am by Roy Osing
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August 24, 2019

The surprising side gigs of some famous and creative people

The surprising side gigs of some famous and creative people.

In recent years the benefits of cross-training have been put in the spotlight. Employers are cross-training their employees, athletes are cross-training their bodies, and studies have shown that cross-training your mind can drastically impact your career.

Cross training is now a priority

Prioritizing time away from your daily tasks to devote to hobbies or side gigs can help you push past creative blocks and spark new ideas.

Though the benefits of cross-training your mind are just being realized, the practice of taking a break from your craft to inspire new ideas is centuries old.

Did you know that Emily Dickinson was an avid baker? She would often retreat to her kitchen and find so much inspiration that she would have to scrawl poems on the backs of her recipes.

Many creatives throughout history have had similar practices.

Invaluable put together this infographic that highlights 8 famous creatives who had side hobbies that significantly impacted their careers.

Whether you are an author, an engineer, or a personal assistant, prioritizing a hobby could be the key to your next big career move. If you are struggling to find inspiration or just feel stuck, make time for your interests and see how cross-training your mind can impact your productivity and creativity.

— Emma Welsh is a writer at Invaluable.com, the world’s leading online marketplace for fine art, antiques and collectibles. You can see more of her and her colleagues’ work here.

• Posted 8.24.19 at 04:40 am by Roy Osing
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August 19, 2019

Why a bad strategic goal to chase is to be ‘the best’

Source: Pexels

Why a bad strategic goal to chase is to be ‘the best’.

Every organization wants to establish a competitive advantage in the markets they serve. And they all look to creating a claim that establishes themselves in the dominant position.

These types of declarations pervade the communications space.

— “We offer the best network”

— “Our services provide the best value for money in the business”

— “Our customer service is better than our competition”

— “We have the best people in our industry”

— “Our sales support is best in class”

These types of claims don’t cut it in today’s world of intelligent discerning customers and intense competition.

A hope and a prayer

They are aspirational statements that don’t provide any meaningful guidance to people in the organization in terms of what they should do and how they should behave to live the strategy.

Lack of meaning

They don’t give customers any meaningful information that helps them understand the competitive claim. For example the largest Telecom Company in Canada claims to have the ‘best network’ among their competitors. Is this useful information to a customer? Does it explain the characteristic of their network that makes it the best?

No proof

They are difficult if not impossible to prove particularly in terms that address customer needs. In my experience, claims of this nature attract internal organizational statistics to ‘prove’ the claim and not specific attributes that are compelling to customers. They talk to the internal audience rather than the external one.

A competitive claim based on how different your organization is, on the other hand, forces you to define in precise terms how you are unique among your competitors.

Through the use of The ONLY Statement, a detailed assessment of the competition is done and is correlated with the critical desires of the customer groups you have chosen to serve. And it leverages the competencies and skills of the organization.

Here’s an example:

“We are the ONLY team that provides integrated safety solutions that go beyond the needs of our customers ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. We are committed to grow our customer’s business. We ONLY serve safety.”

The ONLY Statement informs the organization what specifically it intends to do that is unique in the marketplace and it declares to the customer what specific value and benefits will be delivered to them — it provides a framework for measuring and proving the competitive claim.

Winning is not about comparative and superlative claims in any event. They are not needed. You don’t have to be better than another company or best among your competitors to succeed and survive. You need to be different in some meaningful way.

Provide relevant, compelling and UNIQUE value to those you have chosen to serve and the spoils of the battle will flow your way.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 8.19.19 at 01:27 am by Roy Osing
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July 29, 2019

How a small business can be better than their competitors

How a small business can be better than their competitors.

If you own or operate a small business, how much time do you spend developing your business strategy? If you’re like most small business owners, not much.
Every small business leader is busy working IN their business; they don’t necessarily spend enough time working ON their business.

I often hear “I don’t have time to plan, I’m too busy running my business”, or “Everything is so unpredictable these days I don’t see the point.” They are consumed by day-to-day priorities and crises and have little time and energy left to develop a strategy for their business.

In addition, developing a strategic plan is often viewed as an expensive, complicated and time consuming activity that is an interruption to the “normal” flow of business.

The truth is that every business needs a strategy; otherwise progress can’t be measured and success never achieved.

Building your strategy doesn’t have to be a complicated time consuming exercise; I have developed an approach that results in having your strategy in not more than three days, and you can begin executing it on the fourth.

To not have a plan is to aimlessly bump and grind along, accepting whatever performance you can deliver.

My strategic game plan — SGP — makes it easy for you to plot your future. It can be created in less than 2 days with your small business leadership team in an informal and fun setting.

It’s called a ‘game plan’ because the focus is to build a just about right direction that can be executed rather than waste time trying to create the perfect plan which looks good on paper but no more.

My process is based on discovering the answers to 3 questions; the answers define the strategy.

#1. Growth — HOW BIG do you want to be?

Do you want $1 million in revenue within 24 months or do you want to be more aggressive and go for $5 million?

Most planning processes end with financial results. They calculate the growth results of executing the strategic direction chosen.

My process starts with your growth intentions, and builds the strategy from HOW BIG you want to be. The reason is simple: more aggressive growth goals require a more aggressive — and risky — strategy, and more moderate growth goals need a more incremental — and less risky — strategy.

The traditional planning approach forgets that there is an extremely tight relationship between revenue growth and strategic intent; my strategic game plan doesn’t and that’s what makes my approach DiFFERENT than others.

#2. Customers — WHO do you want to SERVE?

You have a goal to grow revenue 25% annually over the next 36 months. The next question is where are you going to get it? Where are you going to invest your scarce resources of time and money?

You have a choice here; customers are not all created equal and you need to focus on those who have the potential of satisfying your growth goals and that leverage the core competencies of your business.

It boils down to selecting a group of customers who collectively have the potential to generate the revenue you have decided to go after.

To get the right answer to this question requires an intimate understanding of the various customers you serve. You can’t choose the customer group to generate the revenue you covet if you don’t understand the propensity of your various customer segments to buy from you — discover their secrets and success will follow.

#3. Competitors — HOW will you compete and WIN?

It would be nice if you were the only provider of products and services to the customer group you’ve chosen, but that’s not likely to be the case. There is likely to be healthy aggressive competitors targeting the same customers you want to target, so the challenge you face is to determine how you will differentiate your organization from all others you will be competing with.

Why should people choose your organization when they have other choices available? What makes your team special in view of the alternatives available?

If you can’t give your chosen customers relevant, compelling and unique reasons why they should buy from you and not your competitors then unfortunately you have no other option but to compete by offering lower prices than everyone else, which is rarely a viable long term strategy for a small business with limited economies of scale and scope.

HOW to WIN is intended to explore the competencies of your organization that you can exploit to gain a sustainable competitive advantage over others who compete with you for the customers you’ve chosen to serve — the WHO.

My method is to create the ONLY statement that defines precisely what you and only you provide the customers you are targeting.

SGP soundbite — The final step in my process is to integrate the answers to all three questions as the high level summary of the strategic intent you’ve chosen.

“We will (HOW BIG) by focusing our scarce resources on (WHO to SERVE). We will compete by (HOW to WIN).”

Here’s an example:

“We will grow sales revenue by 25% over the next 36 months by serving the needs of four seasons vacationers in Washington State. We will compete and win by being the only organization creating personalized experience packages that incorporate the many activities that Whistler has to offer.”

The traditional business planning process has its limitations for small business. It generally requires more time than the small business leader has to devote to the task, and it costs more than most small businesses are prepared to pay.

3 questions; 3 answers that will define an effective strategy for your small business because it recognizes the special challenges that small businesses face.

Give it a try.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 7.29.19 at 01:06 am by Roy Osing
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