Process for Action

How does your company operate? Are you “winging it” or do you have a plan and a process to get things done?  

According to urbandictionary.com “winging it” means to improvise with little preparation.

There may be successful companies that don’t plan much. But in my experience, without a plan and process to improve the customer experience - nothing happens. 

Companies are much more likely to achieve their goals when their systems and processes work together. This was recently reinforced when a business colleague shared a successful example of using customer feedback in a very tangible way. 

• The VOC program identified issue resolution as a priority area for the support organization. Open case age was over 50 days. A customer could easily get lost in the shuffle. Eventually many had to call in again and start all over. (How frustrating would that be?) 

• The team put a big focus on managing and reducing open case age in their action plan. They created global visibility around the issue and built accountability into the process. (No winging it here!)

• As a result, open case age has dramatically declined. The customer experience is better and customers are more satisfied with the time it takes to resolve issues. 

Case age has been reduced by 67%, but they’re not done yet. The team is working to reduce it even more - and they will. They have the discipline to stick with the process and make a difference.

“Winging it” usually isn’t enough to execute a customer focused strategy. Aligning the customer results effort with process improvement is critical to your success. 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services