PART 3

Part 3:Hire An Amazing

Team: Ensuring Customer Consistency When

You’re AwayIn Part 1, we talked about mastering the basics of business to be able to take a vacation and actually enjoy it without worrying if it’s going to fail before you return.

In Part 2, we talked about how to create and leverage systems and KPIs to ensure your business becomes a well-oiled machine that works without you.

In Part 3, we are going to talk about how to hire and effectively communicate with employees to ensure customer consistency when you’re away from the business.

A study of 27,000 American consumers by McKinsey & Company has found that a consistent customer experience across the entire customer journey will increase customer satisfaction, build trust and boost loyalty.

Team consistency is the key to customer satisfaction.  As a business owner or marketing manager, you must build a team that supports your foundation and delivers consistent customer satisfaction.

• Owner supports the team by giving direction, giving leadership, paying bills, staying profitable, paying wages, giving encouragement, building systems, etc. etc.

• Team supports the customer with great sales skills, great service, great quality and great consistency.

• Customers support the business by coming back more often, spending more on each visit and telling their friends about you.

• And in the turn the business supports the owner through profits and over time less hours worked.

The biggest and most important result of a high performing and motivated team is a consistent customer experience.

It’s well understood that companies must continually work to provide customers with superior service, with each area of the business having clear policies, rules, and supporting mechanisms to ensure consistency during each interaction. However, few companies can deliver consistently across customer journeys, even in meeting basic needs.

Assess yourself and your business by considering these questions:

• Do I trust my employees to maintain my business while I am away?• Do I have the manpower to make a vacation or business trip possible?• Will my clients receive the attention they need while I’m gone?

Coauthors of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, say:

“Companies that want to produce a high-quality customer experience also need to routinely perform a set of sound, standard practices.”

Three fundamental elements are needed to deliver a consistent customer experience across all communication channels:

1. A unified view of the customer. Each agent needs to have a full view of all interactions that a customer has had over all supported communication channels so that the agent can build on the information and experience that has already been communicated to the customer.  Customers further expect that each interaction with a company adds value to their prior interactions so that, for example, they do not have to repeat themselves to you when you, or another customer service agent, leaves for vacation. 

2. A unified communications model. Companies need to queue, route, and work on every interaction over all communication channels in the same manner, following the company business processes that uphold its brand. 

3. A unified knowledge and data. Agents need to have access to the same knowledge and the same data across all communication channels so that they can communicate the same story to their customers. Unless you have these in place, building a business that thrives when you are away is extremely difficult.

It’s not just customers that need consistency. You teammates and employees need a consistent work environment to be at their best. Will your employees carry on as usual when you’re away? Do they have the motivation to stay productive? Do they have the resources? The skill?

Communicate with clients ahead of time.If you have long-term clients, you'll want to brief them on your vacation schedule well in advance. Try to give them your schedule before the summer starts, and then send out a reminder two weeks before your vacation. At this point, set realistic expectations for your accessibility (will you be checking email/text/voicemail and how often?), as well as let them know if there's a point of contact in your absence.

You’re not likely to enjoy your vacation if your absence leaves critical tasks undone. Thankfully, most of your own responsibilities can be fulfilled by different members of your senior staff, so long as you’ve given them both the information and the authority to perform the needed tasks. This isn’t a task to be undertaken a couple of weeks before you depart, but should be a core element in your business philosophy. Train your people ahead of time, and let them know that they have your trust and support, and the vast majority of those little fires you always have to put out will be taken care of, even in your absence.

Figure out who is in charge of what at all times.The entire team should know their individual roles, as well as if and how that differs while you’re away.

Part of being a leader is being able to let go of the reigns. Your vacation is a perfect opportunity to give your staff a chance to step up their game and take on more responsibilities. Over time you'll come back to a team that is more capable, independent, and confident.

• Does each team members have position descriptions?

• Do you have an organizational chart that tells them who to report to and who they can delegate work to?

• Do you have a 90- action plan?

• A 30-day action plan? How about daily priority tasks?

"A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people." -Jim Collins

Going into vacation mode is more than just putting your business on autopilot. It’s about being confident that your business will effectively function without you around.

Think back to Part 1. Do you have a well-defined mission, vision and company culture? Are they effectively communicated to your team and employees? Do you have core values?

Think back to Part 2. Do you know how to hire people? Do you have systems in place to get out of your own way and let your business and your team operate without you? Do you have KPIs to measure performance?

Remember, hiring an amazing team can make or break your customer experience. And when you have sound, standard practices and a mission to rally their purpose, consistency will follow.

ConclusionThe question should not be if you’re able to take a vacation. It should be how effective is your business going to run without you present.

Again, the purpose of this white paper is to give you a blueprint on how to build a business that runs without you, so you can take that much needed time away.

If you hit roadblocks to creating or developing any of the above, or if you want to chat about how to make your business more efficient, give us a call at 702-582-7301 or visit smithdurant.com to schedule a complementary business consultation.

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