I would offer that most of us make things too complicated. We take something simple and for a variety of reasons we make it more complex. Complex to a point where it almost becomes unusable. This doesn’t (shouldn’t) happen if we step back and look at what we are really trying to accomplish.
Start by looking at many of the processes you have in your business for your various departments such as operations, sales, marketing, management, or something else. At first look you might think they are really great and efficient…but are they easy to execute? And most importantly, how do they impact your CUSTOMER? Is your customer happier because of your existing
processes or are they potentially less happy because of the way you are doing something?
Often times the beasts we have created, called business processes, work against our overall ultimate objective of making our customers lives easier and better. They end up getting designed and built to make things more efficient and effective FOR US instead of OUR CUSTOMERS. I’m sure this was never your intent, but it happens. We took something simple and made it complex for the sake of being more efficient internally or saving some time or money for our employees…but not our customers.
I would challenge all of us to step back and take a deeper look into what we are doing in our businesses and why. Ultimately, asking the question, “Why are we doing this that way,” should be focused around how we help our customer’s lives or their businesses. The real question we should be asking is, “How is this making our customers life (or business) easier and better than it was before they came to us?” This is the question that gets lost in our efficiency and complexity changes. It shouldn’t be this way…let’s change that.
I would argue that using “COMMON SENSE” is a great place to start…it’s where I start when I talk (or work with) any business owner or executive. It’s not that hard…but it takes quite a bit of discussion to help get leaders back to the basics of their business…and how it impacts their customers.
For example, from a very simplistic (and practical) perspective, it’s fundamental to ask “Why are you in the business you are in today?” Hint…it isn’t to make money (that’s a result) or you have missed the point. You are doing what you are doing for a purpose…it’s time to go back to that purpose. Granted, it isn’t generally an easy discussion for many who have been in business awhile, but nevertheless, it is a very valuable discussion to have. Sometimes this takes several hours to days for me to ferret this out for a business.
But even after this discussion, a more “common sense” and powerful question should be, “What are we doing to make our customers lives better today and how are we making them feel after they interact with us?” This is a very difficult question for most leaders to answer…and their employees generally have no idea either, they were just told to do certain things as part of their job. But I can guarantee you that your customer is asking this question every time they deal with you and your employees.
The “common sense” side of this says we should step back and come up with some simple, yet powerful answers. The simple, common sense, gut feel answers hold the solution for any company. They are the ones that are easy to understand and your customer is looking for. They don’t want to hear about all the fancy processes, they just want you to make and keep your promises and treat them as if they are the most important person to your company. That’s it…very simple. But we make it complex…too complex.
I’ve been there too…more times than I would like to admit. One day in particular a few decades ago this happened to me when I was working for a Fortune 100 company and leading a group to implement an IT solution. After we gave a very detailed and “complex” about all of our fancy stuff on fancy slides with fancy pictures (and far too many words), the CEO/Business Owner made a comment I will never forget. He simply said, “This looks really complex and expensive to me.” I just had a major life lesson and blow to the gut…he was exactly right.
He didn’t get it…he didn’t see the simplicity of how it would help him to help his customers better, and he only saw complexity and the high price of this complexity. He wanted a simple, easy to understand common sense solution he could wrap his head around and see how it was going to help his customers and make them happier than they were today. I didn’t get it either back then…I forgot about common sense and went for the complex. We lost the sale…and rightfully so.
Here’s a suggestion for you and your leadership team. Step back, start asking simpler questions about your business and how the things you do affect your customers. Be honest with yourselves and don’t try to justify why you are doing things a certain way today. Take a fresh view of what is truly happening so you can analyze it…FROM THE CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE. Act like customers of your own business and see how you would feel if you were being treated the way you are treating your customers right now. Again, BE HONEST about it and do some introspection and self-analysis with your team. This isn’t a one hour staff meeting exercise…this could take days, and possibly weeks, depending on your business.
Use your “common sense” abilities and ask if you think this makes sense. Start at ground zero and work up to what is happening in the business. Start with the basics…such as something simple like how you answer the phones throughout your business. How does something this simple project how much you care about your customers, the ones who pay for everyone to be working there? Then look at more involved activities, such as how your customers feel when they walk into your place of business. How are they greeted? Do they feel like the most important customer you have and they look forward to coming into your offices?
Simple questions to ask…but massive impacts on your customer and how they think of you.
Go back to using your “common sense” and if it doesn’t feel right to you I can absolutely guarantee it doesn’t feel right to your customer. Do the introspection, do the work of really analyzing what is going on in your business with your customers.
I CAN GUARANTEE IT WILL CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS (AND PERSPECTIVE) FOREVER.
If you want to talk more about this, have a question, or need more guidance on how to approach this, shoot me a message and I’ll be happy to discuss this in more detail and give you some guidance in this area. My treat…my passion is to get every company treating all their customers back to the way we should (and expect) to be treated. After all, aren’t they the ones keeping your doors open?
