Is there a better way of doing things?

When customers tell us we are doing something wrong, what can we do about it? Putting things right isn’t always easy and the solution might look unaffordable. In practice there are two fundamental areas to approach; people and process. People often blame the culture, but in reality this may only be a symptom.

We have helped our clients to find solutions by mapping the present marketing processes, reviewing them with the management team and identifying process improvements that could be made both now and in the future. This can find some ‘quick fixes’ for the short term and defines the long-term solution. Key activities in the analysis are to:

• Diagram the service's components and who delivers them. This is likely to throw up the issue of process ownership.
• Define the potential 'fail-points' or 'moments of truth' where there may be problems.
• Set execution standards in terms of the most important performance criteria for each service step.
• Identify the key customer encounter points and 'evidence of service'.

Where we need specific technical input, for example on IT or call centre issues, we use one of our technical associates.

Case study - Marketing Re-engineering

A building materials supplier had recently brought together all its regional sales offices into one national call centre. But a customer service audit conducted by Leading Edge, to determine the impact made by the operation of the call centre, revealed relatively low scores by its customers. The benchmarking against key competitors showed that changes had to be made urgently.

The customer contact processes were defined by interviewing call centre staff, field sales representatives and logistics staff and then by flow charting the processes. From these, it was possible to identify the constraints imposed by the defined processes and where short term improvements could be made. But by taking an overview of the customer’s need, we were able to define how the ‘contact’ processes should be designed. On the ‘people’ factor we were able to provide a view of how the jobs could be changed to improve overall performance, facilitate training on the job and increase staff motivation.

What our clients have said when using us for marketing re-engineering consultancy:

• "The language used was about right so we know what you are talking about. It keeps us to date with marketing techniques etc but with no waffle"

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