Seven Principles for Growth
Presented by Sam Carpenter to an industry forum of 60 Answering Service owners in Las Vegas, February 2000. The points can be adapted for any business or profession.
Information Systems Integration. At Centratel we moved from five separate databases to a single integrated information system that instantly provides accurate and comprehensive data to our staff. This system, which includes an intranet website, immediately gives our staff members the information they need to make fast and informed decisions. Customer complaints, once logged into the system, can’t be lost in the shuffle. A complaint from our "Critical" or "Super-Critical" classed accounts is instantly broadcast to all company managers. The manager assigned to solve the problem will receive reminders in the days and weeks subsequent to the incident indicating the need for follow-up contacts to the customer. The entire record of the client’s customer service history is instantly available to customer service personnel. In addition, several hundred documented systems and procedures are instantly available through the company intranet. It was a massive undertaking but absolutely necessary for growth.
Truly understanding the "errors of Omission" theory of telecommunications. We built our systems and procedures, and the company structure itself, around the concept that most problems stem from things that don’t happen, details that are left out and moves that aren’t made. From phone calls that aren’t returned, to incomplete explanations on billings to lack of follow-up to customer complaints to services that are given away free, it’s a matter of doggedly plugging up the holes and then going the extra mile. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Ownership must trust the subjective. When contemplating investment in a new idea and/or equipment, or deciding on the next major move, empirical and objective information is not always available or reliable. Historically, and with clockwork miscalculation, "experts" have repeatedly and powerfully extolled the "next great service" that would send our individual businesses to extreme profitability. What to do? It’s the owner’s courage that will reject these tempting new possibilities while exploiting the un-measurable possibilities which are subjectively obvious, benign in nature and most often not at all exciting.
Focusing on Prime Time. Each manager has a job description that lists particular duties. It’s "prime time" (PT) when the manager is spending physical time on the tasks that require their special skill. For example, our marketing manager’s PT includes training sales personnel and R&D on new products. Non-PT would be double-checking database entries for accuracy or any recurring tasks that can be performed by administrative personnel. It’s a matter of remembering Steven Covey’s message about spending the majority of time performing "important and non-urgent" tasks. In contrast, employing a manager who spends the majority of his or her time performing administrative paperwork functions is an incredible waste of time and money.
Bread and Butter Services. What are the products that have historically performed for the company? Over and over again we have spent energy, time and money to investigate new services that sound oh-so-cutting-edge only to find that in the real world, no one really cared…and, we realized that while we were distracted, the simple services we had been quietly providing continued to sell month after month, year after year. Could the time spent with R&D on these new ideas be better spent bringing the company up to a higher level of internal communications, a really superior level of customer service and/or developing a truly aggressive marketing strategy?
Train, Train, Train. We constantly assign reading and research to staff members. Also, we have a bank of training videos in which I have downloaded everything I know regarding sales, technical details, the fundamentals of operation, etc. Once a video is completed, that’s all the time required by me for training for that specific subject. It is only a matter of getting the staff member to take the time to watch the video and then follow up with a quiz.
Create a customer service department. If customer services are provided to clients by simply adding another item to a staff members existing job description, then customer service won’t happen. There will always be too many fires to put out. Hire and train staff to do nothing but customer contact and service. It’s a gutsy and subjective decision.
