Years before I became a lawyer in private practice, I used to help run a tech marketing and publicity firm with offices in 5 cities. At our peak, we did over $25 million a year in sales, and had a staff of 250 people working full-time for some of the best-known companies in the world. But when I first started at that company, we only had 20 or so employees. In ten years’ time we went through remarkable growth.
How did we manage that growth? At first, we did so organically, but once a company reaches a certain size, the Founders don’t know everyone by name anymore. Culture changes, and it is up to the top-line managers to convey and share the culture of the Founders, in hopes of keeping it alive and growing.
When you become a manager in a growing business, you have to think about a bunch of things. One of the most important is how to most effectively teach someone to do their job. Because a company won’t grow, if only one person has to sign off on every decision. You have to learn how to delegate – and TRUST your employees to do the right thing – or you won’t grow. It’s “Growth Hack #1” – learn how to effectively delegate.
So what does this have to do with “Consistency”? Isn’t that what this blog post is supposed to be about?
Answer: If you want your clients to have a consistent experience, whether you are in the office that day or not, then you need to train your staff how to handle common customer inquiries. There may be ten different ways to solve a customer problem – and they may all be legitimate, they all work, they all yield the “right” result. But you can’t teach your employees to do things ten different ways. It’s just not practical.
So a big part of business growth is delivering the customer a consistent experience. That takes customer training, and an understanding of WHY consistency is so important. Your staff may think they are doing a good thing by giving a customer “something extra” – but then that customer is going to expect that treatment every time in the future. Then every other customer will expect that something extra.
Now, of course customer satisfaction should drive every business, but you have to be aware of actual costs, actual services, actual fees involved if you are going to run your business effectively, based on accurate information.
Remember to give your customers a CONSISTENTLY EXCELLENT experience. That starts with being great every time. That takes training and practice.
That’s today’s Business Tip. Thanks very much.
