We all have that one book that speaks to us. We feel as though it was written specifically with us in mind. That the author had a picture of us taped to the wall as the book was being written.
For me, it is Michael Gerber’s book, “The E-Myth Revisited.” The story of Sarah’s journey in her bakery was fun to read, but more importantly, the lesson of the book has become a mantra of mine:
Get the same result, every time.
I say this to my team daily.
We all have products and services to sell, but at the end of the day our clients grade us on experience. Don’t you grade your experiences with businesses, restaurants or distribution?
This is why the automating processes is an import aspect to making the experience better for your client base. Here is a sampling of some of the processes you might try to automate:
- Onboarding. What happens when new clients join your organization? Think about the last time you unboxed a new piece of electronics – what did it feel like opening the box, was the ‘quick guide’ front and center? Think about when you join Netflix or any other online service – did you get an intro email and was it easy or intuitive to start using the service? What happens now when a new client start working with your company – do you create an invoice and move on, or is there any effort to increase the relationship and bring additional value to the client.
- Account Management. Once you have a client, what is the process to keep them active, aware of what you are doing for them and how you can add more value or upsell services. If you do not have an Account Management process, discuss what it may look like. Start small, schedule a quarterly meeting and bring them donuts. Every quarter, increase the value and soon you’ll have a more loyal client base.
- Offboarding. It’s going to happen – a client is going to leave and while this may be a sad event, it shouldn’t be left to chance. What will your company do to help the client exit cleanly and free up your staff quickly as they transition out. The faster your team can contribute to paying clients and not on lost revenue, the better. Map out what the steps your team has to perform, or just a document to sent to the client that maps out the tasks on their end. Never know when they may come back.
- Hold a team meeting to identify what are current processes that are done manually – even better, workflow out what your team does on an ongoing basis for clients and discuss wasy to automate or cut down on unnecessary tasks to increase productivity.
We have more than 300 individual processes or templates to manage that side of the house. If you want help building a similar routine that will help you get the same result every time, please reach out to me at [email protected].