As this week is National Customer Service Week I thought it was appropriate to write my first post on a customer service-related subject.
Having been at the Business Process Excellence in Financial Services Exchange at Canary Wharf recently, here is a summary of the main points and a discussion around one of the key themes: customer centricity.
The event was focused around improving business agility and performance whilst reducing cost and complexity. Senior figures from across financial services gathered and shared views and experiences on how improving business processes will deliver this.
One question raised by eg was the metrics for process improvement – where did these derive from, was the management information trusted? Did it identify prioritisation of improvement activities, monitor current and proposed process improvement and operationalise agreed improvements? For almost all the answer was no.
Customer centricity was certainly a key theme amongst the delegates. One thing for sure is that people will need to make the quantum leap to do this. Ensuring success will be no different to any other complex project. Typical programme issues will be:
• getting executive sponsorship/stakeholder support
• making sure that you are addressing the right business problems
• training versus knowledge transfer.
In a sample survey of attendees at the event, 40% said they will actively take up a customer centricity programme following the conference.
Relatively few organisations have made significant progress in creating customer-focused organisations. Whilst customer centricity is about thinking from the customer’s perspective, it is important not to forget the internal operational drivers that support this; such as end to end customer service management and aligning the resources of your firm to effectively respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer.
Can you answer from a fact based perspective if you are actively managing work, people and processes consistently to deliver enhanced service to the customer? I suspect many can’t or don’t have the real-time management information to do so.
I have a number of case studies of companies who are succeeding that I can share with you, so if you would like any of these then please email me at ask@eguk.co.uk