How can you equip client services teams with the right tools and resources for Service Operations?

My global Leadership & Management experience shows that: 1) BASICS: “what gets measured, can be evaluated for improvement “. 2) Do a deep-dive on how the customer journey, touch-points and the processes to support it look like. 3) Identify fields of action and priority. 4) Establish, in agreement and consultancy with all stakeholders involved, what are the KPI’s, core values and mission of your company, business partners and for sure, customer centric; and establish the real and sustainable strategy for achieving those. 5) THE STEPS FORWARD: constant, consistent disruptive open/honest improvement (Kaizen), no static approach, the whole evolves and evolutes with the changing/evolving market and customers requirements.

My global Leadership & Management experience shows that: 1) THE SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES shall work for you, not the other way around; don’t underestimate the crucial importance of the right IT and digital infrastructure to support a seamless experience and processes, not only for the customers, but also for your Organization/Staff. 2) Make the architecture and design of these systems a part of the ground-zero start of the project/strategy conception. Otherwise, it might be extremely difficult and expensive to do it later. 3) Have clear in mind, if this could be done in-house, or you better choose a proper business partner to do that for you. Concentrate on your main focus business. If your Organization is not a software house, outsource.

The most highly rated client facing interactions consistently involve quick execution or resolution. You want the service or product to at minimum meet the client or customer's expectations and preferably to exceed them. This only happens when the team is trained and empowered to make the right decisions quickly. This includes the support teams for issue resolution. The goal is 100% satisfaction on the front end but things happen so the support teams need to be just as knowledgeable and empowered to quickly resolve issues or even just answer questions. The whole team must be knowledgeable about the entire process from start to finish.

My global Leadership & Management experience shows that: 1) KNOWLEDGE is the key for success. 2) Not simply development and clear training programs of “hard skills”; “soft skills are extremely important and often forgotten/put as secondary priority. 3) Have a clear training and development programme for all stakeholders/staff and in some specific cases, even business partners and customers. Communication is key. If we are not able to explain what, why, where and how we would like/want to achieve/go for, all the training strategy might not match to the market reality.