What aspects of your service delivery do your clients most appreciate? Is it different for different clients? Have you asked them lately? How do you determine what is needed for a new client? Whether it is a check-in with an existing client, or onboarding a new one, making sure that your team and their team are on the same page is obviously crucial. I know that sounds like a silly statement, of course it is crucial. But do you spend time on it? Who in your organization has reached out and made this type of contact? You must get the meeting on the books.
Once you can get their attention, make the most of it. There are a few different areas to focus on. The overarching service delivery, identifying other areas of pain (even if the pain is outside of your wheelhouse) and the communication of your value.
Overarching Service Delivery
There is a main reason they employed your team; what is that to them? Once you have that answer, take it at least one, if not two levels deeper. What does the deliverable do for them? What are they able to then achieve because of your service? There may be additional touchpoints you can identify based on the next steps in the process. Anything you can add, supply, or report just helps you become more “sticky.” It brings one more opportunity for you to become just that much more valuable to them and their operation.
Identifying Other Areas of Pain
Next, take some time to see what else your clients are dealing with, including things that do not relate to your product or service. Have a conversation to identify the biggest impediments in their day, week, or month. If they had an easy button, what would they fix first? This does not always bring up something that you can help with, but it does help you see more of your client’s day and gives you additional information about the things they struggle with. Best case scenario, you identify other low-hanging fruit that you can bring to the table. Again, this is one more way to become sticky and expand the relationship.
With any items that are identified that are outside of the current delivery, make sure to not promise anything during the meeting. Take these things back and have a conversation with the team, including everyone from Sales and Marketing to Product to Operations. Get buy-in from everyone before making a commitment that cannot be delivered.
Communication of Your Value
Before you wrap up everything, talk about the ways you can help not only your direct contact see the value you are delivering, but also ways that you can give data to them that would help them communicate that value to the other stakeholders in their organization. It is your responsibility to provide the service and make sure that everyone who has responsibility for approving your cost in the budget knows exactly what that covers and why it should be protected.
Now, you have a list of what is needed. Are these items in your wheelhouse? If the answer is no, it is extremely important to evaluate the feasibility of the request. Will delivering the service take you too far from your core product? Do you have the tools and talent needed to consistently deliver the new line of service? Does it really make sense to take on this business? If the answer is no, get in front of it quickly. Is there a way to get most of what is needed, and you are going back to the client with an estimate based on what you can deliver? Or are you letting them know that you are not comfortable proposing a solution for the need? You do not want to make a commitment that you cannot deliver to the same level of your existing services.
For the items that do make sense to move forward with, do you have the tools? Are you going to start with a manual process to get things mapped out and then build in efficiencies once you have a smooth flow? Above all, get the approval from the people bringing the magic. Even if these are items that are more difficult to deliver, if your colleagues are part of the process to map out the need and buy into the efforts it will take to deliver, it is much more likely that they will be willing to put in the extra effort to grow the business.
Bringing it Home with Reporting
Communicate to both internal and external sources. Make sure the KPIs you put out in front of everyone are showing the value of the service that was agreed upon to your client and meeting the internal KPIs (that all revenue and cost goals are being met.)
Once you set up the measurements, report on them with a regular cadence. Make sure they are trending in the correct way and follow-up immediately if things falter. Make sure that the numbers are not just talk. You must have action behind them.
Your clients should see that you listen to their needs, respond in your delivery of service, and care enough to put metrics in place to monitor and adjust as needed to sustain growth. Do all of this with thought and strategic planning and have the diligence to not promise above your ability to consistently deliver. This doesn’t mean you don’t have stretch goals, or items that you work hard to achieve, but it does mean that you’re not just throwing the dice and hoping to deliver on a service that was agreed upon and a client is counting on.
Tammy Baker, COO, Technology can be reached at tammy.baker@parkertechnology.com. Tammy has been responsible for scaling Parker’s call center operations and technical services to support exponential growth, including a 10x volume of calls. Prior to joining Parker Technology, Tammy held several management positions in customer service, product delivery, IT, warehouse operations and inventory control with Reebok, Cardinal Health, Bluelock, Coeus Technology and Allied Automation. She earned her B.A. from IUPUI in Organizational Leadership and Supervision.
