Oversight…….or Overreach?

Not long ago, I was having a rather involved debate with a leadership team in a call center. We were discussing the merits of allowing the customer retention team to be able to set up voicemails to better assist customers on a more personal level. At the time, the conversation was actually quite maddening…and most of that frustration came from the degree of oversight that the leadership team wanted to have over the voicemail etiquette for the team members.

This level of oversight and control is what I call the “foreground management” model (aka “top-down leadership”). 

In previous posts, I described the idea of “background management”...where the expectation of your employees is that they are professional adults competent and capable of completing the job they were hired to do. What’s demonstrated above would be an example of the quintessential opposite. Foreground management is generally based on the assumption that the employees are incompetent, and that incompetence needs to be mitigated.

There are places where having a foreground management style is appropriate. Anywhere that a specific procedure must be followed to the letter or loss of life/livelihood can occur (heavy manufacturing/industry is a fantastic example of this) is one of them. If you’re in a situation where failure to follow that procedure would lead to serious consequences (i.e. loss of life/equipment/etc.), foreground management is the way to go. Not because you’re working with incompetent employees, mind you! But because the consequences of a mistake are so dire. If you can come up with more than a handful of examples for this, please let me know!

In most businesses, the foreground management style is a stifling environment at best…a morale killing one at worst.

Foreground or Background?

Take the example of my conversation. As we were discussing the best way to go about implementing the ability to use voicemails for their retention team, it was made clear that the management (in their own words) “wanted ‘allllllll’ the oversight”. What their concerns boiled down to was that other departments utilizing voicemails (whom these procedures were being based on) did not have specific requirements for returning calls…nor did the managers have any sort of live-monitoring capability on the voicemail itself. This scenario seems terrifying for leadership teams that are used to the foreground management styles. On the one hand, I could see where they were coming from…you want to have a way of making sure that people are doing their jobs right?

WOAH! Wait a minute!

If you are in the position of needing to make sure people are doing their jobs, why did you hire them in the first place? Obviously, you didn’t hire people based on the assumption that they’re incompetent…nor did you fail to hire working professionals! Now (as a disclaimer) this blog is in no way meant to encourage a laissez faire work environment where employees simply do as they please! There should always be some form of check in/quality assurance/oversight - simply for the sake of making sure your business is running the way you want it to. The trick is to know when the oversight is enough, and when it is too much.

Extraneous Oversight and Accountability

In the case of that call center, departments already using voicemails were set up in such a way that if they weren’t answering the voicemails in a timely manner, it would have an immediate and blatantly obvious effect on customer satisfaction. Specifically, they wouldn’t make the sale! Therefore, any additional oversight was irrelevant. The question that was ultimately posed to the retention department's leadership became “why does a department focused on re-selling need more oversight than a department focused on selling? The numbers achieved by departments utilizing voicemail demonstrate that extraneous oversight to this process is unnecessary.”

Trusted Professionals

A big part of Background Leadership is knowing when to trust the adults you’ve hired to do the right thing. When you set the adult expectations, and address your people as the professionals you want them to be, then they have no reason to fail…except for what you might call an innate desire to not be employed at your company anymore (more on the so-called “quiet quitting” to come in future posts). In a #kingdomclass environment, all leadership needs to do is set the expectation and be there to guide and redirect when it’s not met. That’s the difference between background and foreground leadership. Neither is bad or good, but there’s a time and a place for each. 

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Do you know with absolute certainty what type your business uses? Do you want to know how to become a better guide? Reach out today! We’d be happy to help and be that objective third party for you!

Process Improvement = Business Improvement

Most companies want to be a well-oiled machine…there’s my “no kidding remark” for this post! The best examples are the companies where the background employees (read about who the background employees are in a previous blog post!) are able to give the illusion of being automated by the most sophisticated AI, rather than run by people for how smoothly/quickly everything happens. Well-oiled companies have processes that are so effective that the customer never even knows how complex things may be behind-the-scenes. Companies where the front-line employees are able to set things up, make the sale, upsell, and know that everything else is going to be taken care of by their back-office staff without any further input from them. These companies have done the hard work of process improvement, such that they are constantly improving their business.

Fully well-oiled companies are RARE. More often, companies may do one or two things related to process improvement, but the overall structure of the company remains “that’s how we’ve always done things”. What’s worse though is that frequently, employees in these standard companies will raise a legitimate complaint about a process or procedure, but that complaint never goes anywhere.

Ignoring this opportunity for improvement is where business death begins!

How does your company handle these ideas (read: complaints) for process improvement? Are the idle “oh this never works right” complaints, taken as seriously as the “here’s a problem that we deal with a lot in this department, and here’s my idea for fixing it!” This is honestly one of the most gray of all the gray areas. Some businesses will take these ideas and put them in a big (real or metaphorical) folder…never to be seen or heard from again. Some more proactive businesses will create an internal committee/“think tank” to address the problem. This group will usually come to the conclusion that this isn’t actually a problem and nothing changes, or it will spend so long being debated that nothing helpful happens for far too long. These are the “that’s just how we’ve always done it” companies. And they’re far more common than people think. Often these complaints seem like such a small part of the day-to-day operations that it’s not worth the time investment of thinking about it…much less the monetary investment of fixing it.

Is the investment worth it?

Let’s take a look at this investment from a different angle, though, with a process we’re all used to…making coffee. You have a procedure for making coffee that everyone is used to. Everyone knows how to do it, and it’s just part of daily routine. With the current process, it takes about 30 minutes to get the coffee ready to drink in the morning. The process has a known, set cost in both money and time, and it’s all included in your budget. This is “the way you’ve always done it”.

Here’s the thing…in the breakroom, your employees are always talking about how it feels like they’re wasting time making the coffee when they’d rather be drinking it right off the bat…especially when the coffee pot needs to be cleaned! If your employees feel like they’re wasting time, that’s clue number one that there is a LOT of room for process improvement. When the employees notice that a process is costing them time and/or productivity, they’re less inclined to follow that process. When that happens, mistakes happen…like burned coffee in this case.

How do we start streamlining this process, ultimately improving this business?

Staying with my coffee metaphor, there’s a few things we can do. We can file these issues and complaints away in a “suggestion box”. We all know where that will go! We can put together an internal committee that we all know won’t really get around to the crux of the issue. We can put a Band-Aid on the true issue by simply buying a new coffee pot that will look nicer than the current one. Fancier/newer will buy you maybe a month of fewer complaints, but you’ll still have the same underlying problem in time consumption. What if you brought in an objective third party to set up the best solution that’s tailored to your business - a bit of a stretch for such a simple issue, sure. Take a look at how addressing the underlying issues can pay off in big dividends though -

This third party brings in an improved coffee pot that will grind the coffee for you, is self-cleaning and pulls the water directly from the tap. It doesn’t rely on the assumed courtesy of the person who drinks the last of it to re-brew the coffee, and only takes about 7 minutes to brew a double carafe of excellent coffee on its own. Here’s the catch…it’s a bit of an upfront cost to install, and it requires a maintenance contract to ensure that it keeps running/stays full of coffee beans. Total cost of this new coffee pot? $6,000 plus an annual fee of $1200 for maintenance. That might sound ridiculous, but stay with me….

There’s the old adage…we all know it… “time is money”. Therefore, if you could improve the process of making the coffee so your employees could start drinking it sooner, what would the cumulative savings be? If you could get 20 minutes back every morning, that would be an additional 100+ minutes of productivity each week…that's at least 400 minutes every month! That’s a whopping 4,800 minutes, or 80 hours (!) of additional productivity every YEAR simply because you brought in an objective outsider and changed how you make the coffee in the office. And that’s assuming your office only makes one pot of coffee a day (cue hysterical laughter)! You know your business…with an extra 80 hours of productivity each year, how fast will that upfront investment pay for itself?

This is about WAY more than coffee though…

Here is the whole point of my caffeinated metaphor: there are SO many different “making the coffee” processes in any business. Things that “have always been done this way”. And really, your coffee process probably won’t make or break your business, but being stuck in comfortable routines and fear of change just might. Once that becomes the prevailing mindset, business improvement - business growth - is impossible. You can’t change the big problems without addressing the little ones first! A #kingdomclass company is one who considers the phrase “this is just how we’ve always done it” to be the foulest of curses! What are you doing to avoid that phrase? How are you looking at and analyzing each process in your business objectively? What tools are you using to help? Give us a call, and we’ll show you a few!

Background Management

Want to know a fast way to both irritate employees and empower them at the same time? Start referring to both your management and administrative teams as "background employees"! Sounds backwards right? In today’s society, it almost sounds like a demotion at best…a passive-aggressive insult at worst. People get into management, and they expect to be in charge! Even if it’s not the reason they got into leadership, most people have a degree of (justifiable) pride when they get that promotion. Having authority over others is a sign of trust and responsibility. It’s a mark of authority that often shows appreciation for contributions to the company as well.

Background Leadership

One thing I will often refer to is a concept I like to call “background leadership”. Background leadership, as its name implies, is the concept of leading from the rear. The best leaders are the ones who are not only familiar with this concept, but they embrace it in their personal lives as much as they do in their work life. Its best implementation is when managers and administrative staff are encouraged to support and eliminate obstacles for your front-line employees without them consciously realizing it.

Background leadership is one of the most empowering forms of management. There are many managers/supervisors in the business world who try as hard as they can to embrace this daily! They want to make things as easy for their teams as possible. They don’t want to be getting on everyone’s case for sales, KPIs or processes if they don’t absolutely have to. Managers who work with the “background” mindset want to be there to empower the front-line employee so they can give their customer the best experience possible. They want to teach and help those under them to be the best versions of themselves without turning their team into mindless, task-crunching automatons. They want to see their people succeed and they want their team to enjoy what they do. They want to lead from the background!

Getting Feedback

In a previous post, I talked about reflecting on company habits being one of the hardest things for a business to do. Reflecting on personal habits and interactions, though, is just as difficult. It’s hard to ask for feedback from someone who works “under” you! It’s quite humbling to ask a subordinate what they think of you as a supervisor, and it can be rather frustrating too! Some of the time managers will get an answer that, while honest, puts them on the defensive. “Where does Ted come off criticizing me without knowing half the stuff I do for him behind the scenes!” More often than not, though, they’ll get an answer that tells them absolutely nothing. “I appreciate that compliment, Bill, but it doesn’t help me do any better for you.”

From the employees perspective, giving that feedback directly is just as difficult. It’s unnerving at best to give honest feedback to someone who has the authority to terminate your employment…unnerving if not downright terrifying! There are tons of tools available to get those answers anonymously, but they often require some initiative on the employees part to take the time to use said tool. What if there were a third-party that you could bring in to work directly with the employees to get those answers without any fear of retribution? How much would your management team grow knowing the honest criticism in a way that they could work on it rather than getting defensive? How much more would employees be encouraged to provide #kingdomclass service when they know that their concerns are being heard as much as their praises?

Stay Interviews

At Serve BC, we want to empower YOU! Through our anonymous employee stay interviews, you can get this invaluable feedback to grow your management into the background and let your front-line employees shine!

Simple Multiplication

Something you will often see/hear me talk about is the concept of lasting loyalty. This is not a foreign concept to most business owners. I would actually go so far as to say that it’s highly desirable to most businesses. In a previous blog post, I mentioned that there is value in looking into the “why” behind an employee or a long-time customer leaving. When it comes to keeping a customer, that “why” is demonstrated with a simple act of multiplication.

Let’s say we have an IT company. They are working on getting a new client to sign up for a full service package where the sale is based on the following equation: If I buy this new network setup that does what my current setup does 30% faster and more securely than what I have now, then I will be saving X dollars in saved time & liability! Simple right? That’s how they’re pitching it to this prospective client. They’ve spent the last 6 months building this relationship, and now their new client is ready to sign on the dotted line.

Thus begins the onboarding process!

When you bring on a customer for the first time, there’s often a lot of initial logistics to set up. Getting the POC/customer name, their DOB, their shipping address. For B2B clients, onboarding can include even more time and investment like installing new equipment, establishing payment methods, training on new software/equipment/processes…the list goes on and on. In general, onboarding a new client can take minutes…hours…or even days! That is a LOT of time and money invested in this relationship!

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Before we go on from here, we need to stop and ask ourselves one question: How much do I usually spend upfront on a client to get them onboarded? How much does it cost me in BOTH money AND man-hours? You have to buy the materials upfront….pay your people to install…make sure the sales rep gets their cut…etc. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of hands in the pot before you’ll actually start to break even with this new client. Am I right?

Alright…now that you have a number in your head, here’s the next part of this little exercise:

Take all that money and flush it down the drain! That’s what losing that client means. Oh! You have a contract you say? Well that’s a good start…but most contracts only make sure that you get your initial investment back at best if that client cancels early by buying out the rest of the contract. They do nothing for the loss in long-term revenue. That’s where customer retention becomes an imperative rather than just a “cost of doing business”. Most companies in most industries keep an average of ~78% of their clientele. With that in mind, here is another simple equation for you to consider: 5% = 95%! Yes…you read that correctly! A small increase in your overall retention rate, say 5% for example, can lead to a MASSIVE ROI…as much as a whopping 95% increase in revenue!

So what’s a company to do??

There are TONS of ways to increase customer loyalty to your brand. Treating the customer right with respect goes without saying (I hope). But in today’s competitive markets, that’s not always enough. Beyond that, there’s a slew of other options that range from loyalty programs to annual client cookouts. Use your imagination! At the root of EVERYTHING, though, is knowing your clients well enough to know why they’re still with you. Are they still with you because they know you’re going to keep them up to date with the newest stuff? Are they still with you because they know that you take care of them personally? Are they still with you because they know that 2 more months will get them a 5% loyalty discount? Or…are they still with you because they don’t have a better/competitive option at the moment?

If you can answer that question yourself, my hat goes off to you for your commitment to #kingdomclass! If you can’t answer that question with certainty, that’s not bad! That’s actually typical! What will you do to go above typical, though? How will you get that 5% increase? Take that multiplication exercise from earlier and apply it to your business. How much cash would you ultimately save by having a third party come in and help you work on your retention rate? Give us a call and find out!

That’s not an issue…

Have you ever heard or used the phrase: "That's not an issue we have"? Chances are you have. There are innumerable variations on it. You hear variations on this phrase in every aspect of business. This phrase is often a point of well-earned pride. It comes from business owners who know every issue of their business inside and out. These people have gotten into a good routine of keeping their business running smoothly. Unfortunately, this phrase can also be one of the biggest hindrances to growing a business. What if we took that statement and applied it to a part of business that owners don’t necessarily think of... something that's just a part of doing business:

Turnover

For the most part, these businesses are correct. Employee turnover is not an "issue" they have as much as an expected way of life. What employer would begrudge someone for leaving for a better opportunity? Good for them right? What does it matter when that customer goes to another company because they found a better deal? Cheaper product equals inferior product right?

These are all valid viewpoints...but they will NEVER grow your business. The question you should be asking is much more difficult to be honest and objective with...why was your top performer/best employee looking for something else in the first place? Why did they not feel that there was sufficient opportunity for them? Why was that customer looking for a better deal? What was it about their experience that sent them somewhere else?

These are some of the hardest questions to ask. They're the hardest questions to ask because they require a lot more introspection and self-analysis than anything else you will run into as a business owner. Any business owner knows that it's exceptionally easy to analyze your sales tactics and your product offerings. There are always new procedures and methodologies to try. There is always the latest and greatest to drive sales and improve back-end processes.

Company Habits

Basic human nature tells us that reflecting on your "company habits" (long-held policies, culture and overall environment) is far more difficult. Having a third party come in to review this is even more intimidating. What if something you’ve always taken for granted is shown to be a hindrance? What if the changes they suggest have a high upfront cost?

The best thing to keep in mind through this process is simple: asking yourself if there's anywhere to improve is simply good business. Asking a fresh set of eyes is even better. There’s a saying that is often used in sales...though it may be phrased differently: The riskier the road, the greater the profit. There's always a risk in asking for help...the risk that you won't like the answers you get. The risk that there may be things that need to be addressed that you’ve always said “that’s not an issue we have”. Maybe you even considered what you see as a low turnover rate as a strength of your company. Could it be lower, though? Answering that question is where true growth happens. That’s what sets a business up for #kingdomclass service!

Live to Serve, Serve to Live

For the last 20 years, I have been serving people in some way or another. What started out as a way to earn some extra spending money has turned into a lifelong passion of "doing the right thing". Because of that, I tend to have a very black and white sense of what customer service is, and what separates the good from the better in that regard.

In the last 5 years specifically, that vision has come into focus in a very unexpected way. I've been blessed to have multiple positions where I am the person that is sought out for the How-To of what many call "Kingdom Class Service" . Whether you want to look at that phrase as meaning service fit for a king of men or service befitting the Kingdom of God, it is a phrase that stands out as being the epitome of serving someone else. My own vision has narrowed down to a phrase...a phrase that is now the motto of Serve Business Consulting LLC: "Live to Serve - Serve to Live". What does that phrase mean? The simplest way to explain it is actually to look at it in reverse.

SERVE TO LIVE

"Serve to Live" is just what it sounds like. We all serve someone...clients, customers, family, managers, the state...the list goes on and on. We serve to live...we do something for someone else to get some sort of satisfaction whether monetary or otherwise. Everyone serves someone else so that they can also live their own life.

LIVE TO SERVE

"Live to Serve" is the tricky one. When we "live for something", that’s another way of describing the core or essence of our being. There are those who live for themselves...or those who live for their family...there are even those who simply live for chocolate! What if we all lived to serve, though? What would our society be like if we lived to serve someone else? Family, friends, clients, or random strangers? For me, serving others is the core of my being. The times where I am most happy are those when I am doing something simply because it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that means serving myself...that can include taking a step back or a break. Other times that's serving my community through volunteering or advocating for a cause. Then there are those times where I simply do something for someone else (and no, that's not always done for free).

This is what that sentence means. "Live to Serve - Serve to Live" is more than just a cute, poetic phrase. It's a mantra that forms the basis of #kingdomclass service, and it's the explanation of what Serve Business Consulting LLC exists to do.