Opportunity is on the horizon, so hunker down and begin working hard to prepare for it in hopes that the two shall meet and result in success.
Many companies today don't feel it's necessary to build eloquent QoS schemes in their network. They tout massive pipes and endless bandwidth..that’s fine for now, but what happens when they experience growth and new applications get turned up that suck up bandwidth in ways never expected?
This was a statement made by one of my instructors at a Boot Camp recently. Not the military type, but perhaps more dangerous and painful for a marketing guy--a five day VoIP deployment exercise focused on installing and configuring gateways, media servers, proxy servers, application servers and IP endpoints, together with learning to troubleshoot solutions. And get this--the class went from 8:30am to 10:00pm across a five day period! Before posting a letter of sympathy or reporting my boss to the authorities for marketing employee endangerment, you must know it was my idea to take the course. Call me crazy…
Could the simple statement above expose a reality with more profound implications? The market has been recovering from a sickness caused by an extended period of gluttony and neglect. Appropriately, there has been an intense focus on reducing costs and optimizing the utilization of existing resources--simply put, doing more with less. HOWEVER, there seems to be a scent of optimism in the air…companies beginning to hire and pull the trigger on projects that have been in (what seemed to be) never-ending holding patterns…good news and themes of hope and optimism are traversing social networks…there is a sense the economic pendulum is gradually changing direction. So, the question is…
Are you ready to reap the good harvest to come?
Given my focus on the contact center, I challenge every customer care executive, director and manager to take the following five steps:
1. Understand corporate growth expectations.
2. Determine what will be required on your part.
3. Answer the above question transparently...are you ready?
4. Put a plan together.
5. Continually re-visit and adjust the plan.
Understand corporate growth expectations
All good plans take into account overall corporate strategy, goals and objectives. If you haven’t already, get your hands on your company’s three to five year strategic plan. From that, determine what kind of growth is projected--most likely and best case. Initiate dialogue with senior management to validate assumptions and let them know what you're up to. Ask for their support and if you can, continue to call on them for guidance. Be proactive.
Determine what will be required
Next, determine what will be required of your organization to support projected growth. Paint a picture of an ideal environment and document high level business requirements. Think through how you would like key processes to look, including those that don’t involve direct customer interaction. Identify where existing processes break down. Draw up your preferred contact center architecture. See how existing systems stack-up and what modifications need to be made. Think through how the organizational structure will be impacted. Calculate human capital, think through management structures, and identify potential role transitions. Determine if new facilities will be needed for additional space or to support complementary strategic objectives (e.g., regionalization, mergers and acquisitions, globalization). In essence, do your due diligence to see what it's going to take to manage growth the way you would like.
Are you ready?
The answer to this question will naturally flow from activities in the previous step. However, it’s important to meet as a planning team to summarize findings and get base-lined. Be open and honest, holding nothing back. Based on my days as a consultant, the ability to be transparent is a key ingredient for customer care to reach its full potential. It's my guess that most organizations, if honest, will end up answering this question, "Not really..."
Put a plan together
Once you understand what will be required and know where you are at, the next step is to do something about it...to develop a plan. The results of this exercise may fold into an existing planning exercise or be separate and complementary. Dig deeper to find ways to change the game and help your company get a leg up. Be sure not to limit yourself to like-for-like thinking. Assemble working teams and ask questions such as...
* How can we service customers differently to improve our brand and shift additional share our way when growth occurs? Should we start looking seriously at social media?
* How can we further automate processes to better manage and measure future growth?
* What alternative approaches and/or deployment models are available to help us more quickly and effectively incorporate human capital into our operation? Should we consider hosting?
* Are there technology, processes and/or organizational dependencies that will present bottlenecks? How can we work proactively to remove them before they're realized (e.g., our network QoS example above)?
* How can we organize differently today to better prepare for the future?
Put your creative hats on and don’t be afraid to bring someone in from the outside to facilitate. The right consultant can be really helpful.
Document the results, including objectives, requirements, key process flows, technology architecture, organizational structures, fulfillment options and trade-offs, phases (don't try to do everything at once!), timeline, issues and next steps. And, don’t forget to involve senior management or at least share the results with them. Your efforts could spark a change in mindset and have a bigger impact on the organization than you realize. Good habits and results are contagious.
Continually revisit and adjust the plan
As we all know, few plans hold up across a three to five year period. Thus, continually revisit and adjust your plans for growth. Requirements change, market conditions change, corporate direction changes…change happens. Adapt and adjust.
When preparation meets opportunity
I’ll conclude with a story about a young man from the Bay Area who was selected by the San Diego Padres in the second round. James Darnell Jr. came to volunteer and speak at a camp designed to train young athletes to be leaders on and off the field. When meeting with James prior to the event, it became clear he was indeed a very special young man. Not only was he extremely talented, James was humble and passionate about the camp's mission. It dawned on the planning committee that it would be great for the parents of the campers (nine to 14-year-olds) to hear from the people who did such a great job of raising James. So, his father, James Darnell Sr., came to speak at the closing ceremony. What a treat it was. One thing James Sr. said really stuck with me:
"I always told James that success comes when preparation meets opportunity."
It seems like an appropriate time to apply this principle in the world of customer care. Opportunity is on the horizon, so hunker down and begin working hard to prepare for it in hopes that the two shall meet and result in success.
Are you in?
Jason Alley is in solutions marketing with Interactive intelligence. A past No Jitter contributor, he will continue blogging here in his new position.
