When fixing mistakes isn't enough

Mistakes will always happen. And when those mistakes happen, there is an expectation your team will step in and fix the mistake. To “Take the H.E.A.T.” and make sure that customers are heard and action to correct the mistake is taken.

And often times, that’s where businesses drop the ball. They send the customer away happy for the moment and get back to day-to-day operations.

The opportunity lies in the ability to take further action. Think about what happens if the same customer experiences the same mistake down the road. It’ll take even more to make them happy, if you can at all.

There becomes a time when a mistake stops being a mistake and simply becomes how you do business.

In addition, if it’s not the same customer, but a different customer that experiences the same mistake, it costs your team time and energy to deal with it. And, you run the risk of customers sharing the experience - even if they leave happy - and discovering that it happens often to other customers.

Fixing mistakes temporarily but not focusing on a long-term solution is common in busy agencies. It’s not that your team is sitting around waiting for something to do. They have work to do and most likely they’re very good at what they do. The daily work often prevents them from putting solutions in place that make your agency more effective and efficient.

Imagine your mistakes are headaches. And the temporary solutions are aspirin. It works great for a while, but after too many occurrences it’s time to figure out how to stop the headaches all together.

The solution is to make sure that your agency puts a focus on strategic solutions, or what we like to call systems. Simple ways to make this part of your agency include:

• Add systems discussion to your agenda for team meetings.
• The moment a client has a bad experience document the situation to talk about it at your next team meeting.
• Create systems suggestion forms and encourage your team to use them.

This is just a start, but honestly your agency needs a strategic plan for creating, using and maintaining systems within your business. Find out about how we can help you create systems and increase efficiency in the blue level of Optimal Outcome.