It’s the end of the calendar year, and I was remarking to a dental colleague on my exercise record for 2022, and how if you added up all the kilometres [or miles] that I walked as exercise during that twelve month period, it equalled the distance between Cairns and Canberra.
For my friends in the USA that’s the same distance as walking from Boston to New Orleans.
And it got me thinking… if you were driving from Boston to New Orleans, there would be certain NON-NEGOTIABLE things that you would either do, or not do, in order to get to New Orleans in the most proficient way possible.
The interesting thought from this was, was that a lot of people run their businesses by doing the opposite of proficient.
And in so doing, they wonder why they FAIL TO achieve a successful result.
You can’t drive to New Orleans if you haven’t learned how to drive
Learning HOW TO drive before embarking on a 2500km road trip would kind of be a prerequisite, wouldn’t it?
If you were a passenger on this road trip, and the driver had never driven before and had never been taught how to drive, you’d be worried, wouldn’t you?
You’d be worried about whether you’d even make it safely out of Boston, let alone reach New Orleans in one piece?
Yet in business, many business owners try to set up their own Customer Service Systems without learning HOW TO deliver Five Star Service to their customers, let alone knowing that the delivery of World Class Customer Service is more than just remembering to say “please” and “thank you” now and then…
You can’t drive to New Orleans on half a tank of gas
Or on half a tank of petrol either.
For a long road trip of 2500kms or 1530 miles, you’re going to need more than half a tank of gas.
Otherwise you won’t get there.
And it’s the same with delivering World Class Customer Service.
If you don’t have enough staff to truly deliver a Five Star Customer Experience to your business’s customers, it doesn’t matter how many times your staff are saying “please” and “thank you”, they’ll also be saying “sorry”, and “sorry for keeping you waiting” a heck of a lot of the time.
And sadly, after a short while, all of those apologies will wear thin and wear out with your customers.
But some business owners don’t get it.
They don’t get the fact that their business needs to have more staff available than they need, rather than less staff, so that the business can truly deliver a World Class Experience to all customers all of the time.
You can’t drive to New Orleans if you’ve put the wrong fuel in your car
If you put regular petrol into a diesel car the car won’t go very far.
And vice versa.
You need the right fuel. And often your car will travel better if you fill your tank with premium octane, rather than simply regular petrol.
It’s the same at your business.
Often I see businesses trying to deliver World Class Customer Service and they’ve got team members who are less than optimal. This includes team members with poor attitudes, as well as team members with bad attitudes.
I’ve seen team members who work in a business but operate within that business inside of their own personal silo.
And I’ve seen other team members whose behaviours at work would be nothing short of a terrorist activity…sabotaging the success of the business with deliberate destructive behaviours.
You can’t drive to New Orleans if the driver stops driving and starts instructing and directing the passengers and crew on other things
Everybody in the car has a role to play so that the car gets to New Orleans safely, and as quickly as possible.
If for some reason the driver needs to stop the car and start telling one of the passengers how to butter bread and cut sandwiches, that’s going to extend the time taken to get to New Orleans.
And that’s not a good use of the driver’s time.
Because surely there must be somebody else in the car [other than the driver] who can also make sandwiches.
But in dental businesses, I often see dentists stop drilling teeth and begin doing tasks that other team members can do.
Which is a very poor use of the dentist’s time.
And so the dental practice’s production grinds to a halt as a result of this decision.
If you want to…
If you want to do something in your business as efficiently and as effectively as possible, you’re going to need to make sure that you’ve got an effective plan, or map, of what you are trying to achieve, and you’re going to need to know CLEARLY the best way of achieving those results.
And then you need to make sure that each of your team members are the best for the roles you have, and then and only then do you start training them on those roles so that those team members achieve for your business those results that your business is trying to deliver to all of its customers.
*************
Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business