Deliver Operational Excellence

Good? Great? Average? Frustrating?

Many organisations that we engage with measure and act on customer satisfaction scores. But when it comes to operational excellence companies don’t often measure supplier or staff satisfaction. But remember … customers are only one part of the picture. 

If you rely on suppliers, it’s important to understand how satisfied they are with your operations. And the same goes for your staff too. Sometimes, we see customers loving our client’s service, but in order to achieve a good result, staff have to undertake dull, repetitive tasks. That’s not a solution for the long term.

If all three of your customers, suppliers and staff think that the operation is really slick, then it probably is. It’s a valuable measure that can drive operational improvement.

As an organisation with a world class operational capability, this is what you want to be able to say about yourself:

• Customers and partners refer us because they trust our reliability and quality. 
• We always deliver on time and to budget whilst maintaining service level agreements. 
• Processes are continuously developed, documented and automated so efficiency improves as we grow. 
• We implement and operate effective systems that contribute to customer, supplier and employee satisfaction. 
• We consistently measure customer satisfaction and hold relevant industry accreditations.

How would you rate yourself against these statements?

It’s a journey. But on the way, you might meet some bumps in the road. Efficient processes and smooth systems are needed to help you achieve world-class success.

If you’re struggling to reach this point, it’s probably one or more of these factors that’s holding you back:

• Customers and partners do not refer us, because our reputation for service is below par.
• Not delivering the products or services that our customers expect.
• Not continuously developing and documenting our processes.
• Lack of automation.
• Our staff are fed up because of the systems they have to use.
• Our suppliers find us difficult to deal with.
• Customer, supplier and staff satisfaction are either not measured, or if they are, the scores are below par.

Customer service has changed. Today two-thirds of people want to use self-service rather than contacting an agent, whilst also expecting consistency and continuity across channels. This is something that you need to be able to deliver.

On the other hand, many employees do repetitive or low-value tasks. They hate it, it’s costly and customer service suffers. Sound familiar? Your customer might be happy but only because you’ve made your staff unhappy. But we can address this with good systems, efficient processes, and automation where possible. 

Have you ever considered applying for an ISO certification, but felt that the work involved to document all your operational procedures and implement a regime of continuous improvement was too onerous? If that looks like a massive burden, then you don’t have the right systems behind your processes. But we at Ardenfort can help you put them in place.

• Flexibility in product and service delivery to provide market agility, allowing you to increase your competitive advantage.
• Process automation, which makes operations more efficient and improves staff satisfaction.
• Flexibility to respond to customers, which ultimately results in better customer service.
• Flexibility to respond to supplier demands, which builds better relationships and ultimately better deals and lower costs.
• Systems that employees love, leading to greater staff retention.
• Customer satisfaction monitored and acted upon as part of the operational process, giving you immediate feedback on current and new processes that keeps you agile to give the customer what they want. When customer satisfaction becomes an embedded part of the process you get feedback when the experience is fresh, giving you the ability to test and iterate processes and continually evaluate satisfaction, ultimately the result being happier customers.