All this technology is great…. simplifying everything, automating, increasing access times and opening up reach to new markets…
But it can all too quickly be let down by bottlenecks in the non-tech parts of the business – slow manufacture times, stock issues, delivery failures, human errors… we’ve all been there, ordered something online at midnight in our pyjamas with the great expectation it will arrive in a couple of days, but a week goes by and nothing… customer service becomes a Krypton Factor challenge, seemingly made to make it as difficult as possible to talk to anyone, and every query gets met with auto-spam responses that tell you nothing at all.
Don’t blame the technology here, it is invariably gaps in your process flow, and a lack of joined up thinking. Technology can only help you so far, but there needs to be thought given to how the whole business works, end to end, so that gaps can be identified and processes tied together for continuity. Especially important if you are anticipating that your shiny new website is going to bring in vast new business and increase your turnover, your business must be prepared to ramp up in response. Music concert ticket sales are so often an example of this failure – a fantastic website selling your tickets far and wide means 1000’s of people hitting your site every second. You don’t want the site to crash, or leave people stuck with the whirling circle of doom for hours at a time only to time out altogether. The capacity of the service must be able to meet the demand.
Likewise, customer service is vital, not just automated messages with bland holding text. If something does go wrong you need to treat your customers with care and be responsive, and often this means a level of human interjection, don’t just rely on the technology, customers need to feel loved!
Of course technology can and must play its part, helping keep track of customer orders, interactions, and complaints. It can help tie ordering to manufacturing to stock and dispatch. It can even keep customers informed at every stage to pre-empt questions and stave off complaints. It is important to view this as a flow, and find the right levels of technology at each stage to help, but never forget to include some human involvement too.
Many large companies install Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to help in these regards. These systems are often very large and expensive, and really only suited to the larger companies, but the principles they introduce are important at any size company, and the trick is to find ways to deliver similar achievements without the huge costs. Smaller companies might focus on one or more aspects only rather than try to solve them all, and use more bespoke targeted software development to integrate systems or create workflows individually.
It may seem daunting at first but once you start realising the benefits of an integration or automation workflow you may get a passion for rolling out more across your business. Sometimes a big-bang approach is needed in order to fully utilise integrations/workflows, but in many cases a slow incremental rollout is better and easier to implement. Targeting problem areas first to feel the most benefit, or easy-wins to order to test the theory out quickly. Over time bringing different parts together to work in harmony with each other will improve your whole business flow, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and turnover.
Don’t be daunted by the scale, start small, test it out and see the benefits for your selves. Plesilium consultancy can help identify the areas where integrations or workflows can help, and provide the technical guidance on how to achieve them, delivering full life cycle software development if required, or just helping to manage your own internal team.