Category Archives: Management

People Management

9 Crucial Metrics to Measure Customer Support Team Performance

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Have you ever had a bad-tasting dish that caused you an aversion to that food altogether? But quite often, you can’t put your finger on that one ingredient that ruined the taste of the whole dish. It becomes nearly impossible to figure out what caused that food aversion. 

Just like that, a well-set plate of an exquisite-looking dish cannot be credited as delectable if all ingredients don’t compliment each other well. Even if one of them is bad tasting, the customer will lose his appetite for the dish. Your Customer Support (CS) team is just like that. All of the individual ingredients must be flavorful so that, in the end, a delicious dish could be presented. 

But don’t worry! There are several metrics to measure your team and assess the overall performance of everyone in the team. You can detect where there’s a need for improvement or which individual is putting in a complete effort and is dedicated to offering exceptional customer service. 

But first, you must create certain standards by employing performance metrics. So, take the help of the following nine metrics to measure customer support team performance and then enhance it to make your customers’ experience a memorable one. 

Average Resolution Time

One method of evaluating how well the customer service representatives are performing is to record the average time it takes for them to resolve a customer complaint permanently. 

This is an accurate measure of productivity, as this metric determines whether the agent is good at resolving customer complaints and can deal with them quicker rather than building on to the problem and dragging it for longer. 

Just follow this formula to reckon the Average Resolution Time (ART)

ART = (Total Reply Time) / (Total Number of Requests)  

The volume of Requests Handled

First, you would want to know the total of some of the requests that were addressed to your agents in a given period. This way, you can assess the workload and work performance of the organization itself. Sadly, its very rare for clients to call to simply say how good everything is, rather, they call when they have an issue or complaint that needs to be addressed so having an idea of the volume of calls being handled by each agent is critical in resource planning.

So, to appraise the performance of the customer service agents, you must keep track of how many requests are correctly addressed and how productive your agents have been. The higher this number, the more efficient and diligent your agents will be. 

Conversation Reply Speed

Ask yourself this question: after how long did my agent respond to the follow-up questions raised by the customer? The speed at which the customer service representative responds to any sequential concerns presented by the customer after the initial response determines the productivity and performance of the agent. 

If you take too long to respond, the customer would get annoyed and probably leave a bad review or would no longer engage in business with you. 

Requests escalated to Higher-Ups.

This is an important metric that you keep track of. If a request is escalated to a superior, then it means that the agent has failed to address the concerns of the customer. You may believe that this is the endpoint that every customer service agent should dread and avoid at all costs. 

So, this metric precisely determines if a representative is good at his job or not. The higher the number of these requests, the more probable it is that the agent isn’t qualified or competent enough to cater to customers’ requests or needs. 

Number of Complaints Regarding a Customer Service Representative

It is highly likely that a single individual is unable to entertain the concern of customers. Some people are just not naturally drawn towards resolving customers’ issues, and this can gravely affect their performance. Look to your customer satisfaction surveys for this information and then make a plan.

So, by evaluating this metric, you can judge whether an individual is cut out for this job and is he/she is able to address customers’ issues properly or not. 

Time Taken to Offer Initial Response

If you aim to offer the best customer service, you must keep a meticulous record of your initial response time. The higher this number goes, the more irritated the customers will get. 

Representatives must be on their toes when it comes to addressing customers’ concerns. The customers must be instantly put through to the right person or the respective department through tools like skill-based routing, so they don’t have to wait unnecessarily. 

Customer Service Rating

This metric is the best indicator of how well your individual customer rep’s performance has been. This number shows how the customers viewed and marked the performance of the agent. This rating can be garnered by customer feedback, comments, or the star rating. 

Sales made after Contact

The objective of the customer service team should be to address customers’ concerns so they are satisfied with the product or service and continue to increase the sales of the organization. 

So, if the agents are performing well, or are providing related cross-sells or upsells of the product, then the sales would increase, and more revenue will be generated. So, this metric takes effective customer service as a determinant that affects sales. Consider these sales as a good indicator or tool to measure your customer success team.

Rate of Successful Resolutions

This rate is a major defining factor in the performance of each customer service agent. This rate shows how well individuals have performed and how successful they have been in resolving customer complaints and issues. Having an agent who doesn’t handle many requests but has a significantly high successful resolution rate is worth having in the team. 

You can calculate it by employing the formula:

Resolution Rate= (Resolved requests) / (Support Requests) 

Conclusion 

You can only deliver exceptional customer service if you know exactly what your customers are expecting from you, and you don’t have to be a mind-reader for that. Stay close to your customers and make them feel heard and valued. Just track the above-mentioned metrics periodically, and this way, you’d be able to appraise the performance of your customer service agents and the experience offered to your customers. 

Management, People Management

Why Your Company Needs a Tech Support Scorecard

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For leaders of technical support teams, a tech support scorecard is a great way to evaluate how your tech support team is performing. If you’re not familiar with a tech support scorecard, I hope that this post will provide you with the knowledge you’re missing, but simply put, it’s a tool that helps you measure your team’s performance against the metrics that are most important to your organization.

A tech support scorecard can be useful for a wide variety of teams and isn’t just restricted to technical support teams (although you might want to change the name). You can use the principles provided here with help desk teams, customer service and support teams and even internal IT support teams.

With a tech support scorecard, you can quickly assess your team’s performance and identify opportunities for improvement. When you’re evaluating your tech support scorecard, here are some metrics that can be helpful:

Support Scorecard – Quality

Measures the quality of the customer experience. Quality metrics include customer satisfaction, NPS scores, customer complaints, and other metrics that indicate how well your team is meeting your customers’ needs. Quality metrics that are non-numerical are harder to come by as they require more manual work. However, they can be extremely powerful in improving the underlying customer experience being provided.

  • Training – an area that I like to include in the quality section is the training and skills that an employee has gained or has demonstrated. If your tools allow you to use skill-based routing capabilities, having this understanding is essential.
  • First Call Resolution (FCR) – Another metric that should be considered under quality is First Call Resolution (FCR). This metric measures the percentage of calls that are resolved during the first call. In some ways this measurement feeds into the training measurement as having an understanding of FCR can help to identify gaps or deficiencies within the team.

Support Scorecard – Quantity

Measures the amount of work your team is doing. Quantity metrics include the number of calls, tickets, or requests your team is handling, as well as the amount of time your team is spending on each call, ticket, or request.

Quantity measurements are generally easier to compile using most case management and telephony systems. However, it is important with quantity measures to ensure that you do not simply look at the number of cases being handled, but how many of these are “returned” and require rework. If your support team is a revolving door where the team is constantly redoing work, your efficiency will plummet as will your response times.

  • Mean Time to Resolve (MTR) – MTR measures the average amount of time it takes to resolve a specific case. This measurement can be useful in identifying your team’s efficiency, as well as in identifying specific individuals who may be taking too much time resolving cases.
  • Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) – MTTR measures the average amount of time it takes to resolve a recurring issue. This is especially useful in identifying any patterns that may be causing problems for your customers.

Quality vs. Quantity

It’s important to measure both quality and quantity. While measuring quality is more difficult, it allows you to ensure that your team is providing the best customer experience possible.

By measuring both quantity and quality, you can ensure that your team is providing the best support possible while also identifying opportunities for improvement and training.

Creating a Balanced Scorecard – Looking at the team

Gathering all of the data is great, but what happens next? This is where a balanced scorecard comes into play. In creating a balanced scorecard for your tech support team, you should focus on metrics that are most important to your organization.

Many leaders have copious amounts of data, but they do not put that information into context. They understand the average speed of answer but aren’t really able to talk about how well the team is performing from the point of view of the customer and the business.

A balanced scorecard helps provide an integrated picture across the organization. It helps talk about how your teams performance impacts the bottom line and gives you a quick snapshot view on whether or not your team is improving, remaining static or degrading.

This is an excellent tool to help give the SLT an understanding of what is working well, so we’ll explore this topic in more depth in the future – from the point of view of leading teams, a balanced scorecard is less useful.

Creating a Scorecard for the Employee

While building a scorecard from the team point of view can give you a large, holistic view of the support department as a whole, how do you manage your individual employees?

This is where the employee scorecard comes into play. Hopefully, your leaders and managers are already providing regular feedback to the people within your organization? If they aren’t doing that yet, then that absolutely needs to change.

Those feedback sessions should not just be a touchpoint and a discussion about the weather. Rather, they need to provide useful, actionable information to the employee that they can use to improve and grow.

  • With an employee scorecard, you can tell your employees how they are doing, where they are excelling, and where they need to improve.
  • Regular feedback sessions help you keep employees motivated and engaged, as well as provide an opportunity for you to identify and address any issues that may be impacting performance.
  • Employee scorecards should be specific to the individual employee and should include information about how they are doing against specific measures that are relevant to the employee or to their role.
  • Team measurements should be included from the point of view of comparative analysis. as that can help motivate and inspire the employee.

Measurements within your team are essential in ensuring that you are doing a good job. However, if these measurements are not shared with your employees, they won’t know what they need to focus on to get better.

Having individual employee scorecards that are discussed regularly are an excellent tool for aligning performance with annual reviews and salary improvements too! If regular sessions are held to discuss performance, these conversations tend to be a lot simpler as there are no surprises.

Management

The Metrics You Need To Use To Produce Good CX

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Have you ever had a bad tasting dish that caused you an aversion from that food altogether? While you might know the food you don’t like, you probably don’t know the specific ingredient that ruined the taste of the whole dish. It becomes nearly impossible to figure out what caused that food aversion and might lead to additional issues in the future if unexplained.

To put this analogy into customer experience terms, a well-set plate of an exquisite looking dish cannot be credited as delectable if all ingredients do not compliment each other well. Even if only one of them tastes bad, the whole dish suffers and a customer will lose his appetite. Customer Support Teams are just like that. All the individual ingredients must be flavorful so that in the end a delicious dish could be presented.

Trying to figure out a specific issue might be very difficult, but don’t worry! There are several ways to assess the performance of each individual in your team. With the right CX Metrics and KPIs, you can detect where there is a need for improvement or which individual is putting in a complete effort and is dedicated to offering exceptional customer service. In addition, by using tools like journey maps, you can analyze and understand other customer pain points that need resolution.

However, before you get started, it’s important to understand which CX metrics are right for you. Check out this list of some of the most popular customer support metrics and select the ones that make the most sense for your business.

1. Average Resolution Time

One method of evaluating how well the customer service representatives are performing is to record the average time it takes for them to resolve a customer complaint permanently.

This is an accurate measure of productivity as this metric determines whether the agent is good at resolving customer complaints and can deal with them quicker rather than building on to the problem and dragging it for longer.

Just follow this formula to calcuate the Average Resolution Time (ART)

ART = (Total Reply Time) / (Total Number of Requests) 

2. The volume of Requests Handled

First, you would want to know the total of some of the requests that were addressed to your agents in a given period. This way you can assess the workload and work performance of the organization itself. Seldom customers call to praise the product or service. More often they contact the agents to complain.

So, to appraise the performance of the customer service agents, you must keep a track of how many requests are correctly addressed and how productive your agents have been. The higher this number, the more efficient and diligent your agents will be.

While it is possible to calculate this without a CRM, using the right CRM system can make this calculation significantly easier.

3. Conversation Reply Speed

Ask yourself this question: after how long did my agent take to respond to the follow-up questions raised by the customer?  The speed at which the customer service representative responds to any sequential concerns presented by the customer after the initial response determines the productivity and performance of the agent.

If you take too long to respond, the customer would get annoyed and probably leave a bad review or would no longer engage in business with you.

4. Requests escalated

Escalated requests are important for a couple of reasons.

Employee Training – This is an important metric that you keep a track of. If a request is escalated to a superior, then it means that the agent has failed to address the concerns of the customer. You may believe that this is the endpoint that every customer service agent should dread and avoid at all costs.

So, this metric precisely determines if a representative is good at his job or not. The higher the number of these requests, the more probable it is that the agent is not qualified or competent enough to cater to customers’ requests or needs.

Product Gap – multiple issues of the same type that get escalated often point to a product gap. In this case, the issue is not with the CSR but potentially with the sales or customer success function. Here, the customer was promised certain functionality and the product simply did not deliver.

Options here include retraining other departments or depending on the gap, working with the product team to understand what the client actually needs and coming up with a solution that works. The latter will definitely drive an increase in a clients customer experience.

5. Number of Complaints Regarding a Customer Service Representative

It is highly likely that a single individual is unable to entertain the concern of all customers. Some people are just not naturally drawn towards resolving customers’ issues and this can gravely affect their performance.

So, by evaluating this metric you can judge whether an individual is cut out for this job and is he/she able to address customers’ issues properly or not. We talked a bit about empathy in my round-up of the top CX posts in September and I’d urge you to read that post for more information and detail.

It is important to understand that a single complaint is sometimes not relevant. Rather, what leaders need to look for is a pattern of behavior.

6. Time Taken to Offer Initial Response

If you aim to offer the best customer service, you must keep a meticulous record of your initial response time. The higher this number goes, the more irritated the customers will get.

Representatives must be on their toes when it comes to addressing customers’ concerns. The customers must be instantly put through to the right person or the respective department, so they don’t have to wait unnecessarily. Measuring first call resolution is one of the most important KPIs for customer service teams.

7. Customer Service Rating

This metric is the best indicator of how well your individual customer rep’s performance has been. This number shows how the customers viewed and marked the performance of the agent.

This rating can be garnered by customer feedback, comments, or a star-rating. Companies generally use customer surveys to understand how customers perceive their teams. Another great indicator for companies that continues to gain in popularity is the NPS score.

8. Sales made after Contact

The objective of the customer service team should be to address customers’ concerns, so they are satisfied with the product or service and continue to increase the sales of the organization.

So, if the agents are performing well, or are providing related cross-sells or upsells of the product then the sales would increase, and more revenue will be generated. So, this metric takes effective customer service as a determinant that affects sales.

9. Rate of Successful Resolutions

This rate is a major defining factor in the performance of each customer service agent. This rate shows how well individuals have performed and how successful they have been in resolving customer complaints and issues.

Having an agent who doesn’t handle many requests but has a significantly high successful resolution rate is worth having in the team.

You can calculate it by employing the formula:

Resolution Rate= (Resolved requests) / (Support Requests)

Conclusion

You can only deliver exceptional customer service if you know exactly what your customers are expecting from you and you don’t have to be a mind-reader for that. Stay close to your customers and make them feel heard and valued. Just track the above-mentioned metrics periodically and this way you would be able to appraise the performance of your customer service agents and the experience offered to your customers.

Management

Trends that Will Change the Way You Do Business

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The world witnessed a paradigm shift in reliance of the global economy on emerging technology due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Imagine people sitting at home hoping if they could purchase something they need but the local markets are closed. Businesses that served people well during the past few months are going to make the most of it is in the future. They managed to establish their brand as the whole world shifted to contactless payments and online shopping. The future trend has been set and even after the COVID-19 lockdown, people will find it convenient to use mobile applications for most of the products and services.

The expert study of Statista claimed that by 2020 $581.9 billion will be generated in revenue by mobile applications. And in this tech realm, you can just expect the numbers to grow. So, if you want to boost up your business you must invest in the digitalization of your business to attract a larger market.

It isn’t that the COVID-19 has changed the world, it just stimulated the ongoing process. It drove public closer to mobile apps. As a businessperson, you need to realize the big impact on the way you do business. If you are able to anticipate and make the most of the quickly changing trends, you can have an edge over your competitors within months.

Here are the top trends that will change the way you do business. So, are you ready to revolutionize your business and keep up with the dominant business trends of 2020?

1. Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Incorporation of Machine Learning

AI and Machine Learning are going to help mobile apps become smarter than ever before. The anticipation of the Artificial Intelligence market is worth $191 billion by 2024 has provided a great incentive to businessmen and provoked them to combine AI with Human Intelligence.

The identification of critical issues, instantaneous troubleshooting, quick response, and building of applications based on prior data has been feasible due to the contributions of these systems.

The AI sphere continues to expand and evolve especially when you look at the way the apps are anticipated users’ preferences and buying behaviors. Apps continue to improve thanks to the use of the latest automation techniques allowing businesses to engage the app users in a better way.

2. Instant Mobile Applications; A Preview

Aren’t you able to judge the movie and your peaking interest in it just by the trailer? Mobile Apps also help the decision making process in many ways. The app demos give you a taste of what the app may be like and then you can decide for yourself. This trend helps users save time and resources on apps that they are not interested in.

3. Introduction of Wireless 5G Networks

The 5G wireless service has been under fine sights and immense works as the world anticipate the launch of this technology. The speed of the 5G network will supersede that of 4G by 100 times and will be one of the most highly acknowledged transitions in the history of networking.

Enhanced speed, improved cybersecurity, fast and uninterrupted 3D gaming, and boosted speed are the salient features of the 5G network. The web developers are delved into the making of appropriate applications that can allow users to avail of the endless opportunities granted by the 5G network. Like you, we can’t wait for it either!

4. Virtual & Augmented Reality Integration

The integration of AR and VR is no longer restricted to gaming and entertainment but has extended its functionality in fields of science, travel, education, business, and even automobiles. If you are crazy about Pokémon Go, you will observe how this epitome of an AR app has taken the Play store and App Store by storm.

The improved conversion rates and enhanced user experiences are the cogent examples of how the integration of AR in apps has been very advantageous for globally recognized and emerging brands. These technologies are still evolving and are being improved to optimize the operations of all applications.

5. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

As the name suggests, this page is a version of HTML that enhances and boosts the speed of mobile pages. The AMP is in collaboration with the widely used app, Twitter.

Through AMP, web developers can improve the performance of heavy mobile pages and enhance the buffering speed and keep the bounce rates low across all mobile phones and devices. Google has also incorporated the AMP Listings in the mobile search results to decrease the loading time of web pages.

6. Internet of Things (IoT) App

You are mistaken if you think there is an existential crisis or a worldly issue that the internet cannot resolve. The installation of the Internet of Things’ Application will be compelling evidence for our claim. As we are approaching the inevitable future, you will observe how with the help of intricate IoT systems, you will be able to control nearly everything around you. 

This application will launch a platform from which you could control many non-IT instruments just through the app irrespective of your location and many other conventional constraints.

7. Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development

This term refers to the advancement made in mobile applications so that they can operate on different and multiple mobile platforms at a given time. The Bring Your Device trend has been circulating in the workplace for quite long now. It implies that employees can bring their mobile devices and use them instead of their regular desktops’ computers.

This meant that businesses had to figure out a way to develop corporate mobile apps in such a way that the corporate data and necessary software could be made accessible. So, cross-platform mobile application development came into existence that is compatible with different networks and mobile operating systems.

Conclusion

The mobile application market is expanding pretty fast. The innovations and technologies introduced are unimaginable. As we read about what the future holds for the evolution of apps, we begin to realize that it transcends all technological bounds and will be unlike ever before.

If you are currently working on the development of an app, keep these trends in mind and know that users are expecting the integration of these technologies.

The rapidly growing app industry wasn’t obstructed by the pandemic and we believe that 2020 is just the beginning, the coming years will completely blow our minds!

 

ITIL, Leadership, Management, People Management

Who Moved My Cheese? – A Review and Analysis of an Amazing Little Book

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I was recently invited to attend a leadership change seminar which considering the current climate is very appropriate! Now I have quite a bit of Change Management experience through my time learning ITIL. In fact, one of the earliest “fixes” I did at my current employer was the institution of a CAB process for all of the regular weekly changes.

However, a CAB process is only one part of change and while an understanding of change management is important for everyone, I thought that there might be a better introduction I could provide to my own team on what change is.

Luckily there was – namely the book Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard.

Now you might remember both of them from another older book called The New One Minute Manager which was published quite a few years ago? In the One Minute Manager, some basic guiding principles for management were discussed. These were simple truths like providing feedback in private instead of calling out an employee in public.

I’ll probably explore that book in more depth in a future post, to be honest as while it is somewhat dated, it has some excellent lessons for new managers and is presented in a very easy to understand manner.

Who Moved My Cheese is presented in a similar manner but this time instead of teaching us management lessons explains how four characters deal with a love of cheese while living in a maze.

The Characters of Who Moved My Cheese

Our key players in this book are a bit of a mixed cast. We have Scurry and Sniff – two mice and Hem and Haw – two humans. While all of the characters share a love for “cheese”, how they choose to go about finding it on its loss is what makes the characters distinctive and interesting. When the cheese is moved Scurry and Sniff immediately search it out and start navigating the maze. Hem and Haw however spend lots of time simply bemoaning their fate and wondering why this change happened.

Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life. It could be a good job, a loving relationship, money, or health. The very core message of the book is this: things constantly change so we must adapt. The quicker we adapt a change the more satisfied we will be with ourselves and life.

The Lessons To Learn

Who Moved My Cheese is a very simple book and one that is extremely easy to read. It is in fact a book my whole family read on a beach holiday and made for some very interesting conversations afterward! While the book is easy, there are some very powerful lessons that it delivers which are worth understanding.

Change Happens

They keep moving the cheese. Companies constantly change products and services based on changing customer demands and competition. Regardless of your role either as a consumer or employee, bemoaning your fate will not change it.

Anticipate Change

If you know that change is inevitable, it is much easier to be prepared to deal with changing circumstances. While the current COVID19 situation might be something no one could anticipate, other situations can be planned for. Even in this circumstance, possible disaster recovery scenarios could be considered which can minimize the overall impact on yourself and your business.

And the next time that times are a-changing? Reflect on your previous mistakes and don’t let those changes surprise you! Recall that no matter how secure something feels, you should always expect change to happen.

Because when you expect change (both gradual and sudden) to happen, you’ll better monitor and anticipate it early. And when you monitor and anticipate change early, you’ll find it easier to adapt to it quickly.

Monitor Change

Smell the cheese often so you know when it’s getting old. Understand and monitor the status of your business and operations through dashboards and reports. If you do not have this capability look at tools like HubSpot and their free CRM products to get started. Once this has been implemented, look at 80/20 (Pareto principle) analysis of your customers, their cases and issues, and even your sales to see where you need to focus.

Adapt to Change

The quicker you let go of old cheese the sooner you can enjoy new cheese. Simply remaining focused on what was will not get you to what can be. It is important to step away from an analysis and purview about the grass being greener, but rather deal with the current situation.

Change

Move with the cheese and come up with new and innovative solutions for problems. While this might sound simpler than it is, as you perform each of the previous steps to future changes you’ll find that this step comes simpler.

Enjoy Change

Once you’ve gotten used to changing with changing circumstances, you’ll actually be in a new paradigm. One where you actually start to embrace and enjoy change.

When change happens, the first thing to realise is that how you react is your choice. The biggest barrier to change is inside you.

The second thing to realise is that the best way to deal with change is to keep things simple, be flexible and move quickly. When change comes along simply change with it.

Ask yourself:

  1. “Where am I likely to find the best opportunities, fighting this change or embracing it?”
  2. “What could my life look like if these new circumstances led to something even better than the ones that I’m leaving?” and
  3. ”What would I do if I wasn’t afraid I might fail?”

The Lessons to Take Away

Who Moved My Cheese is a simple book but one that is quite interesting and informative. Its ultimate conclusion? Change is inevitable. Anticipate it, adapt to it, learn to embrace and enjoy it. Do so and you won’t just suffer less stress and unhappiness, you’ll enjoy more success and fulfillment in every part of your life and your work. I’d definitely pick it up as it’s not that expensive and while its a very short read, the lessons you take away from it, will last you for years.

Leadership, Management

The 80/20/30 Rule

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In a nutshell (and from a business point of view) – the 80/20 Rule specifies that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers.  I’ve talked about the 80/20 rule quite a few times over the years as it is something I’ve found to be valid regardless of the company or industry I find myself in.

Often called the Pareto Principle after an Italian economist, the 80/20 rule while an estimate is generally remarkably accurate and can be postulated in a variety of areas – For example, you could:

  • speculate that 80% of your calls come from 20% of your products or issues
  • understand that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients
  • reflect on the fact that 20% of your bugs impact 80% of your customers!

By focusing your efforts on the 20% you will see a dramatic decrease in your calls and cases (or again from a business perspective a massive increase in your revenue!).

However – an amendment to the 80/20 rule is the 80/20/30 rule. 

What is the 80/20/30 rule?

This addition is something I stumbled across years ago and every now and then it comes back to me. To be honest, that is very much why I’m putting it down now as I’m sure it’s a caveat that many of you are not familiar with either and it is something I believe is worth knowing.

The 80/20/30 rule expands on the 80/20 rule. While it agrees that 80% of your revenue comes from the top 20% of your customers … the important point it makes is that … 80% of your cost will come from the bottom 30% of your customers. 

This means that most of your costs; for time, resources, support, attention, etc… is wasted supporting the 30% of your customers who are not generating any revenue for you, or at least not enough to give you a return on your investment!!  This is obviously not where you want to be spending your time or resources.

Now, how do you determine if this is truly the case for you and I’m not just making it up? Well, this is where a CRM system comes into play. Perhaps a tool like HubSpot or something similar. By tracking the volume of cases and issues for your clients and correlating that against the revenue earned, you can easily see if this ratio applies to your business also. Once you’ve come to this realization, well then, it is incumbent upon you to “sort” your customers into different tiers based on these metrics and target your efforts appropriately to maximize your revenue from each group. 

Your Top & Middle Tiers

Your top 20% should get a significant focus of course as they are bringing in the bulk of your revenue. 

The next big 50% chunk should get some attention too as you want to transition these customers up into the next level … These are the clients you want to establish a partnership with as a trusted consultant and provider of solutions.

By getting to know these clients better, as well as their business’ needs and requirements, you will develop a customer relationship that will last for years. This connection will generate on-going revenue for your business and continued solutions for your client, hence a life-long customer relationship. Think about customer journey maps and other similar tools here to understand where the disconnects are happening and how you can remove pain points to improve their overall customer experience.

Perhaps something worth exploring is chat and chatbot solutions to help improve overall throughput within your team? These types of solutions are often available with CRM systems but can also be purchased separately through a specialist chat solution provider. In this case, they can be integrated into your CRM solution through APIs ensuring you do not lose visibility of your overall customer interaction.

Your Bottom Tier

But with the bottom 30%, you might want to change your strategy as they are costing your business money vs. generating money for you.  Look at options like service agreements where they pay per call or perhaps even an annual support fee which would balance out the cost of their frequent service requests.  NO ONE likes to lose a customer, but sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to keep them all either!

Incident Management, Management

Understanding How Your Help Desk and NOC Services Connect

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This post about the Help Desk and NOC was initially published on CX Expert. It has been updated to reflect current market trends and information.

Perhaps, there is no other obstacle that causes more concern to managed services providers than how they are going to manage, monitor and provide services to their clients. For companies that are getting into managed services or cloud, one obstacle must be tacked. This obstacle is what you will do about your help desk and NOC. You must determine the best practices to follow, the cost, and many other essential things.

Origin of the NOC

The help desk and NOC is the heart of managed services providers. It is capable of providing redundancy, physical security and an area that is secure for collaboration for technicians to be able to manage and monitor customer environments.

Every managed service provider (MSP) service delivery model needs the NOC. However, many people don’t know where the idea of the NOC came from and how the early MSPs came to rely on them. With the advent of cloud computing and other business process and technological advances, it is essential to know how different factors influenced the NOC for the cloud provider and MSP today.

The idea of the NOC is not new – it has been around for a very long time. Initially, it was a creation of telecommunications, and it was used to monitor and manage telecommunications networks. Technicians sit and receive information in real-time inside the NOC. The NOC’s physical configuration allows for an intimate, secure and safe place for technicians to collaborate and discuss with other technicians on issues and problems that would otherwise be unsafe or unsuitable around other non-approved personnel.

MSPs came into existence in the mid-1990s. During this time, nearly all companies had a business plan. The plan included a 27/7 operational NOC that was physically secure from which to deliver their managed services. These configurations, procedures, and tools used in each of the MSPs were different, but the presence of the physical NOC was an essential and consistent characteristic.

The Help Desk and its Importance

A lot of people confuse the terms help desk and NOC when they serve two different and vital functions. The main reason behind the confusion is easy to understand when you look back at how they both came into being and how they have been split apart gradually in modern time managed services conditions.

We have already discussed the role of NOC, but it is important to look at how the help desk fits in the equation. Older NOCs have the help desk integrated into them to maximize the benefits of security, redundancy and collaborative work environments. The simplest and easiest way of distinguishing and defining the two models is system-based work, and the NOC performs network around the management and monitoring of objects that are under management with the MSP. On the other hand, the help desk is more responsible for interfacing with end-users, and it is also a customer-facing department. It helps to respond to problems and get solutions.

It is easy to see why the two areas seem to be similar. Each company should make these choices on their own, but it is important to understand that there is a difference between the two and they service unique and important functions within managed services practice.

The Interaction Between the Help Desk and the NOC

Now that we know the difference between help desk and the NOC, we must look at how they should interact with each other in managed services practices. It is important to acknowledge that there are different ways in which help desk and the NOC interact and co-exist.

Helpdesk Existing Within the NOC

Having a help desk and a NOC should be evident. All MSP’s logical and physical security controls can be addressed in one physical space. The physical access to workstations, how technicians log in to systems belonging to clients and change management are important to control and can be monitored effectively and be enforced if the NOC has the help desk residing into it.

There are more configurations where the MSP can create an entire floor of their work premises, where the help desk teams and the NOC teams work, complete with secure access, albeit in sections within the secure area. The main purpose of mingling the help desk and the NOC is to take advantage of the process efficiencies and security. If you take the security of your operation into account in the same way, there is no need to build out different facilities. Instead, you can just build it once.

There are many other benefits to have the configuration. Any interaction between the help desk and the NOC is naturally easier when they are both located within the same secure area. This can help with redundancy, and the continuity of the business plans should anything happen to the facility.

The Help Desk Existing Outside the NOC

In larger MSP environments, you will find the help desk outside the NOC. This is common, but it will depend on your unique situation. In most cases, you will find large companies with the help desk located outside the NOC because the help desk team won’t fit within the NOC. Typically, MSPs that need to have multi-time zone help desks or multilingual helpdesk do not manage the MSP centrally, but they have several help desk facilities that are located in different locations.

It is not always needed to build full NOC around all the help desk areas. Therefore, help desks exist outside the NOC. Regardless of how you operate and configure your NOC and help desk, there should be enough controls that deal with how the two elements in your business interact with one another. There should be documentation on the handling of trouble tickets, the handling of the connectivity within the MSP and how the redundancy of power is handled within the MSP organization to maintain operational effectiveness.

People Management

THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF JOB SATISFACTION

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There are many ways that job satisfaction affects the productivity of a company. Companies and organizations with more job satisfaction among their ranks will tend to have a higher production rate compared to companies with lesser rates of job satisfaction. An organization can ensure job satisfaction in various ways depending on the set regulation and rules governing the running of the business. The relationship between the owners, the managers, and other employees are what contributes to job satisfaction. A great relationship with good salaries and remuneration, high levels of respect and trust, a healthy working environment, among other factors, enhances job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction plays a crucial role in the well-being of an organization. This can be seen in an employee who sees his or her job as fulfilling and enjoyable thus will take it with the importance deserved, unlike that employee who doesn’t give his commitment since he or she feels dissatisfied. The human resource can realize these crucial points through various factors listed below.

Lower turnover

Satisfied employees will not be in a rush to leave or look for greener pastures elsewhere. They will own the job they do, love what they do just because they are content with the systems of that particular organization.

This, in turn, gives the human resource ample time in recruitment since few employees are leaving.  Retaining employees’ cuts on the cost of recruitment and training, ensuring the valuable experience is utilized. This also gives the organization time to search for talent and improve their workforce.

Improved productivity

Once an employee is satisfied, the work input will generally increase.  Many factors will push the worker to improve their work output. A great working environment that ensures reasonable working hours, good hygiene conditions, and a nice salary will force the worker to give back in terms of salary. Such a worker will want to impress at his or her work, thus improve on their production rate. Efficiency is always improved when one has to work under favourable conditions, and these favourable conditions are what contributes to job satisfaction.

Increased profits

There are many ways that profits can be maximized through the job satisfaction of your employees. Job satisfaction, as we have seen, can lead to improvements in individual output, thus leading to greater production and efficiency. Efficiency, on the other side, is an important attribute to cutting the cost of production. Bringing these factors together maximizes profits in that particular company. There are also other factors that can lead to an increase in profits in case of job satisfaction. Since the workers of that organization will tend to stay longer than opt to search for greener pastures, the experience in the labour force will be retained, this will lead to innovation thus the development of effective ways of running things cutting on cost and eventually increasing the profits.

Loyalty

Loyalty among the employees creates goodwill among the workforce and the friends of the company. Employees who are satisfied with their job will always have a sense of belonging. They will have the feeling that that organization is trying to keep their interests at heart. Loyalty to the company will grow among the employees if there is a feeling of job satisfaction. Loyalty, in the long run, will contribute to the employee’s need to contribute to the organization’s vision and mission support by the employees, thus helping achieve the company’s objective.  Goodwill can be promoted by employees spreading the best ideas of the company promoting the sales and career opportunities making it easy in the talent search.

How to promote job satisfaction in a company

It is not hard to improve your employee’s job satisfaction. A good personnel management department can start by creating better working conditions by promoting good hygiene, safe working environment, equal opportunities for both genders and disabled people, giving out incentives, salary increments, rewarding the hard-working employees, promoting innovations and on-job learning through simple training like first aid; fire fighting and safety and other motivation aspects.  A good relationship between the management and the workforce can also play a major role in bringing in job satisfaction. These factors can bring about an understanding between the management and the workforce. This can be promoted through the following factors:

Respect

The SHRM report stipulates that a respectable treatment of the employees is a major factor in the development of job satisfaction. The management should not look down on lower workers but treat them with the required level of respect deserved.

Trust

Trusting the choices of your employees in the decision making at their post is very vital. An employee can choose to do a particular chore using a particular method that will lead to better results than the way you want him to work. Such trust builds up confidence in what they are doing thus improving on job satisfaction.

Security

A worker will be settled on his task knowing he or she has job security even during the recession period. Lack of security can cause anxiety among the workers, thus reducing the productivity and worse of all, lead to employee boycotting duty or even striking.

Healthy environment

A healthy working environment is not necessarily a hygiene issue. There are factors, especially psychological ones that can contribute to a great working environment. Such factors include harassment and discrimination based on gender, race and even nationality. A workplace free of these things will greatly promote a good working environment.

Career path

Career path simply entails personal growth. Every employee will aspire to grow career-wise, get a promotion, gain the required experience and skill that can enable him or her get a pay rise or another better paying job in case your organization goes south. Giving out new duties to employees and promotions is a good start to growing and enriching the employee’s resume.  

Pay and benefits

The major reason why people work is to get some benefits to enable them to take their living standards to a higher and better level. Ensure your employees are paid deservedly.

People Management

The Different Types of Emotions and how They Impact Human Behavior

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As we have already seen in our previous articles, human behavior affects organizational growth. In this article, we are going to talk about what I’ve learned about how emotions affect human behavior. There are different types of emotions that can influence the way we live and talk to others. Sometimes, it may seem like these emotions rule us. The actions we take, the choices we make and the perceptions we have been influenced by greatly impact our emotions at any given moment.

Psychologists and scholars from other fields have identified the different types of emotions we experience as humans. Different theories have come up to categorize and explain different types of emotions that people have.

Basic Emotions

There are six basic emotions that are universally experienced in all people irrespective of their cultures. These emotions are sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, fear and anger. If we try to go further and expand these emotions, we will come up with other emotions such as shame, pride, excitement and embarrassment.

Combining Different Emotions

Emotions can be joined together to form different feelings. Just like the way we can mix different colors to form different shades. The basic emotions discussed above act like building blocks. Mixed emotions build complex emotions. For example, basic emotions such as trust and joy can be combined to create a greater emotion such as love. Now we will take a closer look at some of the basic emotions and try to figure out how they affect human behavior in an organization.

Happiness

Most people strive to have the happiness of all the types of emotions discussed above. Happiness is a pleasant emotional state, and it is characterized by the feeling of joy, contentment, satisfaction, gratification, and well-being. Scholars have done numerous researches on happiness since the 1960s within different disciplines such as positive psychology. Happiness is sometimes expressed through body language, facial expressions such as smiling, and a pleasant tone.

Happiness is one of the basic emotions, but things that create happiness are majorly influenced by culture. For example, the hip-hop culture emphasizes that buying things such as flashy cars makes one happy. This makes it hard to understand the things that contribute to happiness because different people are influenced by different things. Some people believe that health and happiness are connected. According to research, happiness plays a major role in mental and physical health. We can link happiness to a variety of outcomes such as increased marital satisfaction, increased salaries and a welcoming working environment when it comes to organizations.

Conversely, we can link unhappiness to a variety of things such as anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression and more.

Sadness

Sadness is a transient emotional state. It is typically characterized by feelings of grief, disappointment, disinterest, hopelessness, and a dampened mood. Sadness is an emotion that all people experience. In some cases, people experience severe and prolonged periods of sadness that can become depression.

There are several ways we can express sadness such as quietness, dampened mood, withdrawal from others, lethargy and crying. The severity and type of sadness can vary depending on the cause and people cope with sadness in different ways. Sadness can make people avoid other people or even have negative thoughts about life.

Fear

This is a very powerful emotion, and it can play an important role in survival. People go through flight or fight response when they face some sort of fear. Your heart rate increases, your muscles become tense, and your mind becomes more alert. This primes your body either to stand and fight or to run from danger. The response ensures that you are prepared to deal with the threats in your environment which can be an organizational setting. Expressions of fear include attempts to flee or hide from threats, facial expressions such as pulling back the chin or widening the eyes and physiological reactions such as increased heart rate.

People experience fear in different ways. Some people may be more sensitive to certain objects that may trigger fear. Fear can be defined as an emotional response to a sudden threat.

Disgust

This is a basic emotion that can be displayed in numerous ways such as turning away from things of disgust, facial expressions such as curling the upper lip and wrinkling the nose and physical reactions such as retching or vomiting.

Different things can cause disgust such as unpleasant smell, sight or taste. Experts believe that disgust evolved as a reaction to harmful foods. When people taste or smell foods that have been contaminated, they experience disgust. Infection, poor hygiene, rot, blood, and death can cause disgust. There is also moral disgust when people observe other people engaging in behaviors that they find immoral, distasteful or evil. Relationships between bosses and employees in organizations can be disgusting to other employees.

Anger

This is a very powerful emotion, and it is characterized by feelings of agitation, hostility, antagonism, and frustration towards others. Anger is similar to fear in that it can trigger a flight or fight response in the body. A threat can generate a feeling of anger and make you fend off the danger or fight to protect yourself.

Anger can be displayed through body language such as turning away from someone, facial expressions such as glaring or frowning, tone of voice such as yelling or speaking gruffly, a physiological response such as turning red or sweating, and aggression such as kicking, hitting or throwing objects. Anger can negatively affect the productivity of employees in an organization.

Surprise

This is another one of the basic types of human emotions. It is typically brief, and we can characterize surprise by a physiological startle response due to unexpected things. Surprise can be negative, positive or neutral. The unpleasant surprise might involve someone scaring you as you walk. An example of a pleasant surprise is when you arrive home and find your friends gathered to celebrate your birthday. We can characterize surprise by facial expressions such as widening the eyes raising the brows and opening the mouth. We can also characterize surprise through physical responses such as jumping up or back and verbal reactions such as gasping, screaming and yelling. Positive surprises to employees in an organization can increase their productivity.  

Organizational Behaviour, People Management

The Relationship Between Locus of Control and Work Behavior

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Locus control is a crucial variable when explaining human behavior in an organization. The measurement of the concept, the nature and the general evidence for the validity of the concept are discussed in this article.

People have presented several hypotheses that involved the locus of control in the context of an organization. Evidence from applied studies has been reviewed as well. The evidence suggested that that the locus of control has a relationship with the effort, motivation, satisfaction, performance, compliance, the perception of the job, supervisory style and the compliance with authority. Locus of control may also moderate the relationship between motivation and incentives.

Organizational Behavior as a Function of the Locus of Control

Individual personality has received little attention in the research of job satisfaction and motivation. The major theories in organizational psychology believe that the same process accounts for behavior across different individuals and that characteristics of situations cause behavior that is predictable across different people.

The theory of locus of control came from research and observation in clinical psychology. Both the theory and the measurement have been refined to the extent that the concept is heuristically important. Numerous studies of the locus of control have been related to motivational, attitudinal and behavioral variables in the setting of organizations.

The Locus of Control Concept

People attribute the control of events or the cause of events either to the external environment or themselves. People who ascribe the control of events to themselves possess an internal locus of control. Such peoples are referred to as internals. On the other hand, individuals who attribute the control of events to outside causes possess an external locus of control. Such people are known as externals.

Measuring Locus of Control

The Rotter’s internal-external scale is the most widely used instrument to measure the locus of control. The instrument consists of twenty-three locus of control. It also consists of six filler items in a format that is forced-choice. You add up the total number of responses that are externally oriented for each pair to get the scores.

The Impact of Locus of Control

A locus of control is a belief about whether the results or outcomes of our actions are related to what we do or things that other people do. If you possess an external locus of control then you believe that fate, deities, karma, randomness or other external forces determine your success and what is going to happen in your life. If your locus of control is internal then you believe that your fate is dependent on your actions. In short, people who possess an internal locus of control are go-getters. This orientation has numerous benefits.

Internal Locus of Control

People with an internal locus of control perform well in school, are less vulnerable to depression; they deal better with stress, are more satisfied with their jobs and actively find solutions to their problems. People with an internal locus of control are more determined towards achieving their goals. This doesn’t mean that an internal locus of control is only associated with a nice time. When it is taken to the extreme, it can become problematic.

Extreme internal locus of control can be psychologically unstable and unhealthy. It is always important to match the internal locus of control with self-efficacy, competence and opportunity. This will make it possible for you to experience a sense of personal responsibility and control. People who are overly internal but lack competence, opportunity and efficacy can become anxious, neurotic and depressed. In short, internals should have a realistic sense of influence in order to be successful.

The main concern comes in when people start questioning as to whether the locus of control orientation in people is natural or nurtured. The orientation of locus of control is not as stable as other traits like extroversion or introversionand it can change based on your personal experiences. However, the good news is that it is possible for you to learn that you have agency in your life.

The Impact on Employee Performance

External or internal locus of control plays a very important role for people to sustain usefulness and learning performance. The experiences and knowledge gained by an individual through organizational learning are crucial in increasing the performance of that individual. It is, therefore, necessary for businesses to fulfill learning in an arrangement and use it to improve employee performance.

There is very little in an individual’s life that your locus of control does not impact. According to numerous studies, internal locus of control is associated with success in sports, school, business and psychological and physical health. An internal locus of control is associated with achievement and success because of the tendency to attribute both your successes and failures to your actions. It gives employees a reason to study their actions and find out where they went wrong and take the necessary actions to improve. Locus of control has effects on a lot of areas of life and this makes it a subject of discussion and debate outside the realms of psychology.

What Effects does the Locus of Control have on your Health?

Locus of control affects our health either directly or indirectly. The feeling of control over what we do can help us to reduce stress. It also affects our physical health. People with an internal locus of control relate their actions to their health. This makes them more likely to get involved in activities that are likely to keep them healthy such as doing exercises, eating a balanced diet and making appointments with their doctor on regular occasions.

However, according to research, it is not just the locus of control in individuals that determines how well people take care of themselves. You can have a locus of control that is very strong but if you don’t value your health, you will not be able to take good care of your health.  

Management, Organizational Development, People Management

Management & the Achievement of Objectives

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Management is considered to be a universal phenomenon. It is a widely used and popular term. Management is the act of getting people together to work and accomplish desired objects and goals using the available resources effectively and efficiently in an organization.

It comprises of organizing, planning, staffing, directing, leading and controlling organizational effort for the purpose of accomplishing a certain goal. On the other hand, resourcing encompasses the manipulation and deployment of financial resources, human resources, natural resources, and technological resources.

It is also right to say that management is purposive because it is an activity done with a certain purpose. Management directs group efforts towards achieving certain pre-determined goals. Management is the process of working with other people or working through other people to achieve organizational goals by using limited resources in the ever-changing world. Different organizations have different goals to achieve. For example, an enterprise may be launching new products by doing market research, and for others, it may be minimizing cost and maximizing profit.

Management entails creating an internal environment and puts into use different factors of production. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the management team to create such conditions that are conducive to maximize people’s efforts to attain goals effectively and efficiently. This includes determining salaries and wages, ensuring that raw materials are available, and coming up with rules and regulations.

Good management includes being both efficient and effective. Being effective is doing the appropriate task such as painting a room while being efficient is doing the task with minimum wastage of resources and ensuring that the task has been done correctly.

Management has three main roles in the achievement of objectives in an organization:

Interpersonal Roles

Just like the name suggests, interpersonal roles involve people in an organization and other ceremonial duties. Leaders are responsible for training, staffing, and other associated duties. Liaison is responsible for maintaining communication between informers and contacts that compose an organizational network. The figurehead is typically the symbolic head of the organization.

Informational Roles

These are roles related to receiving, collecting and disseminating of information. It involves monitoring which is seeking and receiving information to be able to understand the organization. The disseminator is responsible for transmitting all the important information received from outside stakeholders to other members of the organization while the spokesperson gets information from the managers and transmits the information to outside stakeholders. Examples of this information include policies, plans and more.

Decisional Roles

These are the roles that revolve around making choices in an organization. In most cases, the people who play decisional roles are the negotiator, the entrepreneur, the resource allocator and the disturbance handler.

The entrepreneur looks for opportunities, searches for change, respond to the change and exploit it. The resource allocator makes and approves all important decisions related to resource allocations. The negotiator represents the organization when it comes to major negotiations. The disturbance handler has the task of taking corrective action when the organization faces any form of disturbances.

The Major Functions of Management

Every business has managers. They do the same type of work in different businesses. Whether you manage a factory or a hair salon, the job of the manager consists of the same tasks. Organizing, planning, controlling and leading serve an important part in achieving the vision of management. All the components of management are important and you need all of them to function together to achieve goals.

Planning

This is the first component of management. Managers should determine what the goals of the organization are and how they can achieve the goals. Most of this information can be found from the mission and vision of the company. Setting up the goals and following up on the execution of the business plan are important components of the planning function. A manager in a local bar will need to have a hiring plan, a marketing plan and a sales plan to achieve organizational goals.

Organizing

Organizing is another important responsibility for managers and this includes organizing resources and people. Managers should know how many employees are needed for particular shifts to accomplish the objectives of a company. If the company doesn’t have the necessary resources to tackle their jobs, the organization will fail. Employees will see a manager be unprepared without an organized workplace and this will make them lose respect for the managers and their management techniques.

Leading

Leading and managing are entirely different. Managers manage workers, and they ensure that the tasks are done and completed on time. They ensure that the policies are followed. The staff will follow managers because they are the supervisors in charge of the employees. Employees will see a leader as someone who motivates them. The manager works as a leader in an ideal situation. Managers who want to effectively lead need to discover what motives their employees.

Controlling

This is a function of management and involves monitoring the performance of the firm to ensure that goals are being achieved. Managers should pay close attention to the costs in relation to the performance of the organization. If the company has a goal of increasing sales over the next two months, managers may check the progress of achieving the goal at the end of one month and share the information with the employees. This will build trust and an involvement feeling for the employees.

Managers have a lot of different tasks to accomplish. They need to plan, organize, lead and control. Managers act as a balancing act of different components and good managers are able to keep the balance and motivate employees.

Organizations have different levels of management. We have the top-level managers, the middle-level managers, and the low-level managers. Managers at different levels have different functions. Top-level managers consist of the managing director, the chief executive, and the directors. The middle-level managers consist of departmental and branch managers. The low-level managers are operation managers and supervisors.   

Organizational Behaviour, People Management

The Best Employee Traits for an Organization

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When talking about human resources management, it is highly likely to talk about personality. Whenever we talk about cultural fit, job fit, conflict resolution, and team productivity in an organization, personality is often a key talking point. Personality is therefore very important in an organization.

It makes sense that certain personalities make people more suitable for the company, certain jobs, and certain teams. So, what is so informative about personality? There are certain things you should look at when evaluating someone’s personality.

Learning Mode

The first thing to consider about the personality of your employees is how they learn.

  • Do your employees assimilate information quickly or they are good with concrete data?
  • Are your employees more methodical or analytical?

It is crucial for employers to know the learning mode of their employees because this helps them to know if the employees have what it takes to be the most effective people in certain positions. It will also tell managers the best approach to training, onboarding and development plans.

The Strength of Character

The strength of character is not the ability of a person to walk all over others. It is the tendency of a person to stick to things that they know. Are the people traditional in things that they do or are they adaptable? Do the employees do well in ambiguous situations or they prefer familiar situations with directives that are clearly defined.

There are numerous positions that require people to be adaptable, ones who love trying things out and thrives in environments that are not familiar to them. However, you would not want such people to be your accountants.

Behavior

Behavior involves people as being either organized or spontaneous. This dimension of personality is one of the easiest to understand. Employees are either more organized or spontaneous.

Organized employees plan things ahead of time and have well-structured action plans. Spontaneous employees don’t mind interruptions or are comfortable at improvising or not as detail-oriented as the organized employees.

There are, however, those who land in between the two as with other dimensions. Individuals typically have a tendency to be either organized or spontaneous regardless of the strength of the traits. It would be important for people to know when they want to plan for important meetings.

Competitiveness

Sometimes, we meet people who seem to be unmotivated and lazy at first but become a fiery ball of accomplishments when they are pitted against other people. On the other hand, there are people who seem to be motivated but end up failing when you ask them to compete against others.

We are all different, and managers should understand this. Some people are less competitive than others while others get their satisfaction when they are serving others and find themselves in work environments that are harmonious.

Motivation

It would be awesome to know what motivates your staff. It would be great if you know that your best workers want more stability and security and not the big corner workspace.

There are some people who move across the world for a prettier paycheck or a better title. There are also those employees who have everything they need in their benefits plan. There are different things that motivate different employees. It is, therefore, crucial to know where your staff lies and what motivates them.

Assurance

Assertive people are very assured of themselves, and they like to lead, to argue and are opinionated. They can also be very persuasive. On the other hand, conciliate individuals tend to appear more composed, avoid confrontations and find it hard to express their opinion.

We also have those who are in between, but the main point is to recognize the importance of distinguishing between the two. This is more important if your business requires too much teamwork. It is crucial to ensure that the team is complementary and compatible.

Level of Trust

When we talk about the level of trust we are not referring to the level of trust one has in other people when they are given information. We need to know whether they question everything or when they accept the things that are at face value. Managers or business owners should consider having a great employee who would be a great manager.

However, after a few months in the new role, you will notice that the projects of the employee are not going smoothly as you expected. Investigations also show that new managers are a little too trusting for their role and are not doing the control required to be a manager or following up. Employees and situations are different, and life would be easier and better if you know the things you are dealing with.

Sociability

I am sure you have heard a lot about employee sociability. If you have ever done a test about personality, then there are high chances that you have looked at your results on this scale and thought of the things you are and the things you are not as far as sociability is concerned.

It is crucial to understand that different things get measured when evaluating sociability. A lot of people don’t see the benefit of the scale as far as business is concerned. It is crucial to know which of your employees are willing to initiate contact with strangers.

You need to know employees that are best listeners and those that prefer being alone. This will help you know the employees to put at the front desk, and the employees to assign marketing tasks that involve talking to strangers.

Nervous tension

It is essential to know how your employees will react when they are under pressure or when they are under strict supervision. Are they cool, calm and collected? Are they affected by the pressure or are they anxious? This information should be used by managers to know the employees who can work under pressure, supervised and unsupervised. It is the best way to know who can lead and who cannot lead.

People Management, Project Management, Quality

Quality, Productivity, and Striking the Right Balance

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What strikes first in your mind when I say ‘limited edition’? Probably expensive clothing, footwear, or an accessory from a high-end brand that you have been yearning for years. The pivotal questions arise here: What makes it a limited edition? Why is there a huge demand for it? How is it different from a product you bought from the local market?

If you have already made a comparison between the two, apparently you have the same answer as mine – “SUPERIOR QUALITY, LESS QUANTITY.” Wouldn’t there be a reshuffling of terms to make it the other way round, if we replace a ‘limited edition’ product with something that has ‘Made in China’ inscribed on it?

Here begins the game of ‘metrics.’ When it comes to determining the efficacy of a company and its output, ‘Quality metric’ and ‘Productivity metric’ are something to be taken into serious consideration. The two metrics, however, are in a constant race to surpass and win against each other. This leads to an imbalance that further results in negative upshots. Let’s take a more in-depth look at the metrics.

Measuring Productivity

Productivity reflects a company’s potential and effectiveness to achieve the desired set of goals within a specific period. Productivity undervalues output and lays its focus on inputs and resources used to produce them. The ratio of total outputs to a measure of data used in production is the measured productivity.

A simple Google search for ‘measuring productivity’ can lead to several methods deployed for measuring productivity. Multifactor Productivity (MFP) and Labour Productivity (LP) are the two most commonly employed. The former determines growth in value-added output, while the latter measures the growth of the value-added production per unit of labor used.

Consequences of focus entirely laid on productivity

 Let’s take a quick look at some instances –

  • The Green Revolution in the 1960s rapidly increased crop production to meet the growing demands. That brought the doom for organic farming.
  • China is turning into a global economic power, owing to production in enormous scales. Indian markets are overflooded with Chinese goods. The ‘imported’ electronic toy made in China that you just bought dismantled.
  • 9 to 5 jobs offer fixed working hours. You work for 8 hours, five days a week, and earn a steady salary by the end of the month. More and more people these days are ditching their 9 to 5 jobs.

Even though these instances seem paradoxical and very different from one another, the similarity lies in their productivity metric.

It has been observed that focus on productivity alone, often stimulate adverse responses. With emphasis solely laid on productivity and quality of an output compromised, the company usually gets pushed downhill.

That for sure, explains why the Green Revolution failed in spite of enormous support, Chinese goods find way only to the markets in developing and underdeveloped countries and 9 to 5 trend has been replaced by freelancers.

Measuring Quality

Quality is a pack of various attributes. It is mostly vague and cannot be measured directly. Measuring the quality of work or product largely depends upon its nature and customer satisfaction. Asserting that, quality can be grouped into different entities:

  • Data quality,
  • Product quality,
  • Service quality,
  • Process quality, and
  • Software Quality.

The first step involves identifying the entity to which the item belongs. Based on that, several other methods like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter (NPS), and Customer Effort Score (CES) are employed.

Consequences of focus entirely laid on quality

Focusing on the quality of work or product often bears fruitful results. The demand and popularity of high-end brands or can be solely owed to the superior quality of their products.

However, importance only to one aspect can never add to the company’s growth. Imagine your leader being obsessed with quality products. S/he is most likely to provide you with flexible working hours and extendable deadline. In such a situation of little or no workload, an employee will undoubtedly be reluctant to display his/her potential, thus restricting productivity and growth. One has to be inclusive of the other.

Striking the Right Balance

Why is it necessary to strike the right balance? — There is a reason you’re still yearning for the ‘limited edition’ product, I had mentioned earlier. Quality comes with its own set of pitfalls. The higher the quality, the higher the cost! Hence, in a world full of people, where not everyone is a millionaire, it is essential for quality to merge with quantity.

  • Be a good boss/leader. The secret of attaining the desired output in any work depends on the one supervising or leading the team. You might be in a position that already seems evil to your employees. The term ‘boss’ has been attributed with negative connotations, while a ‘leader’ has been associated with positive. Whatever the position you are in,  try to guide the team. Respect them as human beings. Don’t just throw orders, show them. The efficiency of an organization is only reflected when it has a kind boss/ leader.
  • Loyalty is an essential factor in determining the quality of a team. A person holding a personal grudge against the boss or any of the teammates is undoubtedly not going to put maximum effort. Internal conflicts should be kept at bay for the smooth running of the team.
  • Pair up the assets with the potential. A team is an amalgam of heroes and mediocre. Every team undoubtedly has members who excel in maintaining both quality and productivity. Such assets should be paired up with the members having similar potential. A rotten apple spoils the barrel. The asset can be the rotten apple influencing the possibilities.
  • Let Productivity and Quality walk hand in hand. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the team members. There will be members who excel in quality but not productivity and vice versa. This calls for guidance and support until they attain their fullest potential.

Quality and productivity might in a race not stand a chance to win against the other. But friction between them is sure to cause spark!

People Management

How Can Organizations Use Information About Introversion And Extroversion?

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Introversion and Extroversion plays an important role in understanding human personalities.

Introversion is the lack or apparent lack of interest in other people and instead focussing in one’s mental self. Introverted people tend to be reserved and shy and prefer alone time to group time. An introvert focuses their energy on reflection and tends to be quiet in group interactions.4

There is this notion that introverted people are hard to socialize with and some people will have a hard time interacting with them just from the notion.

Extroversion is the opposite of introversion. It is the state of somebody being gratified by interaction with other people rather than focusing their energy in their mental self.

There are lots of misconceptions about introverted and extroverted people. Some careers that involve lively interactions with other humans such as politics, musicians, lawyers etc are seen to be suited for extroverted people while other careers that mostly involve deep thinking and reflection like philosophy, science, engineering etc are seen as suitable for introverts. However, this is a very false notion. Barack Obama, for instance, with his charismatic speeches and lively interactions with people is a well-known introvert. Same with Julia Roberts – the famous award-winning actress. Meanwhile, other historical figures that may pass as staunch introverts like polymath Benjamin Franklin and philosopher Socrates were known extroverts.

In business and organizations, you can use the introversion and extroversion of your employees to your advantage when you understand them. In this article, we are going to look at how organizations can use information about introversion and extroversion of their employees to their advantage.

Working with an Introvert

Once you realize your employee is an introvert, there is a way you should handle them and work with them to ensure high productivity and harmony. Below are some of the ways you can work with your introvert colleague or employee.

Make them aware in advance

Introverts are people who love reflecting and deep thinking. They are well-organized people and want to prepare for everything that comes their way. They don’t like being caught by surprise. It makes them more comfortable and since they are shy people, prepares them for what is to come.

Embrace technology

Introverts are more into themselves than into other people. An introvert will work better by themselves when and if they can work by themselves. If you can pass information to them electronically like via online chats, do it. You don’t have to subject them to the unnecessary stress of them having to attend meetings and ‘unnecessarily’ interact with people when they would rather just get the information through an electronic device.

Perfect the art of patience

Introverts are less likely to share information with other people than extroverts (and normal people who are neither introverts or extroverts). An introvert will take time to warm up and share their ideas with the group. You might thus not get much feedback from an introvert while discussing ideas with them. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t paying attention. It doesn’t mean they have nothing to say either. Being patient with an introvert means that you’ll get more out of them.

Give them space

This is closely related to being patient. Introverts don’t just only take longer to warm up to the group, they might not warm up at all if not offered the opportunity to. Sometimes, the type of opportunity they get might also not be perfect enough to enable them to warm up. It is thus important to follow up to the introvert in your group just to confirm if they hard anything to say. Friendliness is key.

Working with an Extrovert

Just like with an introvert, there are challenges that come with working with an extrovert. Here are some tips to take to ensure you get the full productivity of an extrovert when working with one.

Let them be extroverts

Being an extrovert might be fun for some people but sometimes one might find them unbearable. Statements like ‘he/she talks too much’ comes to mind.

It is good to understand that, that is their nature and sometimes be patient with them even when you feel they are talking too much. Just let them speak. This makes them feel part of the team and inspires them to share more and never feel unwanted.

Always be assertive

As much as you’ll allow your extroverted employee or workmate be an extrovert, make sure you demarcate some boundaries. It is good to understand that extroverts don’t tire from speaking and mind end up taking all the time and all the limelight making other people feel useless. Make sure the extroverted teammate leaves some time for the rest and learn how to politely interrupt them when they go beyond the boundaries you demarcated.

Ask Questions

Introverts think deeply and reflect on whatever they have to say before they say it. They thus will only voice an idea that they’ve already refined and might not need much clarification. Introverts also tend to draw keener ears when they speak since everybody understands they only speak when they have something important to say.

Extroverts on the other hand voice any idea that comes into their mind and you might have to separate the chaff from the grain to get what they really intended to put across. It is thus important to ask questions when an extrovert speaks for clarity and a better understanding of what they have to say.

Managing extroverts and introverts

If you are a manager, it is 100% unlikely that you’ll end up with a group full of extroverts or a group full of introverts. In fact, it is 100% unlikely you’ll have two people with exactly the same level of introversion or extroversion. As a manager, it is important to delegate tasks based on your understanding of your team’s personalities. It is, for instance, more prudent to delegate the task of making a presentation to an extrovert while a project that requires keen attention to detail should be given to an introvert to lead.

People Management

Is Remote Working A Fad Or Is It Here To Stay?

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Since the recent past, we have been thinking of open floor plans as a tool to inspire collaboration and communication in the workspace. What is an ‘open floor plan,’ one might ask? We may define it as being a generic term used in architectural and interior design. This can be any floor plan which makes use of large and open spaces. It minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices. However, companies are coming to recognize what employees have known for a long time. That is, open floor plans actually reduce productivity. We believe that meaningful work requires acute focus and concentration. Karen Lachtanski makes a great case for the need for ‘remote working.’

Distractions Derail Productivity

 We realize that knowledge-based activities such as writing and software coding need high concentration. We can cite the example of Lachtanski, who had worked for a small startup company where a cowbell was rung to celebrate every time it secured a big order. While we cannot deny that it was a great team motivator, problems were swift to come to the surface. And especially so when one of their web developers asserted it to be detrimental to his ability to concentrate. According to him, it took him about 30 minutes to refocus after the interruption.

To corroborate this, we can look at the research undertaken by the University of California, Irvine. The study shows that it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to a task after a distraction. This compels us to take a moment to think about how many distractions we face in a day. When we consider how many people are wearing headphones in the office, we can guess its effects on collaboration and communication.

For many of us, working away from the office, whether at home or in a quiet place, is steadily becoming the norm. In fact, many companies and individuals are participating in a Global Work from Home day on April 10.

How to Convince Your Manager Remote Work Is Necessary and Better

 We feel that, sometimes, the benefits of remote work aren’t immediately evident to managers or the higher-ups. Below we have put forward a few recommendations to make its case.

  • We should frame the conversation with the benefit in mind. We need to make it clear that we want to provide quality work and need a quiet space to do our best work.
  • We have realized that the offer to work remotely on a trial basis (one or two days a week) works wonders at getting the conversation started. The trial period is to prove that we can be more productive than our peers. We can achieve this while working from home by setting evaluation dates and defining what success should look like. Supervisors are left to consider the utilities and the value of the service provided in their own terms.
  • We should discuss the collaboration tools which we will use to stay in touch with our manager, the team, and others.
  • We find that communication is of the greatest importance to prove that we can be trusted to do the work. Communicating what we have accomplished can be very helpful. It is valuable to have similar projects that were completed in the office as examples to compare to.
  • We should establish the working hours if they are different than normal office hours. We stress the need for transparency and diligence in attendance. Proper steps should be taken to ensure rewards, as is stated in this post by Morzaria.

We find that it is necessary that we explain our remote office situation. We need to clarify if it is at home or in a co-shared space. We should discuss how we will handle company materials and assets in a responsible and secure way. To be efficient, we need to share pictures of what our workspace would look like.

We agree that remote working might not be right for everyone. Yet, we believe that when it is, everyone wins in one shape or form. And we do feel that it a valid concern for most managers to wonder if allowing remote work for one person means it should be allowed for everyone. There are many reasons why working from home is not viable for everyone.

In the present day, we discover that graduates, when entering the workforce, are looking for alternative work styles. At the same time, retaining talent and hiring the best talent is a growing concern for companies. This means they are looking at ways to change the office workplace.

We do recognize the difficulty of the older companies for whom accommodating work from home requests can be a major shift from what they had been doing earlier. There can be situations where managers may not have the discretion to say yes even to a trial. In such cases, we advise the discussion of the proposal to be shifted to the HR and other managers. It is incredibly helpful if one’s company views them as a valued employee who contributes in a professional way. In companies where remote working is a new concept, it is trust which forms the basis for the realization of the concept. For instance, when one needs a doctor’s appointment, we advise doing so near the end of the day. The employee should work from home instead of returning to the office. We find that it is crucial to talk about what we were able to accomplish during that time at home and suggest doing it more often.

One’s manager can be the kind who wants to see concrete data. In the case of such scenarios, we suggest showing them the research mentioned earlier along with the results of a 2-year Stanford study by professor Nicholas Bloom. This TEDx talk in 2017 shows the remote workers’ productivity and longevity in terms of working hours, with their employee attrition being 50 percent less than telecommuters. Additionally, the company benefited from needing less office space. Further ways to effectively combat employee turnover or churn rate is discussed in depth in this article.

Finally, we cannot fathom how one can override the benefits of an employee who worked longer, was more productive, and was less likely to leave. As a matter of fact, remote working is surely and steadily becoming the norm. Eventually, we will find that requesting the need for it will no longer need negotiating with such detail.

Leadership, Management, People Management

The Six Secrets of High Performing Leaders

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Business is becoming more and more complex with times. It is survival of the fittest. Interestingly, opportunities are increasing. It is the dynamic way of business that is making it very complex.

Business needs a leader to flourish. Some businesses have everything it takes to flourish but lacks the leadership to lead the way. Leadership is fickle. Many people want to lead. People fight and even kill for leadership, but few have what it takes to lead.

The high tech dynamic socioeconomics of the current world demands leaders who have mastered leadership skills in order to remain relevant and productive. The end product of good leadership in a business is success.

How Do You Define Success?

I have met people with different and sometimes weird definitions of success.

Sometimes it is having lots of money, others urge the world to tone down on materialism because to them success is being happy. Others think it’s being healthy, others think it’s being powerful, etc.

So what is a success? Success is simply the ability to accomplish your aim, whatever your aim is.

So it’s true, different people will have different definitions of success, but when you come down to it you realize that it’s quite similar because human goals all over the world seem to be the same – win an election, get a job promotion, make money, etc.

All leaders want success. We are going to look at some of the things that successful leaders consistently have in common – the secrets to their success.

Successful Leaders are Servants

Servant leadership is the kind of leadership where the leader is willing to have some temporary discomforts in order to deliver to his followers what needs to be delivered. It is the selflessness of a leader. It is the kind of leadership where the leader focusses on the greater course over self-actualization.

A leader who humbles themselves for the benefits of their followers prepares themselves for a greater future. A servant leader goes out of their way to do what has no benefit to him but benefits the community and the people they are serving immensely. It is the servant leadership that drives the philanthropic world. Leaders who are servants and not bosses have the edge over leaders who love being the boss.

It’s important to note though that most current world leaders love projecting themselves as servant leaders, but in a real sense, very few of them can pass as such. Doing something for the cameras does not make you one though it might earn you some superficial respect. In the end, real servant leaders always show.

Creativity

Unlike management, leadership is fluid. Managers many times have rules they must follow, and their decisions are more limited. A leader can break the rules once in a while if that is what it takes to achieve the greater good. This concept allows leaders to be creative.

Creativity doesn’t have to be in the creation of artwork. Creativity in leadership revolves mostly around how we treat other people, how we interact with other people, partners, stakeholders, and customers. Creativity in leadership is expressive.

Creativity involves moving away from rigid structures and trying new things. A creative leader sees things that other people don’t see and may offer solutions that other people first find ridiculous but later come to appreciate very much. A 2010 survey by IBM of 1500 top business heads found that creativity was the most important quality a leader needs in order to succeed.

Creative leadership helps businesses and organizations discover new problem-solving ways. It also assists in achieving growth where creative leaders will be able to identify new routes of reaching a particular goal which may be cheaper, more effective and more practical.

A creative leader will keep the lower level employees from feeling forgotten by coming up with new opportunities for them. Creative leaders engage all levels of employees and allow everyone to brainstorm their ideas which gives everyone a sense of belonging.

Creative leaders will embrace very unpopular perspectives which many times end up being what the organization just needed. The world is changing fast and keeping on doing the same thing over and over is not good for business.

Unlimited Vision

Vision can be defined as the picture of the future that somebody has in his mind. Vision is guiding. Vision gives us the drive to keep going on and keep working hard on whatever we have been working hard on. Vision gives hope and purpose. It inspires. Vision gives a snapshot of the possibility.

The one thing that sets high performing leaders apart from the rest is their unlimited vision. Unlike many leaders who achieve one goal and feel they’ve gotten it, successful leaders keep creating new visions after the former has been achieved.

The vision shows a business where it’s headed. You can’t just run a business and keep on running it without creating a goal – a vision. You have to be moving towards something. Vision helps a leader prepare for the future and keeps the fuel burning during the hard times.

As much as a leader needs to inspire the follows, he/she needs something to inspire them too. This is how vision comes in handy.

Self Compassion

I used to do very well in Mathetics back in high school. I was always the top of the class. One day I didn’t make it even to the top ten. I was very heartbroken and criticized myself for not working hard enough.  I tore into myself mercilessly and internally made a very big deal of it until some of my friends realized it and felt I was being jealous. I wasn’t though, I was just not happy at myself.

Self-compassion is seen by many as selfish, and many leadership trainers don’t really emphasize it enough. This is a reason it is often ignored by many leaders. Many also feel it leads to mediocrity when you keep on forgiving yourself of mistakes. Self-compassion is, however, a very important attribute to successful leadership. Here are some tips for enhancing your self-compassion:-

  • Nobody is perfect. Stop expecting perfection from yourself when nobody who’s ever lived has ever been perfect. Expecting nothing but perfection from yourself is unrealistic and unhealthy.
  • Learn to prevent negative thoughts. In fact, reframe your negative thoughts and make them look like works from a miserable person who doesn’t wish you any good.
  • Learn to address yourself in a nice way. Don’t be mean to yourself in your thoughts. This is something you can practice on a daily basis.

Courage

Winston Churchill once referred to courage, as something that real leaders have to depend on.

Having courage means a leader can take risks and try new paths. Life has no certainty. Nobody knows tomorrow, so everything you do is a risk. If doing the same thing over and over is already a risk then there surely is nothing wrong with trying something new. Great leaders understand this, and that is why they keep on taking risks and making inroads.

The future is for the risk takers to take and not for the security seekers to hide. Great leaders move out of their comfort zones and take on the future and whatever it has to offer.

A leaders courage is put to the ultimate test in a time of crisis. The crisis is inevitable in leadership, and during a crisis, everyone looks at the leader for guidance and direction. The ability to take on a crisis can’t be taught in class. Courage cannot be taught in class. It’s something you train yourself to do.

A good leader should train themselves to be courageous by taking risks when there is no crisis so as to remain calm during the crisis. Just remaining calm takes you a long way in terms of how your followers respect you and maintain the faith in you. The first lesson in the school of courage is to decide that you will always remain calm even when crisis strikes.

Successful leaders give their followers a reason to stay

Studies indicate that 1/3 of employees leave because of being in bad terms with their boss. The boss is supposed to be the leader. The leader is somebody who should have followers. If people are starting not to follow you, then it simply means you are not worth following – in simple terms – you are not a leader.

Employees performance depend on how well they get along with you. A leader’s following is dependant on how the masses view the leader. A leader should not only be an example to the followers but also make them feel he cares about them. A leader is thus supposed to listen to his followers and respond to their whims appropriately. Small gestures like appreciating their hard work, recognizing them, saying hi when you meet and generally attending to their needs where necessary give them a reason to stay. Remember to carry yourself in a respectable manner too – nobody wants to follow somebody they despise.

Education, Management

Making Sense out of Irrational Behavior

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Sometimes, perfectly sensible, intelligent and rational colleagues reject or resist rational, perfectly sensible and intelligent ideas. Have you ever wondered why this happens? Obviously, this does not happen because they are stupid. This happens because there is something going on that we can’t realize.

We can use an example of a large, and overcrowded urban hospital that is trying to free up beds by reducing long patient stays. An analysis showed that one floor never seemed to be discharging patients during the weekend.

When the administration and the nursing teams were asked about the data, the head nurse said that she did not support any attempts of increasing weekend discharges. She added that it was not a good time for patients to be discharged from the hospital.

From the surface, the decision of the head nurse didn’t make any sense. Eventually, the nurse shared the fact that a few years back, a few patients lost valuable things during weekend discharges.

She did this to ensure that the belongings of the patients could only be removed from the safe in her presence. The nurse kept the only key, and she did not come to work on weekends.

If you told someone rational this story, they would laugh thinking that the nurse was stupid, but in the real sense, the nurse did what she thought was best for the patients. This made the nurse appear irrational to others.

Once the motivation and the history behind her decision were revealed, the decision made sense. This prompted a review of the discharge procedures and how to secure the personal property of patients.

Irrational Behavior

It is essential to understand that irrational behavior is normal and part of the human condition. There are a lot of things that we know we need to avoid, but we still do them anyway. And there are also lists of good things that we know we should do, but we still avoid them.

This is why, despite knowing that cigarettes are bad, people still smoke cigarettes. People still drink alcohol and drive, and people still don’t floss their teeth.

Unconsciously or consciously, we have reasons for our actions that most people don’t understand and think that our actions are irrational. Some of the reasons why we do irrational things include lifestyle, convenience, peer acceptance and many more.

Irrational Behavior in an Organization

Organizations are composed of different people and all the people in an organization act irrationally at different times. This is the reason why we often encounter a boss, colleague or subordinate staff that can’t consider a suggestion that is completely reasonable. If you ever find yourself in this situation, you should use the following guidelines.

Don’t try to use Rationality to Fight Irrationality

When you try to use rationality to fight irrationality, it will make you more frustrated, and the other person will become more defensive. You may offer well informed and constructed arguments, but you will never win. The best way to go about it is to understand the motivation that is driving the other person to make the kind of decisions they make.

Focus on Understanding the Rationale of the Other Person

Even if you are being driven by the unconscious motivations of the other person, it is important to figure them out. Being resistant to apparent logic will always come from somewhere, and you will not be able to break through until you get to understand the underlying reason.

For instance, salespeople will resist straightforward and logical model changes because they fear that the compensation will be affected. Or maybe they fear that their relationship with customers will be harmed. You must understand and deal with the main issues to make headway.

Don’t take it Personally

Sometimes, our emotions can be blazing with anger, helplessness, frustration or confusion when we deal with irrational behavior. The actions of other people can make us confused, and we may want to label them hostile, insecure, miserable and inferior.

What can happen is that we start to see the person in that color and even trap them in a stereotype with a label that is self-fulfilling. You should not hold resentment of people you work with because it punishes you the same way it punishes them.

You will not be able to change relationships by trying to control the behavior of other people, but you can only change yourself in relation to them. Try not to place your energy in deriding and blaming someone, rather, you should focus on finding a more productive interaction with them.

It is not always easy to go back for more of the same mistakes concerning someone time after time. You should try and change something/

Don’t Focus on Positions

Basic communication problems lay not so much in conflicting positions. It lies in the conflict between every person’s needs, concerns, desires, and fears. One person may think that the other person is a perfectionist in everything they do, but this may just be an opinion of that person.

Sometimes, interests make people act the way they act. The underlying interests may be a fear of competition, lack of training and so on. Sometimes, we think that when people act irrationally, they are trying to compete with us when in the real sense they are just doing their job. Your perception is what enables conflict to arise. Sometimes, interests motivate us and are silent movers behind our positions.

If you want to achieve a solution to a problem, you should try to reconcile interests and not positions. There exist several possible solutions for every interest that could satisfy it. However, people tend to adopt the most obvious position.

You can find an alternative position that meets both your interests and other people’s interests when you look behind some opposed positions for motivating interests. When we should reconcile our interests and avoid compromising positions because this can work. Under positions that oppose each other lies more interests than the ones that conflict.

Leadership, People Management

How to Take Care of Your Company’s Most Valuable Assets

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Loyalty in every relation brings happiness and satisfaction. Even at the workplace, employee loyalty is essential for the long-term success of the company. It not only boosts the productivity and efficiency of the company but also decreases turnover costs. Good employee relations ultimately provide a stable and secure work environment.

Managers know the importance of employee loyalty, but their focus shifts on the “hard” numbers when the company faces tough times. The result is that the company faces downsizing and restructuring.

Layoffs seem an easy option to take to pull the company out of debts and other troubles. It also seems like the company is getting serious about controlling their finances. But in the long run, these steps hamper the company’s output and performance. They fail to realize the long-term cost savings and productivity, which leads to more employee layoffs.

Link Between Employee Loyalty and Profitability

It seems a very subjective thing to say that employee loyalty is a huge factor behind the company’s productivity and performance. But it’s not. Researchers and analysts from the University of Pennsylvania have revealed that investing some amount in developing employee capital increases productivity by 8.5%. This means that investing in employees gives positive financial outcomes.

This directs us towards another concern- knowing how loyal the employees are. This doesn’t mean asking simple questions to them, but getting strong feedback from all employees. This may include the manager’s relationship styles, and provision of required equipment and training to the employees. Along with rewards and incentives are given to them for their cooperation.

The point here is to identify specific vital components or dimensions that influence the success of the company. Once you get to know them, you would need to associate them with the main factors of the company. These factors may be- productivity, customer loyalty, employee turnover, and revenue. Aggregating this employee data into groups and associating them with these factors is an important step. It would give a rough correlation between employee-loyalty related attitudes and company’s outcomes.

But still, the problems of staff restructuring and employee layoffs coexist with the company’s downfall. The reason being lack of management will to conduct such research and compile the data together. It brings out the company’s flaws and mistakes, which they don’t want to hear. But the essential information to remember is that employees remain loyal until they know that the company is being faithful to them. So ultimately, we are left with the strategies to encourage them and let them know that the company needs them.

How to Increase Employee Loyalty?

Inspiring loyalty is an abstract concept which has no defined methods. But there are certain actions you can take to build employee loyalty.

#1 Connection with staff

Personal interaction between management and staff and amongst the staff is essential. It increases job competency, satisfaction, and productivity. It’s the role of the managers to keep this in mind. Explaining the employees about workplace attitudes might help. The managers need to become models of what they want their employees to be.

A proper work culture would determine the health of the company. It is important for the managers not to mix personal affairs with the professional ones.

#2 Provide necessary training and equipment

Hiring talented individuals is easy, but providing them with the required training and equipment is essential. Challenging employees and expecting them to win them is only fair when they are adequately trained. It is also necessary to use their talent and offer them new tasks so that they can excel.

It is also important to update the software and techniques from time to time. And teach the employees about the same. Up gradation is necessary at work and in life.

#3 Fairness and neutrality

It is natural sometimes for the employees to have a conflict of interests. It is important to have a structured system for dispute resolution. It gives a sense of fairness and discipline to the employees, and they are assured of a neutral decision.

Good managers ensure that no arbitrary steps exist in such a process. Subjectivity and objectivity should be balanced, along with emotions. Employees should feel comfortable to approach their bosses with the issues they are facing. Hence, a sense of confidence and trust is also developed.

#4 Respect them and their contribution

Any human being would like to have some respect for whatever he does. Same is with employees. Managers shouldn’t feel hesitation or annoyance while respecting their employees. The employees work for them, not just for the money but also to grow with the company. They like when someone appreciates and respects their work, no matter what hierarchy they work in. Some genuine suggestions and advice would also work. The employees would feel the real nature of the company and wouldn’t tag the leaders as fake ones.

#5 Giving them their space

Part of human-environment consists of the space he lives in. His personal space is as important as his workspace. If being a manager, you’re constantly looking over their shoulders for whatever they do, and they wouldn’t get their freedom. The originality comes only when employees are allowed to work in solace and given their own space. Helping them with the resources and things they need and giving them feedback after their work has done.

#6 Rewarding them appropriately

Rewards aren’t just money envelops for the employees. They are called “rewards” because the person receiving them has done a commendable job. The leaders and managers should appropriately reward their employees for their extraordinary work for the company. It gives them a sense of pride and confidence that the company acknowledges their work.

It is also necessary that the rewards match their deeds and that they are distributed from time to time. A balance must be there, and every employee should be motivated to work harder to receive the rewards.

People Management

Do Employees Believe in Core Values?

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Are you aware of your core values or the core values your organization has?  Have you ever tried to know them or have implemented them in your life?

Whether your answer to these questions is a yes or a no, we need to understand the importance of core values and the need to implement them in our lives.

Core values are an essential part of any human or any organization.  Core values are a belief or a principle that helps a person or an organization to give central importance to a view.  We always misinterpret that benefits are only until our families, schools, and social work. But we tend to, not realize it’s importance in the corporate world.

These core values help us to know the highest priorities and beliefs of that organization.  They help the employees to follow the vision that will be presented to the world. Your core values will form an ora around you and will make you fundamental to attracting, being the best and automatically this will make you contribute the most towards your organization. These core values are the ones which form a foundation for your organization.

89% of the companies in the world have written the values.  The research from 2016 shows that only 53% of employees are aware of what are the cores values for their organization. Though the recent web poll says that only 11% of HR professionals reported that 80% of their employees were aware of these value. This result is a bad one. The percentage should be 100%.

A maximum number of employees do not realize that these values can benefit them.

If you believe that these core values will not have any benefit to what you do, these are a few benefits that you can get by knowing and implementing these values to your life and your work.

These core values can improve the performance of the employee. They give a direction to what exactly their role is. They get to know about what the company wants and direct them on how should they work. This also teaches them what attitude is best for them, and what can an employee do if any new or stressful situation is experienced.

This helps to improve the engagement of the employee. This also helps to improve how committed, energetic and focussed an employee is towards his or her work.  All of these factors generally increase satisfaction and workplace morale. It will make work more fulfilling.

 When you follow these core values and believe in them to follow, this aligns them with other members and the views of the company. You do not get diverted to a wrong direction.

You will have to establish a relationship between the company and the employee, involving employees to select what those core values are that needs to be discussed. Involving employees will increase the number of who will know the core values.  It is important to communicate them to everyone.

Company leaders should talk to their juniors and should take it as their responsibility to guide them through these values. It is also essential for them to model good behavior, that is aligning with the core values. As honestly said, actions speak more than words. We cannot order someone to follow these core values until and unless we don’t support them. It is essential for all higher authorities to follow and make decisions according to  the core values of the company

Stress and job are today linked very quickly because of the workload that one has. For a person who does this work with full heart and satisfaction, his work can never be a load for him. Though all employees have to face a  situation in our job which is not at all pleasant, we get stuck to it and are unable to find a way out of it. Core values might not bring a solution to you but will surely show you the best way to come out.

A CEO is amongst the most influential people in the company, and therefore can attract employees to know and inherit the core values within them with their correct meaning and correct way of use. The support from the CEO has been proved to be one of the most effective practices to inherit the values. According to a Booz Allen Hamilton\ Aspen Institute survey, 85%  of the people responded that 80% of CEOs are already involved and 77% says that this is the most effective practice.

 Today the number of people believing in core values is decreasing day by day.  The importance of ethics and values are not only missing from their professional space but has started to decline in their personal space. People are becoming money minded and are ignoring these ethics. They do not have any interest in the core values of their company. 

Leadership, Management, People Management

The Nine Strategies of an Effective Leader

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You wake up in the morning against the rising yellow sun in the yellow acacia dotted plains somewhere in Maasai Mara, Kenya. The little cubs are staring at you. You just had a good sleep but are still tired.  You’re not particularly hungry, but you must lead the hunt anyway. You’re the fastest lioness in the pride though, and everyone depends on you. You’re the leader. You must lead. Failure to do so means you lose your status in the pride. That’s leadership.

Many people want to become leaders. We live in a competitive world, and the safest point seems to always be at the top. Many of us don’t, however, understand what it takes to get to the top as well as remain at the top. It comes with a whole load of its challenges.

In this article, we are going to focus on the strategies that help you become a leader – the steps you have to take if you ever wish to be seen as a leader and respected as one. These are the steps you should take to earn and maintain the respect of your employees, mentees, and followers.

1. Actively listen

Many people think being a leader is always being the boss. Many times, your employees as well as mentees want somebody who is keen and wants to form a relationship with them. Listening is especially important in a collaborative work environment where you work with a team rather than employees or mentees or followers. Important to note is, you should listen, not pretend to listen. Engage your followers and let them feel you are really listening. Be an approachable person and don’t ever let your followers fear you – just make them respect you.

When listening, make sure you don’t listen to hear what your followers say but to understand what they think. Try to engage your employees about what they think. People respect you more when they feel you value them. They’ll see you more of a leader if you inspire and motivate them

2. Tell Your Story

Story telling gives inspiration. You are a business owner, and you tell your casual laborer that you were once a casual laborer like him, he gets inspired. He starts seeing himself as a big business owner someday. He starts seeing you as a mentor rather than just his boss and immediately, you become a leader to him.

Storytelling is also entertaining and gives morale to people by keeping them entertained. It is also a good way to get something done. You could use a story from your past on how you used to do something to inspire your workers to do something.

Story telling helps transfer complex knowledge in a simple, entertaining way.

3. Always Show Gratitude

Never act the boss who was expecting it to be done the right way anyway. Never be that boss who feels you’re doing your workers a favor by employing them as well as they should be the ones thanking you.

Gratitude is best when it’s done personally and not vaguely. Hold your worker’s hand firmly and tell them you appreciate how well they did the job. Showing gratitude to the whole group is also good. However, never show preference to one person over the others. Show gratitude to everyone who does a good job and never is selective.

When people feel appreciated, they get positive and motivated. This does not only earn you respect but encourage better working culture and more productivity which even earns you respect outside your organization (because your productivity can be felt by non-stakeholders).

Gratitude is also a sign of humility. People always appreciate a successful yet humble human being and more likely to identify such a person as a leader.

4. Point out People’s Strength

As somebody who has been an employer, one thing I have noticed is that many bosses love pointing out their worker’s weaknesses. A worker could do 9 things right, but the tenth task that he does wrong is the very task that will be highlighted. Worse still, many bosses love to embarrass their workers by pointing out their weaknesses in front of everybody thinking they can somehow shame the person into making a better – the wrong approach.

It’s good to point out people’s strength and help boost their self-esteem. Pointing out a strength motivates more than pointing out a weakness. Embarrassing somebody by always pointing out their weaknesses creates a disdain of you in them as well as reduces the morale of the individual.

Finally, it’s good to encourage your workers to focus more on their strength than their weaknesses. If someone is terrible at one task yet exceedingly good at the other, you can have them do the task that they excel at and delegate the other task to somebody else.

5. Get Involved at the Ground level

Don’t be the bossy boss always sitting in your big chair in your office barking orders over the phone. Getting involved at ground level is one of the best strategies of being a great leader. It gives your followers a great sense of belonging and that’s the beginning of them seeing you as their leader.

In the modern age of social media, if you’re popular on social media, take time and engage and respond to people who comment on your posts. If you run a construction company, get down to the site and even once in a while work with the lowest paid worker, have a taste of what they do. It doesn’t only boost their morale, but it also makes you realize the kind of challenges they face which you could improve. It also helps you see what you can do to improve the general productivity of your company.

Getting on the ground helps you build permanent relationships with your followers. A politician for instance who builds a relationship with the average woman or man on the street will create a self-campaigning tool from the people he or she built relationships with.

Some leaders are made while others are born. We, however, have a clique of non-leaders who were once leaders but later were destroyed. Never climb your ladder so high you can barely see the people who built the very same ladder.

6. Delegate Responsibility

Don’t be Mr. Know-all. Don’t project yourself as the only person who can get things done around. A delegation of responsibilities doesn’t only make work easier for you but also earns you respect and admiration.

Delegation of duties downwards also helps grow the skills and confidence of your workers. It enables things to run even when you are not around. Many managers think if things can run when they are not around then it would mean they are not needed. That’s very wrong. If things can run even when the boss is not around, it means the boss leads and teaches well.

7. Always be Honest and Open

Management and government evolved from the military. The silent de facto rule of the military is secrecy. This culture has been carried down for many years and thought it might work in some instances, it’s not the best strategy in the modern business world.

This kind of structure only works in instances where power is paramount, and access to information is directly proportional to the power one holds. The problem with this strategy in business is when people have no information and have to make decisions in the dark, they have to guess and may end up doing contrary to what the business stands for and contrary to its vision. This also undermines the worker’s ability to think, ask questions and come up with ideas. They’ll appear confused, visionless and, you guessed, leaderless.

8. Allow Failure

Don’t be the kind of boss who demonizes failure and makes workers tremble at the thought of failing. Encourage your team to fail several times in order to get it right rather than installing in them a ‘never fail’ attitude.

This will discourage other workers from being creative and trying new methods for fear of failure the repercussions of failure.

A good leader enshrines acceptance and taking responsibility for failure. Strategic leadership involves encouraging failures that lead to success rather than efforts that ensure no failure. No failure doesn’t exist and running on such an idea will only lead to frustrations and lack of faith in you as a leader.

9. Be the Role Model

Never do the opposite of what you preach. Followers do more following than taking of orders. Anyone who takes orders from you is not your follower but your subject. Followers emulate what you do, they don’t do what you say.

If you are a leader, behave in the very same way you want your followers too. If you want punctual workers, be punctual. Your workers will be more punctual if you’re punctual than if you order them to be punctual.

Management, People Management, Planning, Problem Solving, Project Management

Guidelines to Decision Making and Problem-solving in an Organization

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Most of what managers do is to make decisions and solve problems. Often, managers are under stress and with limited time to make critical decisions in an organization. Consequently, when managers encounter a new decision or a problem they must solve, they react with decisions that seemed to work before. Sometimes, this approach can put you in a loop of solving the same problem over and over. It is often more useful to get used to an organized approach to solving problems and making decisions. Not all decisions can be made and problems solved following a rational approach. However, we have a few guidelines that will help managers to get started. You shouldn’t be intimidated by the length of our guidelines because they will make you a better manager.

After you have practiced our guidelines, they will become easy for you. You can utilize them to suit your own needs. It is better for managers to view a problem as an opportunity. Here are the best steps to help managers make better decisions and solve problems effectively.

Define the problem

Most people struggle to define a problem. In most cases, they react to opinions and what they think the problem is. It is better to understand more about the problem before making a decision. You can define a problem with input from others and yourself. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself and others when defining a problem.

•    What makes you think there is a problem?

•    How is it happening?

•    Where is it happening?

•    How is it happening?

•    Why is it happening?

After asking all the relevant questions, you can write down the description of the problem. Write down what triggered the problem to happen, where the problem happened, why it happened and the people it affected.

How to define complex problems

It is good to understand that problems are different. We have complex and simple problems. Complex problems require more materials and input to get solved. If the problem seems to be overwhelming, you should break it down by repeating the above steps. You should verify how you understand the problem. Use tools like Mindmaps to help you define the scope.

Prioritize the problem

In some cases, managers find themselves dealing with different problems. If this is the case, it is important to prioritize the problems and know which problems to address first. You should know the difference between urgent and important problems.

Often, what most managers consider to be important problems are in real sense urgent problems. You need to give important problems more attention. For example, if you are dealing with phone calls, it is important to design your system to prioritize on urgent phone calls.

Understand the role of people in the problem

The role of the manager in the problem can influence how the manager perceives the role of others. Sometimes, if you feel too guilty about your role in the problem, you will ignore the accountability of other people. Also, some managers get blinded so much by the role other people play in a problem that they forget that they also have a role in the problem.

Find the potential causes of the problem

You don’t know a lot about what you don’t know. It is, therefore, crucial to get input from others because they may be affected by the problem as well. You should collect input from other people one at a time. Write down what you have read from other people and your opinions. Write down a clear description of the cause of the problem in terms of what is happening, when it is happening, where it is happening and why it is happening.

Identify alternatives for resolving the problem

When you get at this point, it is helpful to keep other people involved unless you have a personal employee problem. You need to brainstorm and collect many ideas and screen them to find the best ideas. It is crucial when collecting these ideas to not pass judgment on the ideas. You should write the ideas down as you hear them.

Select an approach to solving the problem

You should choose the best approach to solve your problem for a long time. Some solutions are just for a short time and won’t be helpful to your business. Also, it is important to choose a solution that is realistic to accomplish. You should know whether you have the resources to solve the problem and if you have enough time to implement your approach. Consider the extent of the risk that comes with each alternative.

Have a plan for implementing the best alternative

You should consider what the situation will look like when you have solved the problems. Know the steps that you need to take to implement the best alternative solution. Know the processes or the systems you need to change in your organization to ensure that the solution is effective. Managers should make sure that the steps are being followed to solve the problem. You will need resources in terms of money, people and facilities to solve the problems. It is also crucial to know the time needed to implement the solution and write a schedule to include the start and stop time. In most cases, managers choose other people to be responsible for solving the problem. If this is the case, you should know the responsible persons in solving the problem.

If other people are involved in solving the problem, you should communicate the plan to them and ensure that they follow the plan by supervising them.

Verify if the problem has been solved

Managers should always verify if the problem has been solved and one of the best ways to verifying is to resume normal operations in your organization. You should consider the changes that need to be made to prevent the problem from re-occurring in the future. You should consider training, changing policies and putting procedures in place to prevent the problem from happening again. After solving a problem, managers should learn many things from the process. A brief memo can help to highlight the success of the solution.

Leadership, Management, People Management

Understanding the Relationship Between Management and Organizational Behavior

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A successful business should have a good manager and good management. The manager plays a vital role in different activities in trading and helps the business to make a profit. A successful manager should be able to control employees and acquire his goals from the staff by assigning resources, making a decision and directing activities. A successful manager should also be able to perform the four main functions in a business such as organizing, planning, controlling and leading.

The Role of Organizational Behavior in Business

Apart from what we have mentioned above, organizational behavior plays a vital role in a business set-up as well as in management. Organizational behavior is the study of how groups, individuals and structure effect and get influenced by different behaviors in organizations. The knowledge gained from the study of organizational behavior is applied to groups, individuals and structure to improve or make functions more effective in organizations.

Organizational behavior is one of the most critical elements that support management in organizations. Managers can understand different behaviors of individuals in an organization and what groups, individuals and structure are doing as well as predict their actions and realize the effects and causes among relationships in a business setting. With management functions, businesses also use different resources to achieve their goals and objectives. The resources are arranged in four groups namely human, physical, financial, and information resources.

Human Resource

Human resource can be defined as the people that operate an organization. A human resource is an employee or a single person within an organization. Human resources are all the staff in your organization. Human resource can also be defined as the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as benefits, compensation, hiring and recruiting employees, performance management, onboarding employees, training, advising managers about the impact on people of their planning, financial, and performance decisions on the employees in an organization.

Physical Resources

Every company should have physical resources. Some companies need more physical resources than others. Physical resources are tangible items in an organization, and they are essential for a business to function. The items have value, take space and are used in operating the company. All types of businesses need physical resources. Businesses that are product-based use physical resources to provide goods for sale and to operate the business. Businesses that are service-based use physical resources to deliver services such as having tools and space to work in order to deliver the services.

Financial Resources

The financial resource is the money available in business in the form of liquid securities, cash and credit lines. An entrepreneur should secure enough financial resources before going into business. This helps the entrepreneur to be able to operate and promote success sufficiently.

Information Resources

Information resources are vital for businesses. For businesses to be successful, they need information. A combination of external and internal business information resources can provide the background needed to evaluate current business performance and plan for future progress. It is essential for managers to know the types of information that is crucial for business in order to plan for getting, analyzing and using information effectively. 

When managers understand financial, human, physical and information resources, they can use it and compose the functions with four basic functions (organizing, planning, controlling and leading) with the purpose of getting effective results from the organization. Managers will follow that to show how to apply the above basic resources and functions to the organization and its goals.

Planning is the process established to determine the future position of an organization and decide on how to achieve goals within an organization. Organizing is the process of designing jobs. Leading is the process of motivating workers and resolving conflicts within an organization. Controlling is; comparing, correcting and motoring performance with the objectives of the organization. 

The Role of Managers

Managers have a role of performing effective functions and roles in an organization. Managers have interpersonal roles, and these include the figurehead, the liaison, and the leader. Managers also have the roles of making critical decisions in an organization. They act as the disturbance handler, the entrepreneur, the negotiator, and the resource allocator. These are very important roles in decision making. 

Making high-quality decisions in an organization can be productive. Managers also have an information role. This includes monitoring information, dissemination of information and breaking down of information for easy understanding by the junior employees. Information is therefore very important in an organization, and the behavioral processes help managers to get the right information.

Negative Effects of Behavior

Understanding behavior plays an important role in management. However, some behavior can affect management negatively. Several problems affect managers negatively, and managers should pay more attention to these. One of the main reasons that cause difficulty in organizations is deviant. The deviant workplace may include hostile behaviors and sabotage, insult, theft, and gossip. The organization should put in place proper firing and hiring policies to control such behavior and ensure the organization is running smoothly. A prevention plan should also, and this includes training managers to identify problems early and set up clear rules with respect to threat, violence, harassment and more. Job satisfaction can improve productivity in an organization, but it can also be a negative influence because employees can feel too comfortable and become sluggish.

Conclusion

It is important for everyone to understand the relationship between organization and management when discussing leadership. It also helps managers to face challenges within an organization and find out the best ways to deal with the challenges. Managers should have a thorough grasp of the theory and practice it. It is also important for managers to be able to administrate and face global challenges, manage diversity, improve services, empower people, provide job satisfaction and deviant workplace. From this information, organizations can run smoothly and gain more benefits through components, perceiving roles and their effects in organizations.

Customer Experience, Customer Management

10 First Steps to Improve Customer Experience

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A business cannot grow without their customers; therefore, companies work hard to win new customers as well as keep their existing customers. Customer experience is the complete perception of a brand for the customers through several interactions with the company during the journey. It is more feeling orientated than problem orientated. Providing overall good customer experience by a company can lead to building long term relationship with its customers while being good only in one area but struggling in other areas can result in an overall poor experience.

Customer experience is different from customer service as customer service is only one aspect of the whole customer experience. It can often be about one single point, specific department or individual. A company provides support to customers who are having problems while purchasing its products or services. It plays a significant role because the whole customer experience can be strongly affected by customer service interaction. So, businesses should improve their customer experience if they want to scale.

Build a customer-focused Culture:

Building a customer-focused culture purely means making the customer experience a central part of the company’s goals and values. According to seohosting, it is 5 times costlier to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. So, the main goal of the company should be customer satisfaction rather than growth and profits. They should be in constant interaction with their customers at every phase of the journey. Without a customer-focused culture, companies can not really reach strong customer satisfaction levels.

Every employee has an impact on customers not only the customer-facing employees who interact with the customers so often. The key to a culture change is to Involve all employees. Each person in the company needs to understand how their role can influence customers.

For example, Zappos uses a customer-centric approach which has been established into their culture to deliver the best customer service and improve customer experience.

Know who your customers are:

It is obvious that if you don’t know who your customers are, you will never know what they want, and how you can help them achieve it. All customers do not have the same needs and you can discover several different types of customers with different requirements and expectations.

To know who your customers are, employees should recognize the targeted customers and think of the services from their viewpoint. Having a complete understanding of the customers through customer engagement data plays a great role in achieving fundamental business goals. It also empowers delivering improved customer experiences across the board. As said by Teradata, only 41% of companies use customer engagement data to update their marketing strategy.

Mobile customer support:

As an average user spends more than three hours daily, browsing and using their smartphone. So, the biggest brands offer mobile apps and mobile-friendly websites for their users to capture their attention and engage them. Customers can get their queries resolved on their smartphones that really improve customer satisfaction level. Some of the companies don’t focus on their mobile support so resulting in poor customer experience.

In the U.S, 63% of people use their smartphones to search for products and customer support every month.

Live chat support:

Customers had to wait in a long queue while contacting the company through phone calls so, live chat is now the fastest way for customers to contact a company directly from its website in real time. In the beginning, it was available only in retail websites online but nowadays, this is not limited to eCommerce websites. All well-known brands offer live chat support to improve customer experience.

Gartner predicts that about 85 percent of businesses will provide a live chat facility on their websites by 2022.

Social media support:

Social media support can be an influential communication way for a company to develop strong relationships with the customers, earn trust and build brand awareness. It is not only used for finding more followers or increasing sales, but it is also used for customer experience improvement.

Younger customers, who normally do not check emails will particularly expect social messaging to be their way to get in touch with companies, brands, and artists. So, it is important for companies to focus deeply on social media support and manage it well. Facebook has more than 2 billion users and Twitter has more than 330 million users. It shows how people are involved in social media.

An understanding of what other channels are suitable for your customer base:

Earlier, there used to be only one way to contact a company but now the businesses must provide the most suitable communication channels to make it easy for the customers to get in touch. Customers can use text, message, email, forums and any other way easier for them to contact. Some old age people prefer phone calls to contact while younger people use social media. It is believed that no single communication medium fits for all and depends on the customers.

Self serve tools:

Self-service helps the customers to get answers to their questions without the assistance of a representative from the customer service team. The commonly used self-serve tools include FAQs and online discussion forums. Self-serve tools are faster, hence ideal for saving customers’ time. It allows customers to take control of the way they use the service. Self-serve tools are no more a “nice to have” in the website. It is required to provide a positive customer experience.

Customer self-serve tools also help in reducing the load on customer support representatives and earn enhanced customer loyalty and experience. The study conducted by Dimension Data shows that 73 percent of the customers choose to use self-serve tools provided in the company’s website, instead of using phone calls, live chat, and social media for support.

Someone to be responsible for customer experience:

Nearly all the departments of a company do really influence the customer experience. It is not the job of one individual or department. therefore, everyone uses their efforts and enhance things in their own area.

In most companies, the marketing department helps in improving customer experience as a whole. In some cases, the top management work for it. But there is a customer experience manager that makes a connection between the company and the customer. And this person helps in managing customer experience job across all different departments.

The ability to research and gather data:

A survey conducted by Salesforce shows that 57% of the total customers share their personal data with companies to get special offers and discounts. Businesses collect a huge amount of data through many activities. It is important to analyze this data and utilize it for providing personalized services to customers and enhancing the customer experience. This helps a company keep a loyal customer base.

A report published by ICMI said that 69% of customers pay additional money if they are getting great customer service.

Ability to benchmark and evaluate:

The company should be able to collect and gather data trying out different things. Which support service is effective and which one is not. To know answers to all these questions there must be feedback giving the option for the customers. This will help the company to measure the effectiveness of each customer support method.

Conclusion:

In today’s technological world and constant access to the internet, every customer wants 24/7 exemplary customer services from a company. So, every company must now try to make better customer service their top priority. It helps the company to take an edge over its competitors.

Management, People Management

The Role of Managers in Organizations

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The job of a manager is vital in an organization. The manager is a planner, producer, coordinator, and marketer. An organization’s success will depend on the caliber of managers in utilizing the resources to achieve business goals. Managers are pivotal figures in the task of creating wealth. Technology, methods of production, the financial setup, and marketing techniques change rapidly, and managers should be competent to cope with the changes.

Definition of a Manager

The manager is someone in an organization who directs the activities done by other people. Managers do their work at different levels, and they have different names in an organization. First line managers are called supervisors, or in construction or manufacturing, they are called foremen. Middle-level managers include various levels of management between supervisors and top-level managers in an organization.

The managers may also be called plant heads, functional managers, and project managers. There are top managers near the top of the hierarchy. The top-level managers are responsible for making decisions in an organization. They also set strategies and policies that affect different aspects of the organization. These people may also be called managing directors, vice presidents, chief executive officer or chairmen.

Managerial Functions

Managers have to perform functions like organizing, planning, staffing, directing and controlling. These functions are necessary for running of an organization and achieving objectives. Planning is essential for establishing strategies and setting goals for coordinating activities.

The organization function of a manager helps in determining the tasks to be done, how to do them and how the tasks are grouped. The staffing function of a manager is essential for employing different types of people and doing different activities such as development, training, compensation, appraisal, and welfare.

The directing function of managers requires the giving of instructions and motivating the subordinates to achieve their goals. Managers should perform the controlling function to ensure that they are being done as planned and correcting any mistakes.

Managerial skills

Managers have a number of responsibilities. Managers should have proper skills for them to perform different roles. Managers should have three essential skills; human, technical and conceptual skills. The importance of these skills varies depending on the level of the manager within an organization.

Human skills

Managers should have the ability to work well with others both in a group or individually. Managers should have human skills to get the best from the people working with them. They should also know how to communicate with people, motivate them, lead them and inspire trust and enthusiasm. The skills are essential by managers at every level, but the topmost managers need them the most.

Technical skills

Managers should have the necessary technical skills. They should also be able to work with the tools, resources, procedures, and techniques to achieve the organizational goals. Many middle managers and first-line managers should be involved in a lot of technical aspects within an organization. Some of the technical skills that managers should have include knowledge of proficiency in different specialties such as computers, engineering, manufacturing or finance. Even if the need for technical skills is less when managers go higher the hierarchy but still it is essential for a manager to have technical skills to help in decision making.

Conceptual skills

Managers should be able to coordinate and integrate different activities within an organization. Managers should have the ability to conceptualize and think about abstract solutions. They should be able to see the organization wholesomely and the relationships among the subunits in an organization to be able to visualize how the organization fits in its broad environment. Conceptual skills are also critical in decision-making. It is necessary for all managers to take the necessary decisions. Conceptual skills become more essential as managers make up the hierarchy of the organization.

Qualities of a Good Manager

Managers should be able to undertake different functions from controlling to planning. They have to make decisions for different types of activities in an organization. The decisions that managers take to influence the working of an organization. A manager should have the following qualities:

Education

Managers should have the right educational background. Nowadays, managers should have management education besides other qualifications. Education is vital because it widens the mental horizon and also helps in understanding different things and interpreting them properly. Therefore, managers should be knowledgeable in the business environment to be able to deal with various problems the organization may face.

Leadership

Managers have the responsibility of directing and motivating people working in the organization. They provide leadership to the subordinate staff. The energies of the subordinate employees should be channelizing of properly to achieve goals. If managers have leadership skills, they can motivate the subordinate staff in improving their working and performance to their full capacity in order to benefit the organization.

Intelligence

Managers have to perform more duties than other people in the organization. Their level of intelligence should be higher than other people in the organization. Intelligence is crucial because it helps managers to assess the present responsibilities as well as the future possibilities for the business. Managers should be able to foresee things in advance and take the necessary measure at the appropriate time.

Training

Managers should acquire managerial skills. The skills consist of human skills, technical skills, and conceptual skills. The skills should be acquired through guidance, education, and experience. The skills are necessary for all levels of managers.

Technical knowledge

Managers should have technical knowledge of different activities in the organization. They will be in a better position to inspect and guide if they have the knowledge of those activities.

Positive attitude

Managers should have a positive attitude. Managers have to deal with a lot of people from the inside as well as from the outside of the organization. They should be positive and sympathetic to different suggestions. They should not pre-judge people they deal with. They need to understand people’s problems and try to help them.

There are other skills such as confidence, foresight, maturity, and more skills that a manager should possess. Being a manager is not an easy role and it’s definitely more than just a title. Managers need to be able to make decisions, often with little detailed knowledge, and then they need to deal with the consequences of those decisions.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ITIL, Management

What is ITIL CSI?

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If you’ve heard about ITIL CSI and have been wondering what it’s good for, or alternatively, if you’ve been looking at all these professionals recommending CSI and stressing on its importance without ever knowing what it is for sure, then you’re in luck. In this blog post, we’re going to talk about ITIL CSI and what it is. So if you’re a bit confused about what its functions really are or if you’re not sure if you should implement it, then you have come to the right place. In this blog post, we’re going to tell you exactly what ITIL CSI is and what you can hope to achieve from it.

So, What Is It?

ITIL CSI or Continual Service Improvement is a module that provides guidance in creating and maintaining value for customers through better strategy planning, design and operation, and presentation of services. It is basically combing the principles of the firm, practices of the firm and the methods it uses from quality management, change management, and capability improvement. ITIL refers to the management of the firm’s IT services. Whereas, CSI has two main stages. These are

  • service review and
  • process objective.

Service review refers to the reviewing of business services and infrastructure on a regular basis. Whereas, process objective refers to the reviewing of the processes used by the firm on a regular basis. This includes identifying areas where the targeted process metrics are not reached and holding regular benchmarking, audits, maturity assessments and reviews.

Many business analysts believe that ITIL CSI is best practices for a smaller firm. It best fits the practice framework of most small firms and should be used by all. Small firms have smaller resources than larger firms. Due to these small firms often believe that they cannot reach out to the best practices that are otherwise used by larger firms.

Large firms have a lot of resources. They have the capacity to deal with risks and try on newer firm practices. They can use ITIL and CSI as this framework needs resources and its implementation is complex. However, this is not the case. Smaller firms are flexible, adaptable and have improved relationships with their customers. This provides them an edge in implementing the ITIL CSI.

ITIL CSI as a Tool for Small Businesses

Through ITIL CSI, small firms can easily find out where they are lagging behind as compared to larger firms. They can manage and optimize on their IT department much more efficiently using ITIL. It is much easier to detect an online bug found in the company’s server. It is also much easier to mitigate the risk and improve on the performance of their IT services. Small services often search for a steady IT service and they aim towards delivering services to customers. It is true that since smaller firms have lesser resources, ITIL CSI can be implemented more efficiently as smaller firms need to check out the challenges that they need to overcome or face.

Apart from this, ITIL CSI can help small businesses to expand. For smaller firms to expand successfully a clear-cut strategy is often needed. In order to do this, the resources of the firm need to be accounted for, stakeholders need to consult for any concerns assuaged and quantifiable goals need to be set in. The ITIL Service Cycle helps firms achieve this aim. Once the initial goals have been set or reached by smaller firms, the ITIL CSI helps it expand since each new strategy is introduced, experimented and then implemented,

The Framework

The ITIL CSI is a tailorable framework. It is often referred to as the silver bullet solution. This leads to the organization implementing the ITIL as a whole. ITIL causes hindrance in larger firms. However, with smaller firms, they are able to prioritize what is most pressing. The ITIL not only helps them identify the problem that is there within a firm but it also, helps them improve upon it effectively and efficiently. The ITIL CSI also condenses the roles in a firm. For instance, the roles of the incident manager and problem manager can be taken on by one individual. They can take responsibility for minimizing issues before they escalate.

Moreover, the ITIL is not just about processes it’s about people. A company’s good service depends on the dedication of staff who take ownership of their role. ITIL helps promote a culture of responsibility as each staff is assigned a task which they must fulfill at a particular time. The ITIL soon becomes a part of a company’s culture.

Despite improved and increased efficiency, the ITIL CSI has many other benefits which can be very useful for smaller firms. The use of ITIL CSI reduces costs for a firm. The firm no longer has to spend huge sums of money on hiring Professional advisors. It can help develop a strategy without having to hire a great number of Professionals. It also condenses the roles of individuals in the firm which means that less number of workers are hired. It even increases the productivity of workers as roles are condensed making each and every worker of the firm to work effectively. There is high interdependence between workers which again contributes to the productivity of the firm. ITIL CSI also increases customer satisfaction. Since the ITIL provides predictable processes and a set framework, it is easier to meet customer satisfaction, as well as monitor and measure incidents.

As a result, smaller firms should make use of the ITIL CSI in order to function effectively and efficiently.

Conclusion

As you can see, regardless of the kind of business you run, you will find that ITIL CSI is very important for businesses everywhere. Not only can help you understand how to use your resources effectively within a given budget, but it also helps you understand the need for diverting resources or restructuring your business model. A lot of business owners today depend on this to take care of various departments such as logistics and customer service. Given the competition, you should not fall behind and use this opportunity provided to you and implement this method to further your business.

Leadership, Management, Organizational Behaviour, People Management

Why Managers Need To Understand Organizational Behavior

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As managers begin to study organizational behavior, they will be struck by the fact that they can apply what they have learned immediately to the problems they encounter at work. Managers will be gaining a broad view of organizational behavior disciplines, and they will also find different ways they can alter their management philosophy to reflect the knowledge newly found in the study of organizational behavior. The more the knowledge about organizational behavior grows; the more managers will become skilled in understanding and analyzing the behavioral implications of the problems facing their organization. Before we look at the necessity of managers studying organizational behavior, let’s first look at the organizational behavior theories.

Human Relations Behavioral Theory

This theory states that organizations function well when the staff feels empowered and valued. The theory is based on studying the productivity of the employees under different circumstances of work. Human relations behavioral theory also states that the staff in an organization are likely to increase efficiency and productivity if they feel validated and satisfied at work.

For example, things such as free lunch could help employees feel content and secure because their company meets their needs. When the staff believes that management cares about their needs and wants, they feel a sense of loyalty, and this boosts their productivity in return.

Decision-making Behavioral Theory

This is the most applied theory to supervisors and managers because they can make more of their decisions that affect their company. Decision making behavioral theory states that people within an organization can only make decisions based on the available information. However, the information must be complete and accurate for the decision to achieve a specific goal.

The person making the decision should have the ability to sort through the process and information correctly. Inadequate or insufficient information leads to bad decision making. Also, managers who are not strong in information synthesis are likely to make bad decisions.

Servant Leadership Behavioral T

The servant leadership theory has gained a lot of influence over the past few decades. The theory states that the leaders in an organization will achieve success only if they become servants of their employees. Leaders wield influence in an organization, unlike servants. They are therefore able to create the principles and vision that drives the company forward. The servant leadership theory allows executives to view all work protocols and processes from the point of view of their employees. If you own a company, then your primary job is to view the needs and the wants of your employees as more important as your needs and wants.

This simply means that you provide employees with all the necessary resources for them to achieve performance standards that you have established for your company. Servant leadership behavior can help you create a stronger bond with your employees, but it is important to remember that your main focus should remain on the wants and needs of your employees and not on their feelings. Managers who focus too much on the feelings of their workers may be restricted from making hard decisions and from providing honest critiques of their work.

Benefits of Organizational Behavior to Managers

There are many benefits of knowing organizational behavior for leaders and managers in any organization. We have listed the three main benefits for you to understand.

Employee Training

Organizational behavior is very important in the process of training employees. Employees with the right backgrounds get hired to do relevant jobs in an organization. However, often the background is not enough to ensure that there is effective performance over time.

Organizational behavior affects the training provided to employees internally through resources. Employee training is focused on strengthening and improving the existing skills, regulatory requirements or learning about new technology that can impact how work is done in an organization and staying updated on changes in the environment that can change how employees do work.

Engagement

Managers and employers are concerned about developing a conducive environment where employees can feel connected to their work and to the mission of the company. Managers are also concerned about their ability to offer ideas and insights to help improve the production and the work environment. The work rules in an organization affect the engagement as well as the culture.

Conclusion

Organizational behavior is an important subject. It helps leaders and managers to understand, and plan for an individual’s actions. Organizational behavior is the study of perception, attitude, and moral ethics of individuals in an organization.

Leadership, Management, People Management

How to be a Good Boss and a Leader

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Many discussions have come up concerning bosses and leaders. We have seen many people discourage individuals from being bosses and becoming leaders. The question though is, are bosses inherently bad and are leaders inherently good?

First, we will look at the definitions of the two words.

Who or What is a Boss?

A boss can be defined as a person who has and exercises authority or supervises workers.

A leader, on the other hand, is somebody with the ability to lead or create a following and inspire and motivate people.

Generally, a boss tends to be more of a manager and a leader. A boss must have some authority over some people to get the title while a leader doesn’t need to.

A leader has positive connotations. The moment anyone gets the ‘leader’ title means he is respected and appreciated by those who follow him and draw inspiration and motivation from him. We, however, note that the word boss comes with negative connotations.  A boss is generally seen as someone who is controlling and doesn’t care about other people’s feelings.

Can Somebody be a Boss and a Leader?

Sometimes it’s hard to be a boss and a leader considering the different responsibilities bosses and leaders have. Bosses mostly are managers and trying to be a manager and a leader at the same time could be detrimental to your business.

Managers, for instance, are supposed to not feed their emotions when doing their job. Managers are supposed to dismiss when they should, give a pay cut when they should, be hard on the workers when they should. A leader is however like a good teacher who gives inspiration and motivation. A leader listens to his/her juniors. He/she can break the rules just to endear themselves to the juniors.

A manager can’t do that and doing that could see them make some really bad losses. Normally, I like to compare a leader to a grandparent of a child and a boss/manager to the mother of the child. Most of the time, grandparents are nice to grandchildren. They smile at them, play with them, tell them stories, and many kids love being around them. A parent, however, has to discipline the child. Once in a while a parent has to show a stern face, give a stern warning, ground a child, and in some countries and among some people, they even have to spank them. It is thus quite a challenge of a task trying to be a boss and a leader at the same time.

It is, however, possible to be a boss and a leader. In fact, whenever a boss is described as good, he’s already a leader because you can’t be a good boss and fail to exhibit most of the characteristics of a leader.

We are thus going to look at some characteristics of a leader and how a boss can use them to become a good boss thus becoming a good boss and a leader at the same time.

Don’t have Favorites

Good leaders care about the emotions of their followers. They use emotions to create inspirations and attach themselves to their juniors. This means good leaders avoid doing things that may hurt some of the workers. One of these things is being unfair to particular individuals. Luckily enough for the bosses, you don’t really have to run on emotions to achieve this. You can completely run on logic and still be able to be impartial. Of course, as a human being, it’s quite impossible never to have a favorite – the point is – never show it.

Always Remember your Employees are Human.

In business, managers are advised not to run on emotions. This has led to many managers completely disregarding the feelings of their employees. Some bosses only focus on production – anything else is out of the question. You can, however, pick this leadership trait of being human without compromising your work standards and production. Happy workers are more productive than unhappy ones. Treat your workers humanely, and they’ll be happy.

Listen to your Workers’ Ideas and be Open to Change

One characteristic of a good leader is the capability of listening to their workers or juniors or followers and trying out the ideas they come up with. However, leaders interact with their juniors way less than their bosses, and this is a tricky thing to try out like a boss. We, therefore, advise bosses to moderately listen to their juniors once in a while. This creates an environment of harmony and a feeling of belonging among the workers.

Accountability Shouldn’t be Limited to your Workers

A leader is someone who motivates and inspires. A leader can lead by simply being there and not actually interacting with their followers on a one on one basis. A leader just makes themselves the golden standard which he/she wants his/her followers to emulate.

A boss however also has the responsibility of instilling the discipline he/she expects in the workers. Many bosses end up just shouting orders and giving punishments to their juniors without even looking at the person. A good boss who wishes to be a leader should make sure they live up to the standards they intend to instill in their workers. If you want a corruption free organization, don’t be corrupt. If you want a clean environment, be clean. Always be accountable for your mistakes and never project mistakes you did to your workers. You’ll be shocked how you’ll have an easier time implementing your standards when you live up to them yourself.

Be Polite

Leaders create a connection with the people. To have people follow you, you must inspire them. You can’t inspire people if they fear you. Bosses, on the other hand, need to create a professional environment with their juniors which in many cases can’t be compromised with too much familiarity. Familiarity breeds contempt. However, a boss loses nothing by being polite.

You can exhibit leadership qualities by being polite when you speak to your workers. Sometimes always barking orders projects you as insecure and trying too hard to stamp your authority.

Support your Team

This leadership quality doesn’t necessarily mean you hold your worker’s hand. You can simply give them guidance where necessary and acknowledge their hard work.

Remove Obstacles for your Team

Good leaders make it easier for their followers to progress. Good leaders can accept temporary discomfort for the benefit of their followers. Generally, managers are forced to limit the choices of their workers. For the sake of productivity and meeting deadlines, managers may be forced to increase the working hours of the workers and be strict on reporting time for instance.

A good boss, however, can try their best to remove obstacles for his workers rather than increase them.  Providing a better working environment, improving their working conditions and generally showing care is a good step. A small task like ensuring the computers used by the workers are always in good condition can see you go a long way.

Don’t Just Ask, Demonstrate

Good leaders can be good leaders for just being there and being themselves. They don’t have to make orders or ask for anything to be done. They create a kind of lifestyle such that just being there inspires the workers to do something.

Many bosses just bark orders without understanding what the workers go through. Some workers may be going through challenges and may not exactly understand what they should do – a boss wishing to be a good leader demonstrates rather than ask or order. Once in a while pick that tool and start working with your workers.

Avoid Micromanagement

One prominent characteristic of a good leader is the ability to trust and have faith in his/her followers. Some bosses, however, don’t understand that it’s the people under them that make a company successful. They act as if they are the only ones who know what they are doing in the company and would want to supervise every little thing happening in the company.

Micromanagement slows your team, demotivates your team, slows the growth of members of your team and causes you not to perform more important tasks that you should be performing rather than micromanaging your team.

A good boss delegates duties to juniors. This improves their self-esteem and respect for you.

Develop People Rather than Using Them

I once worked for a construction company and was the supervisor of the casual laborers. One day I noticed that the workers had left some of the tools outside the store. I took them back to the store. My immediate boss came and found me opening the store and was very mad that I was doing a casual laborers job. I explained to him that they had already left, but he barked and insisted I should have called one of them back because he pays them to do that job and they must do it. I later realized many bosses have a similar mentality – they pay their workers and thus must use them as much as they like.

That’s really a bad approach to business. A worker is a human being who just like you also wishes to progress in life. Developing your workers earns you respect and makes you an example surrounded by successful people who respect you. Good leaders support, they don’t use.

Customer Management

Some Simple Steps to Improve Customer Experience

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Let’s take a simple example that everyone is familiar with – Email. Email is a fact of life now and many organizations have switched to email as the only way in which they provide support to their customers.  However humans are social animals and we are built to make judgments based on visual clues – this is called Body Language – and when these clues are removed from a conversation, the most innocuous and innocent topic can quickly escalate out of control.

With email, it’s impossible to understand body language, so what can you do to ensure you are getting your point across? How can you improve customer experience when you do not get a chance to meet your customers? Some things that you can do to improve this though are as follows:

Personalize

If your company uses templates or something similar to respond to customers, take the opportunity of personalizing them.  It is not just a matter of adding a name to the top of the email, but rather sprinkle their name throughout the discourse you are having with them.  Think about it as if you were having a normal, face-to-face conversation with that person.

Add a bit of personalized text to your email and you can make the customer feel that you care about him; his needs and that you are there for him. Everyone in this world wants to feel special, keep that in mind when writing emails.

Empathize

If a customer tells you about something in the body of their email, make sure you have actually read it and understand what he is saying.  For example, if you are informed that the reason the internet is so important is due to a disability, you can use the words “sorry” in the body of your response without it being offensive.

A few words showing empathy and well wishes do not take long for you to type but might make all the difference – keep in mind, if they are contacting your support department, it is because a service they are paying for is not working to their expectations and at this point, customer service is where you need to put your focus.  The golden rule definitely applies here and you should treat them the way you would like to be treated in similar circumstances.

It’s important with customer experience to focus on removing roadblocks. The more barriers there are, the more difficult your customers will find it to work with you.

Tone

What is your customer actually telling you?  Does he sound happy/sad/angry?  Is this his first email about this issue or has he sent many others?  How many emails has he sent to your company on other similar issues?  Here’s where a decent CRM comes into play as the more information you have about a customer the better.

All of these are clues to help you in determining the type of response you should send to your customer.  While you might be restricted in the message due to the circumstances and the response you can give, HOW you tell the customer something is completely different WHAT you tell the customer.

K.I.S.S.

An old, old acronym is KISS – Keep It Simple (Stupid) – and this definitely applies here.  Remember who your target is and what their skills are.  If you are supporting a technical product, it should be fairly obvious that your skills in this area are going to be higher than someone not working in that field and without access to your tools and resources.  There are a lot people with no or very little experience with computers. They may not use computer daily, are elderly, technophobic… when a person like this contacts us, they might have already exhausted everything they were able to do and are already feeling frustrated with the lack of a resolution.

Your response to this person should be aimed at not only resolving their reported issue (in a KISS way!!), but based on your experience what their NEXT question would be also.  In addition, you should take this as an opportunity to educate your customer also on where they can find this information in the future.  You will not stop receiving emails from everyone by doing this, but gradually education is the best tool to ensure that your issues are resolved.

The Terminator

A fairly famous film that you will have probably heard of is The Terminator with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  In that film, machines have taken over the Earth and are currently at war with Humanity.  This is NOT the case here. 

While AI implementations are increasing around the world, you are dealing with real people and NOT machines so the way in which you speak to them should be appropriate to that.

Project Management, Tools

Top 3 Project Management Software Options for the Small Business

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Small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs are probably one of the most overlooked group when it comes to marketing, software management and more. In fact, not many companies aim their customer service or work efficiency products and software towards them because the consensus is that this sector of the private industry cannot pay much. Neither do they have a lot of requirements like big businesses either so there’s no multi-million-dollar business contract to be signed.

Just because this sector cannot throw millions of dollars for software development does not mean that they should not enjoy the benefits of doing business in the twenty-first century. Below you will find a list of of the top software packages that I think you can use if you are in the SMB sector.

Wrike

First on our list is Wrike. This is because it’s a very robust project management software which helps you keep track of your projects from start to finish, allowing you to manage multiple projects at the same time. It will make multi-tasking much simpler for you and your team.

This software is designed with small teams in mind and is made up of very good features which will aid you in your journey to create the best project solutions. This software is built in a manner that will allow you to grow your business. It includes a very flexible feature on managing multiple teams, so you can assign more people to different projects. This is actually very helpful as it will help you divide work between your workers so that you can distribute the workload in a way which will benefit your business and cause your staff to hone their best skills.

The software also allows you to keep track of individual contribution to a project so that you can keep track of all your employees, which will make it easier for you to decide on things like bonuses and help you identify each staff’s strengths and weaknesses.

The only downside of this software is that you can only have up to five employees on the software and you will find that the user interface is not very interesting, making it more difficult for those who are not very tech-savvy to operate.

MeisterTask

Next up on our list is MeisterTask. This is a cloud-based project management software. Freelancers will find this more useful than small business owners because it helps to keep track of individual tasks and keeps you updated with your progress. It does not offer individual progress but it’s fine because you can keep track of how your team is performing.

In addition to that, the features of this software include giving the administrator full control of the direction and tasks of the project so if your staff is untrained or newly appointed, it might be useful to use this software to help them understand how to do work. The software also allows you and your team to communicate in real time via a feature called MindMeister.

MeisterTask also allows you to classify tasks according to your staff. This means that each staff on your team will only be seeing their part of the project and not the task assigned to others. This may come in handy if your team works in the systems security service or simply if the task requires discretion. Furthermore, MeisterTask will easily connect to third-party apps like Zendesk and Slack.

The downside of this software is the limited functions when it comes to team tasks and listing. As we mentioned earlier, it will be quite difficult for you to keep track of each individual and may be problematic if you’re trying to keep track of each individual’s performance.

Paymo

Last, but not the least, is Paymo. Like MeisterTask, Paymo is a cloud-based project management solution but, unlike MeisterTask, it specifically caters to small business owners. Of course, freelancers can also use this software, but it does not leave businesses out. This is why out of the three we’ve mentioned so far. We personally recommend Paymo because it’s the best one around.

Paymo offers not only just project management features but also allows the users to create, divide and assign projects to their teams. It also allows team members to engage in discussions related to the project(s) they’re working on and helps them stay updated with the progress of the project.

What makes Paymo stand out though, is its key feature: The Visual Kanban Board which allows all the users working on a project to see the progress of every task and track the estimated time it will take for their project to finish. Furthermore, you can customize time and work reports for things like auditing, billing and reporting purposes.

It also includes an accounting function which allows you to keep track of expenses, invoices and estimate profits. In fact, users can even manage and customize each project’s accounting and budgeting requirements. Unlike the two mentioned above, Paymo has a per-user-per-month subscription plan so you don’t have to pay for a whole year in advance and can add members each month as your business flourishes.

Conclusion

As you can see, each of these packages has a specific audience in mind and it’s not just focused on big businesses. Wrike is aimed mostly at small business owners and entrepreneurs while MeisterTask is better for freelancers than anyone else. However, as we mentioned, Paymo is our favourite software because it’s great for all three.

Customer Management, People Management

How Positive Feedback Influences The Bottom Line

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Positive feedback matters. It makes a difference in employee morale and motivation. As someone in the support and operations area of business, I cannot emphasize this enough.

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to complain online if and when services that you expect do not get provided correctly or on time. To be completely frank, with tools like Twitter and Facebook at our beck and call, this has become even simpler than it ever was before. Not only can you complain about a company, but you can shout it from the rooftops and you’ll have hundreds if not thousands of people joining in the conversation.

The Power of Positive Feedback

Don’t ever underestimate the power of positive feedback. We are quick to point out to someone when they make a mistake. Sometimes we forget to acknowledge them when they do something right. As a leader, I have to often deal with the negative complaints about the service my team provides. While part of solving that problem is an additional process through things like post-mortems and RCAs, the flip side is acknowledging that there are some rare customers out there that take the time to recognize good work also!

Don’t ever underestimate the power of positive feedback. We are quick to point out to someone when they make a mistake. Sometimes we forget to acknowledge them when they do something right. As a leader, I have to often deal with the negative complaints about the service my team provides. While part of solving that problem is an additional process through things like post-mortems and RCAs, the flip side is acknowledging that there are some rare customers out there that take the time to recognize good work also!

To those rare customers – THANK YOU!! Giving positive feedback can be a powerful tool for employee motivation and your time is sincerely appreciated. For the managers and leaders lucky enough to have received such feedback, here’s how to use it most effectively:

  • Do it now. Positive feedback is too important to let slide. Say something right away.
  • Make it public. While negative feedback should be given privately, positive feedback should be given publicly. Do it in front of as large a group as appropriate.
  • Be specific. Don’t just say “Good job, Sally.” Instead say something like “Hakim, that new procedure you developed for routing service calls has really improved our customer satisfaction. Thanks for coming up with it.”
  • Make a big deal out of it. You don’t want to assemble the entire company every time you give positive feedback, but do as much ceremony as the action warrants.
  • Consider the receiver. It is important to consider the feeling of the person receiving recognition. For a very shy person, thanking him in front of his workgroup is probably most appropriate. For another person, you might hang a banner, balloons, and streamers in the department area.
  • Do it often. Don’t wait for the big successes. Celebrate the small ones too.
  • Do it evenly. Big successes need big recognition; small successes need smaller recognition. If you throw a party for every small success, you diminish its effect for a big success.
  • Be sincere. Don’t praise someone for coming in on time. Don’t congratulate someone for just doing their job. People will see right through you. Really mean it when you give positive feedback.

The Importance of Surveys

If you’re not getting positive feedback, are you sure that you’re asking for it? This is where surveying your customers comes in really handy. Many companies wrongly make the assumption that the Customer Service Team is completely disparate to the rest of the company and has no bearing on new business or in serving their existing customers aside from when they have a problem or an issue. In reality they are the face of your business and often know about new problems in the field before anyone else.

Customer Surveys allow you to collect valuable data from your customer base while simultaneously reinforcing perceptions that your organization genuinely cares about their opinions and welcomes their feedback.  If your organization does not have a process in place to gather this invaluable information, it should do so quickly with the help of a customer survey.  By listening to the voice of your clientele, you are ideally situating your organization to develop or maintain a competitive advantage.

Why Customer Experience Matters

Historically having siloed departments perhaps made sense in some industries. While this might have been historically true (and even then, not so much) customer experience has taken on a renewed focus in the industry. Many companies actually acknowledge that it is a key differentiator for them so anything that a business can do to improve this should be emphasized.

The impact of employee experience on customer experience has been explored in great detail. In fact, “happy employees equal happy customers” has become a motto for some of the world’s biggest brands.  While this might be an old argument, it has validity and is a mantra worth remembering.

The same companies invest in employee happiness year after year. The rest continue to not invest. There’s a clear line between companies that get it and companies that don’t and there’s not a lot of .