Balancing Service and Efficiency: Building a Process that Enables Operational and Service Excellence
Authored by: Dirk Vander Noot
As business operators we desire to implement the most effective solutions to meet our goals and those of our clients. However, effective solutions are not just about how amazing the solution is. We must keep our budget and timelines just as high of a priority. This balance between service excellence, cost and time restrictions, and client expectations is not easily attained.
Over the past few years I have learned achieving this balance comes down to 3 key components:
Most important, is fostering cross-functional collaboration between the service and operations team.
Empowering individual team members to implement solutions.
Bringing it all together in our processes.
Building Team Collaboration Through Shared Goals
Before we develop our processes and begin implementing new solutions, the entire organization needs to be aligned with our business goals. We will focus on two distinct teams. First, our service team who provides the best solutions for our clients. The second is our operations team whose goal is to stay within set timelines and budgets. To achieve operational excellence, both teams need to work in harmony balancing their distinct goals.
Communication and collaboration are paramount to reach harmony. Two ways to increase collaboration are weekly cross-functional team meetings and implementing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) initiatives that define individual goals and how they contribute to the organization's main objectives. We must define success as all teams reaching their goals. To do so we must encourage operations and service team members to collaborate with one another regularly.
A cross-functional environment may seem less optimal at first, it takes time to reach a consensus among team members who may be unfamiliar with issues beyond their initial expertise. However, over time these meetings empower the team to reach stronger solutions in half the time and reduce the number of follow-up meetings needed to identify issues or limiting factors.
Stay Agile by Empowering Individual Team Members
Now that collaboration between the two teams has been established, we must not forget the importance of empowering the right team members to act and make decisions. This allows a business to be agile and solve problems quickly. This is best exemplified by the individual team member considering solutions with both their goals as well as the goals of the other team in mind.
When we identify solutions, we cannot afford to only consider the cost and timeliness of the solution, but its impact on our quality and the value our client’s receive. For example if our service team’s goal is to provide a new product, the cheapest and simplest solution might not be the best way to meet their needs. We must also consider how this product will meet their needs and the associated costs. Once we know how our product will meet the client’s needs, we must then plan how we will create it and deliver it to them. One option we may consider is hiring a new team member with the desired skills. This would have the highest upfront cost, but after hiring and onboarding would reduce the burden on our current team members. Another option is to contract an expert. Contracting is becoming easier and more popular in the digital age for its reduced cost. However it is more difficult to manage the quality standards of a contracted team. Otherwise, we may consider purchasing learning materials and acquire the tools for our team to provide the service themselves. This would be the most cost effective solution, but also the greatest burden on our team.
So to decide which will be the best answer, we must review our shared goals. If the service team’s goal is to focus on upskilling and they have the time, the latter option would be better. If the service team’s goal is to grow and protect their bandwidth, if the budget and time constraints are acceptable by the operations team, then the former may be the right choice. The best answer is the one that most aligns with each team’s goals.
The Intersection of Service and Operations – Our Processes
Our processes are how we attain our team’s goals. A strong process implements three key fundamentals:
The service team’s goal to provide quality solutions.
The operations team’s goal to meet timelines and budgets.
And importantly our client’s expectation to receive the quality solution we promised.
First, in order to deliver high quality solutions for our client’s, we must know the full scope of our service team's abilities. Our service team is driven by solving complex problems for our clients. To do so they must have the support necessary to learn new skills or bring in outsourced experts. However, both these methods come with economic and time constraints.
So, our team’s budget and timeline for the project must also be a crucial part of our process. Each step requires a specific amount of time and effort, which means proper term considerations per project and budgeting the costs we are able to take on to deliver quality results.
Third, meeting or exceeding our client’s expectations define our success. Our client’s rely on us to deliver what we promise. Our process must ensure that promise is delivered to them. To do so we must control our client’s expectations and can work backwards as we develop our process.
By utilizing all three of these fundamentals our processes drive the success of our clients and our team. Our processes are a framework that is also flexible and continues to grow with us. Once we develop our processes, they act as our foundation and guide for all new services and solutions that we implement.
Conclusion
There is no simple answer to balancing service and efficiency in operations, and each of us must find the process that works best for our teams. The key components of a successful process must include team cross-functional collaboration to align goals, an agile problem-solving process that empowers individual team members, and a flexible and evolving framework that focuses on delivering our teams and client’s goals. Together this is what allows us to reach service and operational excellence.
Next time we will discuss one of the most common problems encountered by all businesses, scope creep.
