It might sound quick and simple, to say how well your business does in satisfying it's customers. Hearing such as:-
"We're increasing our turnover by 14% year to date"
"Our customer complaints are now less than 4% or our transactions"
...might sound like music to your ears, but that's just the time you need to be very careful.
A regular measurement of where you are as your organisation, not depending on some of the easy-to-fake figures, might just make the difference in how well you are doing now, and into the future.
Try these quality statements and set up a mechanism whereby you review them monthly - yes, that's right, monthly. This needs to be thorough and objective. And maybe even the scores made by a cross- section of your people in all areas of your business - then you get objectivity and a true picture of how you are scoring. It is a great activity to score each of these out of 10, make a tracker month by month and each time you review, ask yourself the question:-
"What would we need to do to move our score up by 3 points"
Do it point by point and then, after you have that 3-point question, work out a monthly action plan, so that step-by-step, you gradually improve. (Note:- If you are too near a score out of 10 to have three points to go - upgrade your statement!).
Then and only then will your improvement be sustainable and you can reset the questions over time to a higher standard. Then you truly will be The Best in class!
The Quality Statements:-
Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-busin
esses-to-success.com. (Note to editors. Feel free to use this article, wherever you think it might be of value - it would be good if you could include a live link)
...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...
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