A fresh look at a few old things isn’t always a bad idea… thought #3 ahead
Workflows: If you haven’t been flogged at least 10 times over the last 10 years about formalizing your workflows and procedures, you’ve been on another planet. Everywhere you look, in every trade publication in our industry somebody is writing or speaking about the ills of not documenting how you do what you do – which is NOT what I’m talking about today.
Yes, it’s critically important, I do a great deal of this even today, but Efficiency and Productivity are the focus now, not just your E&O risk management or a better training tool.
Because of the things we’ve already talked about in Client Service and Personnel Management – the demands on our time are getting higher by the gigabit! Agencies all over the country are tearing down the traditional framework of how they do business and evaluating:
1) what is mission critical, what has to be done to
a) support core values
b) provide a quality product
c) meet client expectations
2) the most productive and efficient way to do it and
3) raising the bar of client service excellence – all at the same time.
What will surprise you is that a key part of this equation is beginning to include remote service teams, both in and outside the US. Even more surprising is that none of this is cutting jobs inside the agency, its enhancing them.
Daniel Pink in his book “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the World” talks very candidly about the left-brain jobs/tasks that are flushing out of the US into China, India and other parts of the world at pennies on the dollar for US businesses. I realize this sounds like utter communism here as I write from the buckle of the Bible belt, but when you study the idea closer and see what I’m seeing in agencies, companies, brokerages every day, you realize it’s really empowering our industry to do what we do better and shift the task-oriented elements of what we do to the lowest common denominator.
Let me share with you 3 scenarios I’m involved with to illustrate this point:
Scenario #1:I spent most of last year working with one of the world’s top 5 brokerswho quite aptly utilizes an Indian service team in a variety of ways to support their US operations. The good news is, they’ve not reduced their US workforce at all, in fact they’ve enlarged it and the average pay and level of expertise of their US employees is higher than before they engaged the service team. The staff is so comfortable with offloading portions of their work to the service center that they now “look” for elements of their projects to send there.
Scenario #2:This is an agency in a metropolitan city who has engaged an independent outsourcing company with 50 servicers in Calcutta who simply handles their accounting and policy checking functions inside their agency management system via remote access. Almost monthly we are adding new elements of the service their servicers are providing them in Calcutta.
Scenario #3: A small agency who had one of their 2 CSR’s go on long-term leave due to a health problem. They engaged a retired CSR, through a domestic US outsourcing company, who services their clients via a VoIP phone system from her home in Phoenix. Their client’s still have a face to greet them when they spontaneously come into the office for one reason or another, but their remote CSR is working out so well they’re strongly considering it as a long-term solution.
All 3 of these scenarios are examples of the new face of the workflows and procedures trend in agency management: all 3 scenarios did the same thing…
1) Streamline and confirm Mission Critical elements of their workflows
2) scrub them for the most efficient and productive way to do them
3) while raising the bar of client service enabling them to exceed expectations and differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
We started this series bemoaning the efficacy of our new year’s resolutions and why “New” things are so intriguing, but please don’t look at the things I’ve shared with you like I did my pre-sunrise yoga regime.
Our goal is to share with you a new look at some old topics and what’s going on in our industry – right here under our noses as well as all over the world.
My challenge to you today is to step out of your office and look at it with a different set of eyes. Don’t just assume you know what’s going on.
Even if you scrubbed your client service goals in your annual planning retreat in October, go back and re-look at them through your client’s eyes – maybe even have the guts to ask them what they think and then be prepared to do something different.
Walk out of your office today and look at the people who are “on your bus” – are they the right ones? Do you know exactly what attributes are critical to being a success in the jobs you’ve asked people to do? Can you detail for a new candidate the specific things about their personality, work environment, communication styles, risk levels and other aspects of the position that are must haves to be a success in the position they are looking to fill?
Lastly, are there ways you can be doing what you’re doing in your organization that maximizes the expertise of your licensed and experienced staff?
Are your CSR’s doing routine processing that a non-licensed, lesser paid person could be doing that would free them to give a higher level of service and expertise to your clients?
Consider your answer to the questions I’ve tossed your way and don’t just walk away, like you might from your new year’s resolution. Dig in and keep the dialogue going – in today’s marketplace you simply can’t afford not to!
Let us know how we might help you find that 1 + 1 equals more than 2 when you engage the X-factor of Synergy.
