One of the things that puts Bosses off writing down how their business should work, is that there is just so much to know.
When it’s all whirling around in your head along with all the ideas for new ways to delight your clients, and all the everyday housekeeping for your business, it’s almost impossible to work out where to start, or how much to write down.
Where to start is easy. I like to begin with how you open for business. It’s a good warm-up exercise, usually fairly straightforward, and immediately useful. It also gets you starting to think about how responsibilities are shared.
As you write your Customer Experience Score, it pays to remember that you’re writing for competent human beings, professionals, who know what they are doing.
You don’t have to spell out the bits they are experts at – whether that’s making a testimonial video, coming up with ideas for a marketing campaign, preparing a set of accounts, or handling a quartet of dogs in the park. These bits can be jazz: “film cool stuff“, “produce 3 ideas – one for the client, one for us, and one off the wall“; perhaps with a few pointers, “practise recall, play catch, give them a good run“.
In general what a Customer Experience Score is doing, is documenting all the bits around those core activities that have to happen in order everything to run smoothly, and in line with your Promise.
These are the bits that you do unthinkingly, because you’ve internalised them, but which others have to learn to do, and need to refer to when an activity is infrequent. These are also the bits we can bring even more into line with your Promise, to make the experience unique and even more compelling.
These bits can be a bit more spelt out, but as no more than bullet points. As prompts, not instructions.
By the time you’re done, often all people need is a look at the high-level diagram to remind themselves, they already know the steps by heart.
So, how much to write down depends on you, your team, and your Promise of Value:
What level of detail will give you confidence that clients will always get the customer experience they deserve?
What level of detail will give your team the confidence to ad lib, personalise and embellish in order to make that customer experience even better?
The sweet spot lies at the intersection of these questions.
And the best way to find it is to start writing.
Discipline makes Daring possible
