Fundraising

Coordination is vital when it comes to offering effective customer solutions. Establishing structural mechanisms and processes to harmonize information and activities across departments will allow employees to improve the scope of their product offerings. In most companies, individual units concentrate on perfecting their products and processes—they give little thought to how their offerings might be more valuable when paired with those of another unit.

Verztec encourages a culture of sharing and cross-departmental coordination to deliver products and services in synchronized ways that effectively address the requirements of her clients. Verztec Project Managers are expected to attend meetings with potential clients to sound out their requirements, following which, subsequent internal meetings are organised between relevant personnel from different departments to strategize how workload can be streamlined to achieve top-class deliverables.

Under certain circumstances, Verztec Project Managers might even coordinate meetings between Verztec personnel and their clients so that instructions can be conveyed directly and feedback incorporated instantaneously.

While coordination mechanisms can assist departments in focusing on customer’s needs, they do not necessarily inspire a willingness among members of competing departments to fully cooperate and make oftentimes time-consuming and costly adjustments in the interest of customers. Quality of a product or service, for example, can suffer when production personnel resists the advice of sales personnel, who are seen to be more aware of their clients’ requirements and demands. Such insularity breeds stagnation since excellence is defined by meeting internal standards rather than achieving customer satisfaction.

A counter to this would be the promotion of the intangible aspects of culture, including values and the way the company communicates them via images, symbols and stories. Touting service accomplishments in addition to product accomplishments through company lore can shift people’s mindsets. Verztec employees broadcast a focus on customer’s needs via the company’s mission statement and via linguistic convention—customers are regarded as “guests”.

A client’s decision to engage the service of a company is often predicated upon the latter’s ability to deliver value-added benefits. To meet this objective, Verztec is a firm believer of developing the capability of her staff. Not only does this take the form of defining a clear career path for employees adroit at delivering customer-focused solutions, it ensures that enough people in the organization have the skills to do so.

Verztec personnel are expected to align tasks and information around their customers’ needs. Existing culture encourages and rewards members of staff, even those in units distant from customers, who go beyond providing standard customer support to addressing specific problems. As a result, Verztec personnel can offer innovative solutions to suit the needs of their clients.

A good illustration was when Verztec was approached to transcribe and translate the contents of several audio tapes for a corporate client, Verztec Project Managers were quick to come up with a cost-effective alternative—to conduct interpretations directly from the tape. In the interpretation session, they were thus able to solicit instantaneous feedback from the client regarding terminologies and stylistic preferences. This shortened the production process and ensured that the deliverables were in accordance with the client’s expectations.

To foster the development of boundary-spanning skills and cultivate a cadre of employees who could grow into managerial positions, Verztec encourages individuals to explore the organisation structures and workflow processes of different departments. In understanding the way the various departments work, members of staff will be better equipped to advise their clients on the solutions and services that the company can offer.

To stand out in a commoditized market, companies must understand what companies truly value. The winning formula of customer-centric companies is their set of values that put the customer first. These values are then reinforced through cultural elements, power structures, metrics and incentives that reward customer-focused, solutions-oriented behaviour.

Nicholas Goh is the Managing Director of Verztec Consulting Pte Ltd, a leading provider of Translation and Localization services. For more information on Verztec's services, please visit their site at http://www.verztec.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Beef Up your Customer Service and Achieve 200% Increased Sales!