Surface Ripples

Lining up Our Ducks

 I’ve experienced a number of occasions where “someone” (a company, a government, an individual) announced some marvellous breakthrough, development, product or service only to see themselves let down by something in “the system” not working or happening when it should have happened.

On many occasions, the sad truth is that something goes wrong – the “one thing” we fail to consider.

Announcing is one thing, making good is another.  The more complex or involved the product, innovation, service or other we’re bringing into the world, the more likely something can go wrong.  Our ‘advanced’ technology only makes things worse when the internet fails at the critical moment, a virus hits our systems, the programme crashes or some vital worker isn’t available due to illness or accident.

I learnt a highly useful set of questions from one of the world’s oil giants which it asks itself (and trains its employees to ask) to maintain the highest standards of safety it can.  These are:

1. What could go wrong?
2. What could cause it to go wrong?
3. What can be done to prevent it?

We could apply this to any announcement that we make.  For example, if we’re:

• Relying on customers to register on a website using a QR code, have we checked that the link from code to website and listing all work?
• Telling customers to call a hotline, are there sufficient lines in and enough trained operators to answer calls?
• Announcing a price drop, do all our sales staff know about the drop, ho long it lasts and any impact on warranty?

Every project should have a checklist of what could go wrong and who is accountable for making sure that particular item is checked.  It doesn’t stop that “one-thing-we-didn’t-consider” happening. 

The widespread use of social media means that, if we do get things wrong, the market will know in a very short space of time.  If we’ve made a genuine effort to identify what could reasonably go wrong (and just missed a thousand-to-one item), we can at least avoid accusations of negligence.  The solution then is to have a team in place to sort the problem as quickly as possible. 

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Selling, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 13:54