Friday, 16 October 2009
Engage do not Enrage
I wonder how many of us are guilty of thinking we engage with our offices, agents and partners overseas when indeed we are probably just telling them. I know I do this in my home life when I call my wife to say I have booked us to a dinner party to meet an important person when I should be explaining to her why it is important and why she needs to miss the X factor! Seriously I get away with it because she has been with me for over 25 years but in business it is different.
One of the core items we have for client reviews is finding ways to add value. A conversation could go like ' Mr Client as part of our process I need to find a way of add extra value to your business and I have discovered by consolidating your goods from X and Y via origin Z, I can save you £££ annually'.
If we then just send a message to our origin offices to say we have a change of SOP and please follow these new instructions we are telling and not engaging. What we should be doing is engaging them in the solution before we present it to the client, they may add others ideas to help with our drive to add value to the client, but as a minimum, they will be engaged and continue to feel part of the solutions we are offering our clients.
I have worked at a number of global logistics companies where this is an issue. It is good that we recognise this and work hard on continually improving internally to ensure we are giving our clients the best options.
One of the core items we have for client reviews is finding ways to add value. A conversation could go like ' Mr Client as part of our process I need to find a way of add extra value to your business and I have discovered by consolidating your goods from X and Y via origin Z, I can save you £££ annually'.
If we then just send a message to our origin offices to say we have a change of SOP and please follow these new instructions we are telling and not engaging. What we should be doing is engaging them in the solution before we present it to the client, they may add others ideas to help with our drive to add value to the client, but as a minimum, they will be engaged and continue to feel part of the solutions we are offering our clients.
I have worked at a number of global logistics companies where this is an issue. It is good that we recognise this and work hard on continually improving internally to ensure we are giving our clients the best options.
Labels: Minimum Service Standard, Quote to Win, Strategy
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment