The proactive management of KPIs.

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We talked about the importance of Customer Support and Services for business sustainability, about the importance of process management. Let us now address one important point of management, the performance and its indicators.

Continuous improvement of processes assumes basic questions: How to optimize processes? How to manage results? How to be more productive? How to better serve the customer?

They all start from the same principle: evolution, change, using a reference, a starting point.

A results-oriented organization will have set the goals that will answer those questions. Some goals are those that are directly linked to the goals of the company, such as profit, revenue, margin, customer satisfaction, etc.

However in several cases, some goals are established as means to get to the final result, like costs, expenses, customer support response time, product quality, lifetime, etc. This set of goals, if well managed, will allow the company to react before is actually demanded by the customer.

These goals (direct and indirect) are represented and followed by indicators, the KPIs (key performance indicators). If well chosen and structured, they will form a very important pillar in the management of the company, of the business, of the service, of the experience with the customer.

In both cases, follow-up of these goals is fundamental for a proactive management, which, by regularly monitoring these indicators, opens the chance to correct trajectories, prevent detraction moments, and ensure that results are achieved.

Focusing our article on excellence in customer support and services, the determination of these indicators is set from the structuring of work processes, customer expectations and company goals.

It is essential that the company is very close to its customers, getting to know deeply their preferences, their needs and their expectations. There is no point in determining KPIs that do not have a strong connection to customer life, based on insights and opinions. We must seek to have the customer's focus and not only being focused on the customer, as this will allow us to put ourselves in their place and understand where we make the difference.

In addition, continuous revalidation of these KPIs is paramount through customer feedback programs, focus groups and being very close to its operation, as the customer's life is dynamically and continuously influenced directly by the competition and by its own customers , or indirectly, when other markets expose the customer to new experiences that naturally stimulate him to expect the good things from that new experience be the reference.

The monitoring and management of these indicators can bring productivity and customer response improvements, it can also reduces costs when improvements in processes and products are implemented sooner and reveal service opportunities and new businesses that can potentially increase the revenue and customer’s share of wallet.

Therefore, to be an excellent company in support and services and provide the necessary sustainability for the business, proactive results management shall be well structured and integrated with all areas of the company. Committed teams with deep knowledge of the processes, products and the operation of the customer with agile management systems will allow quick and assertive decisions demonstrating to the customer that he is the highest priority of the company.

Structuring processes, correctly determining KPIs, building a structured management paves the road, the path to excellence in support and services.

Oct 2018