It’s no secret that today’s consumers need information and services quickly and your window to provide for those needs has become smaller. That’s the way of the world, deal with it. We have become a culture that wants what we want when we want it and we don’t want to wait. Our ability to receive and send information through a multitude of information technologies is overwhelming. If our clients want an answer, they don’t want to have to wait even a day or two for it. Clients want solutions almost immediately, and we’d better be able to provide them or they will move on. You cannot increase the success of your company by asking your clients to wait. They won’t, instead, they will look for someone who can provide the solutions they are looking for when they need them.
You can spend a lot of time and energy getting frustrated with the unreasonable expectations and deadlines, or you can learn to embrace the chaos. Develop an attitude that looks for ways to solve problems and create the solutions that our clients are looking for. Without our clients, we have no business. If they need our services more quickly than before, then we’d better figure out how we can accomplish that instead of getting frustrated. We are all limited by time, people, and equipment. We need to continue to maximize the time we have by increasing our employee’s knowledge and abilities and by keeping our equipment producing at optimum levels.
Look at your operations, analyze your systems and procedures, update your technology, and train your employees. If any of these areas are weak or inefficient or create extra work to respond to your client’s needs, then you must correct them. Outsourcing some of your needs like fulfillment or print can help. In most cases, it isn’t our customers’ expectations that cause us frustration as much as it is our feeling that we are unable to respond to those expectations effectively. The next time you hear you or one of your employees saying “We can’t do that in the time they want,” stop for a moment and ask why. Is it because you don’t have the time? Is it because your employees aren’t trained? Or is it that your equipment can’t do what they want in the time that they want it?
Whatever the answer is, start to look at how you can eliminate that as the reason and develop a strategy to get it done.
The business environment we are all working in has changed and has changed permanently. What used to work only a year or two ago will not work now. Make sure that your company is keeping up with modern technology and how we are all using it (websites, internet, emails). Our clients want things faster, deal with it. Then once you have dealt with it, market your company’s new message to let your customers know that you can help them when they need it not when it’s good for you.
