I’ve been thinking – how do I ensure that everyone in my company would make the same decisions as I would? And how do I make sure that our customers have a consistent experience when they do business with us?
As a consumer, I have had very confusing experiences with visits to vendors I frequent. At the same company location, I have been treated like a valuable customer and been ignored or treated as an inconvenience. I have not needed the receipt to return things or been told that without the receipt there is nothing they can do. I have been charged the sale price when am making a purchase a day early. I have been told that a sale is starting the next day, but I will have to come back if I want the sale price. And I have also not been informed about the sale at my time of my purchase and have found out that my item was on sale from a flyer in my mailbox.
Has this happened to you? Have you had a great experience with a company on one visit and different or terrible experience the next? Why does this happen?
Experts tell us that we should have a mission and vision statement and that we should articulate our values. What many don’t say is that these are guiding principles that create consistency in our decision-making and in our behavior. They also say little about needing well-defined procedures so that everyone does everything in the same way. These four things are our standards.
- Mission: what do we exist to do – why is our work important?
- Vision: what is our destination – where are we going?
- Values: how do we behave?
- Procedures: how do we do things here?
And our standards help us to ensure that our actions are consistent with what we believe and are congruent with the company we are working to become.
I think my team and I should set the standards for our company and use them as guiding principles for everyone as we make decisions and engage with our customers. I think we must set the standards and hold fast to them in everything we do.
What do you think?
Until tomorrow, GUNG Ho friends!