Hey guys and welcome back to Best Practice TV, this is #AskBestPractice,
we've got a secret session in store for you, so stay tuned to find out more about
SERVICE.
Hey guys, thanks for joining us, so we put it out to the universe, you guys out
there watching and listening, that we would give you a video based on any
questions or any comments you made on the #AskBestPractice segment. So we've
had a question come in from Ralph, thanks very much Ralph for commenting on the
video. What we're going to do is going to map out the operational process flow for
an area of his organization that takes customer equipment and customer property
does a service and a repair of that and then puts it back out to the customer so
this particular business takes hydraulic pumps and does service and kit repairs
on hydraulic pumps but this sort of model I'm about to do could apply for
mechanical workshops where you're servicing customers cars anything that
you're taking from the customer and you're looking after it and giving it
back, it could apply to hairdressing salons so a client comes in you look
after them and you pamper them and you send them back.
So Ralph your business is pampering the customers equipment you're looking after
those amazing assets and that amazing equipment that your customer is out
there using, on their job sites on their industrial sites in their plant and
equipment, you're looking after it you're pampering it you're giving it a service
a freshen up, and then you're sending it back out. So as my little six-year-old
says daddy the cars going into the doctor. So Ralph, your business is all
about like a doctor's surgery, you want to die do the diagnostic sort out the
kid build, work out what things need to be put back in or rebuilt into that
process and then go forward. So what we're going to do is quickly map out a
little process flow of service provision in that instance, but importantly this
particular process model relates to you bringing customers stuff, equipment, parts
all those sorts of things into your premises, taking care of it while you've
got it and then sending it back all fixed and operational, back to your customer. So
what we've got, we talked about in the last video, quick summary for you
and I'll bundle them together. We've got marketing and I'm just going
to overlap them, we've got sales, and we've got finance and they're all other
operational parts of the business that support what we're moving into in here
which is obviously the service part. So this is in-house servicing and in this
instance it's equipment. So in this in this particular example Ralph asked for
it's all about servicing hydraulic pumps and equipment.
So what we've got over the over here is a couple of other processes that I
imagine that you've got to get equipment to you. Now why is that important? Now
Ralph's business is made up of in-house and on-site. Now in-house, in this
instance, means that you can have much better equipment, much better controlled
conditions and you can look after the more scientifically if you like or more
accurately the work that you're doing for the particular customer. So that's
why the gear and the equipment is coming to you instead of you setting up an
amazing truck and going out on-site. Now there would be some equipment that you
just can't bring to your factory. Freight it, turn it around, move it around on
couriers and trucks and transport so that's why we've got a factory. So this
is happening in a factory, so there's a couple of processes that we need to
obviously be thinking about we need to think about transport. We need to think
about check-in, and this is where the possession transfer is happening so
we've got transport, is it the customers responsibility for the transport? or your
responsibility for the transport? So you got pickup, obviously, check-in, we've got
the service aspect which is here, so we're going to transport it we're going
to check it in, we're going to do the work now that the work is a diagnostic.
We're going to have we're going to obviously source the parts, we're going
to do the work, we're going to do the tests and then we're going to checkout and
we're going to potentially in this instance we're going to transport again.
Now this process is exactly the same for having your car serviced, if you've got a
motor vehicle and you drop it off at the mechanics, so you the customer transport
the cart on the mechanics, mechanic checks it in talks to you about what
needs to be done. Does the diagnostic, sources the parts,
does the work, tests it and then checks it out and you pick your car up
from the mechanic and take it home. But in this instance I think what I
understand Ralph from your business is that the transport is being arranged
independently of the customer it's coming in and checking in. Now in the
previous, and then obviously we go out to the any other processes which
might be storage. So if you look at the previous video on YouTube on the YouTube
channel we talked about storage and dispatch and all those sorts of things.
So, if we're thinking about this process flow, what can happen to upset your
customer, this is we're talking about your quality system in this instance,
what can happen to upset your customer at any of these stages. So if you guys
can map further, now I'm just guessing a lot of
this is guessing, I'm guessing what your business does. From you know generically
are probably gotten pretty close to what it is, have a think about what the stages
are in your process. Now at each of these stages, the first question is: one, what
can you do to upset the customer? or what could go wrong? Now, there are two parts
of that, one is obviously yes you can sauce the parts you can do the work test
and it's all sweet and you can go on and do another thousand hours on that piece
of equipment, or the equipment might actually be a write-off and the customer
might not want to hear that and if I use Apple iPhones as an example, you get an
Apple iPhone you walk back into the Apple store it's not working after
twelve months more often than not Apples got a policy that we don't like so the
customer they'll say give me another 100 bucks and I'll give you a basically a
brand new phone and that's typically the sort of warranty exchange process so
really does depend on whether you sold the product in the first place to the
customer, but if you didn't we're just talking about in-house service.
Generically when the process runs smoothly
the diagnostic happens your technicians might say well is only really like 20
things that can go wrong, so in most cases like 90% of cases it's one of
these 20 things. We've got a kit for it we know what we need to do we know the
testing and then we can send it back on its merry way working in operational for
the customer. So what could happen in each of these process to upset a
customer, to cause damage to the customer's property and it's important
to protect the customers property, and then to, the third thing is: is there anything at
each of these stages, where we can't we can't complete the service. We can't
transport, we can't, check-in, we can't diagnose, we can't source parts, we can't
do the work, we can't do the tests, we can't do the checkout, we can't do the
transport. So it's important to understand is there the potential or any
scenarios where those things can happen. So what we're trying to do ultimately is
prevent, this is about a preventive strategy, things going wrong as part of
this process. Now in the previous video Ralph you'll remember we talked about
the five W's and an H. So there's one W up here which is Why, and then the rest is
Who, What, When, Where, How. So all these questions,
and I talked about in the previous video on matrix, developing a matrix. Who, what
when, where, how. Who, what, when, where, how. Who, what, when, where, how, who, what when
where, how, who, what, when, where, how, so we can map out what our process is. Who
needs to do what, and that's the matrix the responsibility matrix that we talked
about. And you guys can start to figure out talk to the guys that are
responsible for each of these stages or the person responsible for the whole
process, they can start mapping out a plan. Get it captured as version one if
you like call it call it version one, get a bit of a draft, keep checking it and
then maybe after a period of time as you start to improve your business, making
your business more efficient by looking at this process and saying hey there's a
couple of steps that we could improve. Your business is going to become more
efficient, the more times you look at improving this, it's going to be more
cost effective to run, more sustainable, more profitable, and ultimately easier
for everybody in terms of them knowing what they need to do to run this process.
Now that comes back to this question of why? this is our cause, this is a this is
our amazing cause to have customers confident that they can rely on us to
get their equipment back on deck, and back operational as quickly as possible
so they can continue to run their businesses and do their cause, the thing
that they're very passionate about. So it's very supportive very amazing
supportive process because you're there like a you know you're the surgeon
that's keeping that amazing equipment that's that's mission critical to your
customers operational in a timely manner. So Ralph I hope that's helped, that's a
little operational process flow. In terms of building out your quality management
system, think about what things you might be able to measure, at each of these
stages, that the people that do the tasks can control. So your person sourcing
parts, what can they do? so what can they control? they can obviously control
forecasting, they control stock levels, so those sorts of things, so that there's
always parts available for the services so that you can meet that promise that
you've made your customers. Now there's a good example out on the internet, about
Southwest Airlines, you can look at the bonuses that there's a case study where
there CEO talked about paying bonuses to all the staff, when they had a month
when every single aircraft for Southwest Airlines ran on time. Lot of great
studies there Simon Sinek's talked a little bit about it with 'Start with Why'.
So have a think about that. So what come they've got you know what
is the ultimate objective, get the equipment operational back to the
customer in a timely manner. So the guys sourcing parts, they've got the
facilities, the resources, the forecasting, the tools, equipment, to source parts. The
people doing the diagnostic, that there that's the right engineers and
technicians that have had the right training. The people doing the check-ins
that they collecting the right amount of information that the equipment is
protected when it's being transported. It's tested it's checked out and
obviously you want to also get some feedback from your customer on the
service so the customer can make suggestions about what can be improved
in the process. I'm sure your technicians are amazing and they can fix absolutely
every single thing, but it might be that the time, or the budget, or the costings,
might be the issue that customers might have might make them upset, so it's
important to be asking that question up there.
So Ralph there's a little process diagram, I hope that helped you. If
you've got a business out there and you want a real-time example of what your
process flow might look like and I can put some ideas out there for you so you
can have a think about it, reach out to us here at Best Practice. Hit subscribe
to youtube channel! You're going to see lots of great stuff, we're trying to make
it real. We're really passionate about your business being efficient, effective,
fun to run, and inspiring of customers confidence. So that's what we really want
to see from your business, customers is are inspired your business is more
sustainable a lot more fun to work at, and your job gets really really easy.
We'll see you soon next time Best Practice TV, bye for now.