• A while ago I was in Montreal checking in a hotel (part of a major chain) at about 10 PM. The night desk clerk spent close to 10 minutes trying to look up my loyalty account, with no success.  Then he informed me I should go look it up, come back down to the front desk, and he would input my information. Note, the per night cost of this hotel was about $300.
• While merely trying to sign up at one of those indoor skydiving places, I discover a poorly organized website that is cumbersome and does not show accurate availability. I called to make a reservation, and after being put on hold for 8 or 9 minutes, the worker says she cannot sign us up.  All because she is too busy.  She asks for my number to call back when she has time, but never actually does.
• My flight is delayed due to mechanical issues (on an airline that I’m a Platinum member); this will cause me to miss a connecting flight and this 1 hour delay, will ultimately cost me 12 hours due to no open seats on other flights to my destination.  I never receive a call or text to attempt to problem solve this.

If you’re thinking, “Dan, if this is all you have to worry about, you have it pretty good”.  Well you’d be right, I do have it good.  These are definitely not awfully inconvenient problems for me. Not even close.

However, if you are a leader at any of these three businesses, or if your organization is not that ETDBW (Easy to do business with), know that you are inadvertently creating a a few lasting impressions:

1. They don’t care about my business
2. They would rather maximize profit on one transaction than have me as a customer for a lifetime
3. My time does not matter to them.

In short, a positively memorable CX matters!  Why?  It’s certainly a logical leap to think that a customer who has an excellent experience, remembers it.  Because of one positive experience, they can tell others about it; sometimes even becoming mini marketers for that product or service.  Further, those that are loyal, having had a positive experience are retained, will buy a product or service over and over.

Consider the following:  Studies[1] by Bain & Company, along with Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School, have shown that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.

There are several reasons why this small increase in retention can have such a large impact on profits. Here are two important considerations:

1. Customers are likely to spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Particularly with small businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition, a customer’s first purchase or two can be considered somewhat of a risk. So they are likely to keep the cost relatively small, and then increase spending as the relationship grows.
2. Repeat customers are more likely to refer others. Bain & Company’s research showed that after just one purchase from an online apparel retailer, an average shopper was likely to refer three other people to the site. But a customer that made ten purchases from an online apparel retailer was likely to refer seven different people to the site.

Now, you might find yourself asking: “So what?”  I can tell these organizations do not believe in Design Thinking or Voice of the Customer ways of looking at their processes.

Well, creating a positively memorable experience is HARD! Especially for an organization that has any degree of complexity around the following:

1. The types of products/services your customers want;
2. How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
3. How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for them to order it, receive it, process the invoice, and actually pay for it.
4. What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
5. Do you have numerous people involved, sometimes with “less than ideal” coordination when you think about those involved from a contracting, pricing, order processing/execution, set up, training, implementation touchpoints?

Having lived this firsthand, I know onboarding new clients/customers is not only challenging, but it is very time-consuming, and candidly, frustrating.  Now with even more awareness in the marketplace around this elusive goal of creating an ideal customer experience, the typical customer is more perceptive to whether you (or any) organization is truly “easy to do business with”.

In fact, check out this article on customer service expectations – https://www.alltius.ai/glossary/millennials-gen-z-customer-service-expectations 

If you feel that you may have some opportunities for improvement in this area, TSI can help. We’ve created a very hands-on training workshop that is short + sweet, and worth your investment. You will learn solid foundation of concepts and perspectives as well as tools to be used so they may be applied for your organization. If you are interested, email us at tsi@transforming.com.

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At one point in my career, I had a wonderful opportunity to speak at a global trade organization in Puerto Rico at their annual conference.  This organization is comprised of many engaged members, largely small and mid-sized business owners, many of whom started their businesses, and compete in an extremely competitive marketplace. Like many organizations, their customers range from extremely discerning and focused on high quality and service, to others who are highly price sensitive and view their services purely as a commodity.

So we titled this speech/workshop as “Defining Your Unfair Advantage” but it’s really about trying to answer a tough question:  What is truly unique about your organization?

As a background, TSI (transforming.com) is a growing consulting firm and like all companies that grow, at one point in our company’s life cycle, we were hitting a plateau.  So a few years back, we put a small advisory group – consisting of a few people both in and outside of the consulting industry.

One of our advisors asked me a basic, yet poignant question.  He asked, “Dan, what is TSI’s Unfair Advantage?”.   In other words, what are the most compelling 1-2 things that you do or you know that completely differentiates you?

So I began going through our services (albeit somewhat generically) – helping to improve a company’s efficiency…help them select technology to run their business more effectively.  And one of my advisors replied “Dan all kinds of companies do that”.

I’ll come back to TSI’s story in a minute, but the real point of this article is about you and your organization.

Understanding Your Unfair Advantage

If I was to ask you, “what is your company’s unfair advantage?”, how easy or hard would it be for you to come up with something unique?  Let me put you at ease – this is normal and it’s something that, just like we did, can be overcome by a little focused thought and work.

Keep in mind the following – a real unfair advantage has the following characteristics:

• Takes investment to define/try/refine;
• Can and should change over time;
• A well-defined and real unfair advantage is one that cannot easily be copied or bought. In other words, it truly creates an unfair advantage for your organization;
• Will likely require you to increase your performance (that may include process, technology or people) in meaningful ways AND includes how articulate your employees are at describing your organization.

Here are 4 great questions you can ponder to get started:

1. What is your organization really good at?
2. How does that compare to what your customers want/need?
3. What are your competitors good at and how does that compare to what you are good at, specifically in the context of what your customers want or need?
4. In parallel, think about this from a customer’s standpoint; are there other alternatives than what they have? This may include choosing not to do the work.

Ultimately this way of thinking is looking at the Value Proposition of your organization doing work that is perceived to be of value – this is the heart of your company’s service offering. Regardless of what industry you operate in, if any one of these dimensions is out of whack, then your business model is out of alignment.

Important Factors of Your Unfair Advantage (UA): 

So now the “nickel question” is, how can you move from defining your value proposition to carving out your organization’s Unfair Advantage?  That is definitely a great question.  At TSI, we see the UA as a function of:

Quality x Originality x Service x Convenience x Price

Therefore, in the context of your target customer segment(s) and your service offering, define the following (this is a great “homework” assignment):

• Quality – what is the quality of what you deliver? What should it be?
• Originality – how unique or different is what you offer compared to your competitors?
• Service – how do you deliver – are you punctual, polite, understandable? Also consider how comfortable your customers are working with you. Think of this as a sort of user interface for your customers.
• Convenience – how accessible are you? This can be defined by location, or your relationship to your customers.
• Price – how much do you charge and how do you charge it?

As you can probably guess, these questions are appropriate for those of you who might lead a department, such as; IT, Finance, HR, Admissions, or any other function.  How are you branding that service?  How should you and what will it take for you to live that brand?

TSI is a leading consulting firm based in the Chicago area.  We help our clients to transform; this includes the work to define key strategies and then bring them to life.

For more information on TSI’s transformation expertise, click here – https://transforming.com/services/business-transformation/

You can request more information about our service offerings by emailing us at tsi@transforming.com. To speak with TSI’s Managing Partner, you can reach him at 847-705-0960 x202, or via email at dfeely@transforming.com.

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Let’s face it…this year was unexpected and challenging! As TSI turns 26 years old this week, we are taking some time to both celebrate and reflect on our team’s ability to adapt within the past year.

*Join us in celebrating by helping us blow our candles out above!*

How We Adapted this Year

Throughout this past year, we were able to adapt and leverage skills that we have been growing for years. Fortunately, we already had our technology infrastructure in place to allow us to be remote at a moment’s notice. So, we leveraged apps like Zoom, Slack, Google Drive, and Teams – but like many others, we had to move past simply using the tools; we had to become more proficient and creative with each so we can serve our clients and make progress in the areas of people, process, and technology!

Last year, as our Founder, Dan Feely was reflecting on our 25th anniversary, he noted the need to focus on challenges our clients were encountering:

After working at one of the largest consulting firms in the world, and two mid-sized firms, I felt that there was an unmet need to serve clients differently. I wanted to focus on the challenges they encountered as they were striving to grow, adapt and transform.

Dan Feely, Founder of TSI

Although our 26th year presents unique hurdles, it is these challenges that propel us forward. Through a willingness to adapt and serve our clients differently, we were able to focus on that growth, adaptation, and transformation alongside a variety of organizations throughout this past year.

Thank You!

To our clients and friends, we would like to offer a heartfelt thank you. Your partnership with us has made all the difference in the world. Our mission is to serve you through being an outside thought leader, facilitator, project manager, change agent, and catalyst. As we look ahead, we look forward to continuing to help you and others to transform for years to come!

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1. Ask Yourself “Why Do I Need a Consultant?’

There are many reasons why an organization might invite a consultant to join their team. Before assessing which consultant is right for your culture, be sure to understand your why.

1. Resources: your current team does not have the internal resources
2. Skills: your current team does not have the skills needed to complete the task
3. Objective or “Best Practices” Perspective: your current team wants the expertise of another individual, as well as an unbiased point-of-view
4. Political/Facilitator Reasons: the task at-hand does not fall cleanly into the boundaries of a single organization

2. Develop Goals and an Understanding of Intended Value to Your Organization

Ask yourself “how will my organization benefit from me hiring a consultant?” Defining set goals and intended outcomes of hiring a consultant will help you understand what kind of consultant you want to hire, as well as how you intend for them to fit in your company. When considering these goals, you will want to assess the financial benefits or consequences of hiring this individual as well.

3. Get Approval to Hire a Consultant

Finding a great, qualified consultant is like finding a good doctor or loyal employee: it is time-consuming and hard work! Instead of spending time and resources on hiring the right consultant, only to not get approval to hire someone, be sure you have tentative approval (or complete approval) to bring on a consultant. Along with this, be sure to define the consultant selection process.

4. Define Deliverables, Dates, and Expected Involvement for Both the Consultant and Organization

When bringing a consultant on to your team, it is crucial that you develop shared expectations. In addition, developing a schedule that accounts for both holidays and other demands will help to assure ample time to stay on track with your project. This also helps to keep both your organization, as well as the consultant, focused on time management.

5. Define Billing & Payment Terms 

When defining billing and payment terms, there are a few crucial questions to ask:

• Is the project fixed fee or within a range with a “not to exceed” clause?
• If it is time & materials, what budget was set?
• What “materials” are included/excluded from the project?
• Is travel time included/excluded?
• Will there be milestone-based payouts? If so, what is the schedule?

All of these topics need to be discussed, clarified, and agreed upon. Taking the time to have a conversation and determine what is right for both your organization and the consultant will be a ‘win/win’ for both of you!

6.  Get a Second (or Third) Opinion if Needed

As you develop a trusting relationship with your consultant, be judicious about when you put projects out for a competitive bid. You need to realize that, for small projects, it takes time to develop a detailed estimate and approach. If developing a detailed proposal is the case for ALL projects – even if the dollar amount is low – be warned that you may be absorbing that cost in higher than normal rates on future projects to cover the increased overhead.

7. Make Sure that YOU and Your Consultant are Aligned

Sometimes I use a metaphor of personal trainer or a financial planner when I talk about how we management, OCM and technology consultants should work. Assume you just set a goal to run a marathon and are seeking a fitness trainer to help you. You ask around and you get referred someone everyone likes – “Big Jake”, who specializes in getting people ready for CrossFit competitions.

Obviously that is different than getting you ready to run your marathon. So even though Big Jake is knowledgeable and likeable, he won’t be a fit for YOUR needs. Consider your organization’s culture and both the knowledge and style that your consultant needs to make to make change stick.

Closing Thoughts

Finding the right consultant is more difficult than it seems. With these seven steps, you can be sure that you are asking the right questions when it comes to who you’re hiring, as well as why you need their talents.

For more information please email Dan Feely, Managing Partner, or call him at 847-705-0960 ext 202.

If emailing or contact forms are more your style, contact us here!

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