The post The growing need for a Customer Excellence mindset in Higher Education appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

The topic of whether universities and colleges should view their students, alumni and donors (Constituents) like customers is a debate that has been taking place for many years. Recently, TSI has noticed this debate is occurring with increasing frequency, especially in light of our recent Customer Experience training. Now more than ever seems to be the right time to continue the discussion of how to best utilize customer service/experience philosophies when working with Higher Education constituents.

The Challenge of Looking at Higher Education Constituents as Customers

Historically, many leaders in Higher Education abhor the thought of students as customers for many valid reasons. Anecdotally, I have found that the perception of Higher Education towards the concept of a customer is that customers are a number; customers are people that must be solicited or won over, and you need to sell to customers. Additionally, some feel that the merit of education should be separated from a financial transaction usually associated with being a customer.

In treating your constituents like customers, Higher Education institutions may feel pressure to lower their standards and values. While some of this vitriol may be warranted, Higher Education institutions should not dismiss important Customer Experience concepts since these can improve the service to their constituents.

The growing need for Customer Service in Higher Education

A critical factor in today’s higher education landscape is the continued decline in student enrollment across Title IV institutions in the United States. According to recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, postsecondary enrollment has been steadily decreasing, with undergraduate enrollment falling by nearly 8% between 2019 and 2022. This trend reflects a shrinking pool of traditional college-aged students, a rise in alternative education pathways, and shifting societal attitudes toward the value of a degree.

Higher education institutions are now competing not only with other universities and colleges (including for-profit and non-degree granting programs) but also with various career, social, and online education options, such as bootcamps, certifications, and skill-based training platforms like Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.

This competition extends beyond just recruiting new students. Alumni and donor engagement are increasingly critical for sustaining revenue. Institutions that fail to excel in student recruitment, alumni engagement, and fundraising risk flatlining or declining revenue streams. This, in turn, forces reductions in operational and capital expenditures, creating a feedback loop of restricted budgets and limited resources for future growth and engagement.

To counteract these challenges, innovative leaders in higher education are taking cues from the private sector. Businesses, particularly in competitive industries, are focusing on customer-centric approaches to foster loyalty and growth. They are investing in high-impact customer service strategies to create differentiated experiences that not only retain existing customers but also attract new ones.

So why should students/alumni/donors be viewed any differently than a business would view its customers?

Starting with the similarities:

1. Both are consumers – Students and customers are consumers of the product that is produced by the associated institution. For example, a student, when not in class, is consuming goods and services. Regardless of how the institution wants to classify these individuals, they define themselves as consumers since they pay, what they feel is a very high amount of money, in exchange for a service. As a result, they have high expectations for this service.

Think about how vocal students are when their Wi-Fi is slow; the course registration process has errors and/or takes too long; or the food in the Café does not meet their standards. Each of these seemingly small occurrences can influence how the student will share their experiences with their friends or peers, especially via social media, which enables other potential students to form their opinions as to whether they want to attend that institution.

A great example of Higher Education institutions appealing to their constituents that closely aligns with Customer Experience principles is through their athletics programs. There is no denying that in many major Universities in the United States, their football programs have become very proficient in marketing themselves to gain the best recruits, develop a rabid fan base, and ultimately profit from this fan base. Universities do not need to go all the way to this extreme; Higher Education administrators can still learn valuable lessons looking at how Athletic programs are appealing to their constituents.

2. Variety of appeals – People are constantly bombarded via social media, television, movies, newspapers, magazines and other channels to donate to this organization, or be a customer of that organization. This makes it very difficult for a single organization to “Cut through the noise”. I particularly like Forbes contributor, John Hall, advice to “Invest in your company leaders’ brands”.  Specifically, the leaders who had “invested time and resources in building their brands were attracting more attention from investors and even other participants.” Replace investors with students or donors, and this statement is fit for Higher Education. Of course, the question is how to build your brand. That is another topic for a different day.

Now, the key differences between Higher Education Constituents and customers:

1. Regulatory implications—Higher Education institutions that offer Title IV funding for their students are subject to rigorous federal and state regulations and policies that determine how the university interacts with the student and tracks the student’s outcomes. In addition, FERPA regulations strictly define how institutions are to maintain and protect student information. The closest parallel to this is in Healthcare, which is going through a similar debate with the Patient vs. Customer paradigm.

2. Student / Donor Lifecycle – Students have a unique lifecycle within Higher Education. At a high level, the lifecycle of a Customer involves attraction to the product, successfully completing the transaction, and maintaining a relationship to generate future transactions. The student lifecycle, at the same high level, has a few more steps in the process:

1. Becomes attracted to a particular college or university;
2. Applies to the university;
3. Is accepted by the university;
4. Completes required degree coursework, and ultimately;
5. Graduates from the university with their desired degree.

This process differs from the Donor lifecycle, which only begins when the Student lifecycle ends. The need for Higher Education to do more and more advancement work (fundraising) has required Schools to be cultivating relationships long past graduation, to aid in the fundraising needed to fill growing state funding gaps. In short, the student/alumni lifecycle is more complex, and needs to be treated as such.

The Donor lifecycle can be equally complex. Appeals for donations to a University can not only span years, but also can span generations. This requires extensive planning, communication and patience on the side of a university that often most businesses are not willing to invest.

So, what is the answer?

The answer to whether Higher Education institutions should view their Students, Alumni or Donors as Customers when discussing Customer Service in Higher Education is yes… and no.

Valuable lessons can be learned from the customer experiences of private businesses. Colleges and Universities do not need to feel like they are compromising their mission or selling their soul by considering the “personas” of their constituent base and defining differentiating experiences and processes that personify the “brand” of the institution.  The key however, is to really know your constituents including each of their objectives and the “moments that matter” to them.

When looking at how to improve Student enrollment and drive Alumni engagement and Donor interest, understanding how to serve them in a way that will lead to a truly differentiated experience is where to spend time and resources. However, if Higher Education institutions try to blindly apply all concepts from private businesses’ customer service practices without understanding how your constituents are different, they will create problems with their students, alumni, and donors. I would be incorrect if I said that these concepts are new to Higher Education and are not being practiced at all today.

What can you do for TSI, and vice versa?

It’s simple – help us help you. We at TSI always like to hear new and innovative ways that institutions are applying Customer Experience concepts to their customer service in Higher Education.  Please let us know:

• What did you think of this summary? And;
• What is your greatest challenge or achievement in providing a differentiated service to your constituents?

If you are interested in learning how your institution can apply Customer Experience concepts to student recruitment, donor engagement, and your advancement activities, contact us to discuss various approaches that can make a difference.

The post Adopting a “Customer Service” Mindset in Higher Education appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

While the predictions from Gartner and Oracle in previous years highlighted the rising importance of customer experience, it’s undeniable that in 2024, CX is not just a competitive advantage, but a business imperative. Regardless, few professionals would argue that the emphasis on an organization’s Customer Experience, (i.e., CX is the product of an interaction, including the resulting perceptions, between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship)  is not simply a fad, but an important tool to achieve what industry leaders like Seth Godin and Clay Hebert (among many others), recommend to connect to those vital to that organization. As Ian Altman says in Forbes: “it has become clear that we are in a Connection Economy. “

As we say at TSI, “the Customer Experience is the glue to make the connections come to life.”  Recently, it seems that there is something incongruent with the articles and statistics I read, the experiences we have with our clients and other organizations contemplating new strategies in this area.  Perhaps it is just what we are seeing here, I would posit that it appears many companies and higher education institutions are simply going through the motions in this area.

How are you approaching this change?

How are you TRULY enhancing your Customer Experience?

I want to use this short article to hit 3 points that will have a BIG impact for your organization in enhancing your customer experience:

1. Start by honing your CX awareness skills; these will pay off for you if you are planning to enhance or improve the customer experience within your organization.

2. Rather than simply going through the motions, use CX to create a real, legit, unfair advantage for your organization.

3. Expect the journey to be difficult, but prepare to persevere.

Hone your CX awareness skills

I challenge you to book your next business trip, make a doctor’s appointment, plan a vacation, buy a car, get a mortgage (or refinance your existing one), drive a car in Mexico (well maybe we’ll save that story for another day), apply for a college course (or apply to a university).

After completing one or more of these, take a step back and assess how these experiences were in terms of the following:

1. How ETDBW (Easy to do business with) was this organization, or process? What best reflects the impression the vendor left? Ask yourself the following:

• Do they care about your business?
• Would they rather maximize profit on one transaction, or have you become a loyal customer for a lifetime?
• Does your time matter to them?
• How would you rate the experience overall?

2. Aside from the efficiency and effectiveness aspect of the transaction, did the transaction have any emotional connection that left you with a memory that was more positive, neutral or negative in nature? Many of the readers of this likely saw the video from a recent United flight when a ticketed passenger was removed against his will, simply because the plane was over-booked, and members of the United crew had no room to board.  Based on the reaction by United’s CEO, that was not the intended emotional connection the organization was hoping to achieve. And although this example can be seen as an outlier, both in terms of how ridiculous the situation, as well as how vastly the customer’s “experience” was shared on social media, consider the financial effects alone. Fortune reports that United Airlines’ stock has dropped $1.4 Billion since this controversy took place!

In each of these examples, the business or higher education institution on the other end of the transaction would accurately tell you that they are in a very competitive industry.  Yet, at the risk of generalizing, each of these examples is, what we in consulting refer to as “opportunity-rich” with respect to how they often fail to create a memorable, meaningful and intentional moment that matters to the customer. Or, in United’s example, just the opposite.

Become a CX Jedi warrior to develop awareness skills that you can apply in your organization.

Your Legit Unfair Advantage

When we consult with our clients or lead CX training workshops on the topic of developing an improved Customer Experience, we emphasize the notion of creating, in very tangible terms, the organization’s unfair advantage (UA). Yeah, it sounds a little like defining your own super power.  In fact, it is a LOT like creating your organizational super power.

What do you want to be KNOWN for?  What will you be famous for?

We look at it this way – your UA is a function of your organization’s: 

Quality x Originality/Uniqueness x Service x Convenience/Comfort/Location x Price

There is a lot to unpack in this formula and you and your colleagues could easily spend a few focused work sessions on this topic.  Don’t expect to nail it on the first time.   But if you can truly understand, from your customer’s perspective, what are the “moments that matter” and define your unfair advantage that provides a unique and memorable CX, you are on your way.

Yes, it’s hard, but Worth it!

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, becoming much more likely to buy a product or service over and over.

Consider the following:  Studies 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 substantial impact on profits:

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.

So what?

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

• The types of products/services your customers want;
• How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
• 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.
• What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
• 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?

In closing, I urge you to start this journey. Now. Waiting only lets your competition gain ground on you.  Follow the three steps you just learned:

1. Hone your CX awareness skills – these will pay off for you as you can be the CX Jedi that design’s the amazing and enhanced customer experience for your organization.

2. Use CX to create a real, legit unfair advantage for your organization – consider how your organization can effectively complete largely, if not solely, on the basis of the experience.

3. Lastly, expect the journey to be difficult and prepare to persevere – consider TSI’s Change Readiness Survey as a tool to assess your organization’s readiness to change.

As you know, TSI is always happy to discuss your situation, should you need any assistance enhancing your Customer Experience.  Regardless, please give us feedback; we love hearing from you! Contact us via our website, or reach out via social media.

The post Are You REALLY Enhancing Your Customer Experience (CX) To Create an Unfair Advantage For You? Or For Your Competition? appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

• 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.

The post Why a Positively Memorable Customer Experience (CX) Matters appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Personally, I agreed with all of those principles and, especially for organizations that needed a different paradigm about doing business, this made perfect sense….at least until a recent conversation I had.

Let me tell you about an experience I had, which highlighted the potential shortcomings of treating your customer like a customer. 

I had a meeting with a doctor (I’ll just refer to him as Bob) that I’ve known for many years and he shared a perspective that impacted my view of this “customer centric” perspective. Now if you are scratching your head that an MD could teach us something about being customer focused, then get behind me in the line for skeptics. Perhaps we’ll save the blog about how the healthcare industry should transform for another day/blog.

So during our conversation, Bob said “yeah, we’ve had consultants come through the hospital telling us that we need to treat our patients more like customers. We shouldn’t simply view them as a queue of work that will always be here or, even worse that we treat them in a manner that indicates how inconvenient it is that they are seeking our services at times that are not always convenient.”

Bob went on to say something that stuck with me.  He said “I became a surgeon so I can heal people. So they can walk out the door in significantly better shape than when they arrived.  For me, if I simply reduced this to a ‘customer relationship’ whereby they have a need, I have a service and they pay me for that services, it completely depersonalizes what we do here. In fact, that defeats why I became a doctor in the first place”.

I reflected on that a bit, especially in the context of some recent articles and books about servant leadership.  Does this mean we now need to treat our customers like a patient?  Or act like doctors?

So much of the time we get consumed with important metrics, that we don’t want to ignore, but this begs the question, how can we think about our organization beyond the typical revenue per customer, average spend, customer loyalty/retention and other measures.  Hmmm, so much to ponder here.

Like you, over the years, I have seen a few trends and see a few more on the horizon and I would like to share a few takeaways:

• Hiring people whose mission and/or personal value system is aligned with that of the organization is the single best action leaders can take so that an organization’s culture and how it operates the majority of the time, is in turn with your most important stakeholders. I’m not an expert in recruiting and assessment best practices, but it would seem that the big challenge is how do we assess this alignment with the candidates we are considering? How do we truly know if a candidate is all talk and no walk?
• I would argue that no amount of training, empowerment, job enrichment or compensation will, with integrity, overtake a disconnect between an individual’s values and the culture an organization is striving to embrace over the long term.
• Those of us that are in the business of providing a service, have a lesson, if not an obligation, to consider. How aligned is our personal mission with that of the service we provide?  Are we providing: consulting, financial planning, legal, educational, insurance, hospitality, health and wellness and other services merely for the money or are we truly in it to get our “customers” to a significantly better place?
• The same standard holds true to anyone providing a product – are you selling the product to meet quotas or is it truly the best solution for the customer’s need? How have you integrated the “voice and needs of the customer” into the continual evolution of the product?
• The patient/customer has an obligation here too. If this relationship truly has integrity, how ready is the patient to follow the treatment protocol? By the way, here is an excellent change readiness survey if you need to assess how ready your organization is to change.

In summary, organizations own the responsibility to create and cultivate an environment where the mission of the organization and the personal mission of its employees are aligned.  Beyond that, enabling employees with the proper processes, policies, technology, analytics, training, reward mechanism and physical environment can only serve to keep an organization thriving.  As you know, this takes time. It takes an intentional focus.  The best time to start this was last year.  Then second best time is now.

Transformation initiatives like this one is a good example of the types of challenges that TSI helps our clients with.  Please reach out to us and let us know how we can assist you or your business.

Written by: Dan Feely, TSI’s President and Founder. For more information on TSI’s expert consultants, visit The TSI Team page.

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Do you remember when you graduated from college? I’m guessing if we try really hard, we can remember all the way back then. Like you, I was filled with excitement and had so many questions after I graduated, ranging from what my first projects would entail to how soon I might be able to be promoted. While everything was new, naturally, all of us were filled beyond capacity with questions about nearly every aspect of that first “real” job.

However, sadly, over time, for many of us, this natural curiosity dissipates. In fact, within many organizations we are encouraged to “shut up and do our job” versus slowing activity down to ask clarifying questions.  This is unfortunate since that exact sense of wonder is exactly what so many organizations need to innovate, reinvent, remain relevant to customer and employees, and just stay ahead of the competition.

Over years of consulting and being involved in a number of diverse industries, I believe one of the best tools we have as business leaders, organizational change leaders and business analysts is asking a well-crafted question (and of course carefully listening to the response). Based on the response given, or the response you do NOT get, both verbally and non-verbally, this well-crafted question is one of the most valuable tools you have at your disposal and should be used on a daily basis.

At TSI, we’ve crafted a handful of questions that we use both internally and with our clients.  While some of these may seem basic, these questions have yielded insightful, poignant responses time and time again.  And based on this information, we’ve made remarkable progress in refining our clients’ strategic direction and even more so, in implementing key changes that make a difference for these organizations.

Here are 7 questions that we use with regularity. Some of these are intended for discussion with small groups and others are more appropriate for individuals. Regardless of the audience, feel free to leverage these for your own transformation needs and ask these questions with regularity, ranging from daily to monthly:

1. What specific organizational goals related to growth, quality, customer service, efficiency and profitability do you have that shape the context of how the organization, or parts of it, should improve?
2. What specific targets or metrics do you have for each of these goals?
3. What is your personal “brand” and what evidence do you provide that makes your brand apparent to those around you? How is this brand working for you?
4. What threats exist that you must address to be competitive and grow in the manner you are expecting?
5. What area in your organization operates in largely the same way as it has for the past 5 years or more? Does that hold it or other areas back?
6. What do your customers say your organization’s key overall strengths are? Relative to any differences in price, how “bullet proof” are your key customer relationships?  How differentiated is your product or offering?  How about your business model overall?
7. What is going well at your organization that you can possibly replicate in other areas?

On a different level, another tool that organizations find useful when they need to take a step back and see the forest through the trees is the Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas was proposed by Alexander Osterwalder based on his book: Business Model Ontology. Here is a link where you can create one for your organization.

This way of thinking, leveraging well thought out questions, has served TSI well over the years. Hopefully these questions will elicit valuable responses for you as well. Feel free to send us your favorite to tsi@transforming.com or post a comment.

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In recent years, technologically savvy organizations have relied on Social Media to identify and secure business.  It’s a component of both our personal and professional lives, and certainly one that we can’t live without (in fact, it’s hard to believe that 19 years ago, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube did not even exist).  Based on TSI’s work in developing and implementing sound customer, market, and business-driven IT Strategies within the most progressive, fast-growing companies, we submit the following 7 reasons why your organization should develop /enhance Social Media tools to get closer to your customers, drive revenue, and manage the customer experience both inside and outside your organization: 

1.  Social Media isn’t Just “Social.”

Businesses invest in social media tools because they presume that they have to or believe that social media presents them with a decided tactical advantage. The more followers or “likes” another company has, the more we, as leaders, feel that we need to aspire to a new standard of social media success. While Twitter and Facebook may be surefire ways to attract customer visibility, visibility is only half of the equation; in fact, much must be done before your organization’s use of Social Media becomes – well, “social.” Getting those customers to connect with your business, engage with your thought leadership, and adapt to market conditions and trends requires tremendous effort in understanding your customers’ level of engagement with you. A critical first step to creating a social relationship is to form a complete understanding of the Customer Experience (CX) that your customers have with your company, product, or service offering.

2. Your Competition is Using Social Media on Your Customers.

As if connecting and engaging with customers needed to be more daunting, your competition is engaging with social media and possibly better than you! Gone are the days when you could be a trailblazer by using Twitter or blogs to identify and drive business. Companies in touch with recent trends already have these tools built into daily communication and tactical approaches to secure business. You may not be as hooked as Jay Baer (note his podcast series “The Social Pros” https://www.convinceandconvert.com/podcasts/shows/social-pros-podcast ), but that should not be an excuse not to keep up with your competition’s use of social media to secure business. Understanding the dynamic, shifting nature of both your customers and your competitors will help lay the foundation for an effective social media strategy, which will hopefully result in our (essential) #3:

3. Social Media Drives Measurable Business, but How do you measure it?

You probably noticed that social media usage increased during the Covid 19 Pandemic, and this caused many successful companies to shift their marketing priorities from the established traditional methods to social media and relationship-building with consumers. Since this, Businesses have started increasingly investing more money into digital marketing efforts and have seen an increased return on their investments, with the amount invested expected to grow this year to over 1.3 billion, according to Statista (2023). However, determining the success and/or ROI can be tricky, with many factors and calculations that must be considered. Some factors that must be regarded to determine success include specific goals, growth, and sales from particular marketing efforts (see post https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/understanding-roi-in-digital-marketing for more details). Depending on your company’s specific objectives, you would then select the metrics that help measure the corresponding goal. For some, ROI may not be the most critical metric. Instead, awareness and brand building may be the main goal for a specified campaign.

4. Social Media Can Provide Metrics and Feedback, Help you Tailor your Service / Product, and Generate More Business by building relationships.

Tailoring your Social Media tools to perform what Ted Rubin calls “The return on Relationship” (see his post “About return on Relationship” https://www.ror.online/about-return-on-relationship ) can help you customize your offerings to make them more attractive to potential/existing customers. Enhancing the relationship increases the level of “engagement” with that customer, fostering their loyalty to you and your offerings. Ted explains, “Be it via valuable information or personal introductions, engagement, and interaction will remain key. By asking questions and proposing ideas, you can engage your followers in such a way as to give them the ability and reason to respond.”

5. Social Media is an Effective tool for Develop Branding.

Just as enhancing an experience with a customer can foster loyalty and drive new business, Social Media marketing can be an intelligent way to create a recognizable identity for your product or service. Creating activity around contacting current or prospective customers can facilitate defining and circulating product or service branding.

6. The importance of choosing the right social media channel

By now, you realize the importance of having and maintaining a social media presence, but it is important to note that not all channels are suitable for all businesses. Knowing and understanding your target audience and goals are the keys to choosing the proper social media channels. For example, while LinkedIn is an excellent option for targeting career-minded professionals, Instagram is much more suited for targeting Gen Z with features like filters, reels, and stories. Understanding your target market and selecting the proper channels can lead to more significant profits and greater brand awareness; both are keys to overall success.

7. Have you heard of Programmatic digital marketing?

Chances are your competitors have and are harnessing it to find and target potential customers. In short Programmatic digital marketing is using software to buy digital advertising. For example, a higher ed institution could harness the power of programmatic digital marketing to place ads on the televisions of the parents of potential students from particular feeder schools while they tune into their favorite shows. For a more in-depth explanation, look at Brook Osmundson’s Post “What is Programmatic Advertising? How Does it Work? (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-programmatic-advertising/462655/#close )

Based on the seven points above, social media is not just a job you give to interns anymore. In some ways, your company’s Social Media strategy should be just as important as your company’s overall corporate strategy. Both are means by which your organization chooses its overall intent in response to the opportunities and threats in the marketplace; both will guide how the company considers its internal strengths and weaknesses, and both will connect your internal and external stakeholders.

TSI is a leading performance improvement, process re-engineering, technology strategy, and change management consulting firm. We help our progressive, growth-oriented clients become more efficient, cost-effective, and customer-focused. In short, we help our clients grow BETTER.

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Through our work at Transforming Solutions, Inc. (TSI), we believe that understanding critical aspects of emotional Intelligence and applying them to our work with clients and other parts of life is essential to achieving goals and realizing one’s potential in many areas. In addition, leading organizational research on emotional Intelligence and effective organizational management shows a strong relationship between emotional Intelligence and effective organizational management. Leaders who have high emotional Intelligence are more likely to be effective in their roles and are better able to create a positive work environment. Do a Google search “Importance of Emotional Intelligence, and you will see an overwhelming number of articles supported by research that discuss the correlation between emotional Intelligence and success. One recent study, “What matters more for entrepreneurship success? A meta-analysis comparing general mental ability and emotional intelligence in entrepreneurial settings”, was authored by Jared S. Allen, Regan M. Stevenson, Ernest H. O’Boyle, and Scott Seibert; notes Emotional Intelligence has an 89.1% predictive variance in determining an entrepreneurs success with IQ being only 10.9% predictive of their success.

Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist and renowned author, says emotional Intelligence is highly predictive of success. He has also said, “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise – and fired for lack of emotional intelligence.“. Goleman explains emotional Intelligence can be broken down into the following five categories (pictured in the graphic), as summarized by Andrea Ovans’ 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled “How Emotional Intelligence Became a Key Leadership Skill“:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Motivation (defined as “a passion for work that goes beyond money and status”)
• Empathy for others
• Social skills, such as proficiency in managing relationships and building networks

6 ways to practice your emotional Intelligence as an organizational leader

1. Practice empathy: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. As a leader, it is essential to be empathetic toward your employees and their situations. Practicing empathy can help you build trust and respect and foster a positive workplace culture.

2. Practice active listening: Active listening involves hearing what someone is saying and understanding what they mean. As a leader, you should practice active listening to gain insight into your employees’ concerns, needs, and desires. This will help you understand what motivates them and how to best support them.

3. Manage conflict effectively: Conflicts are inevitable in any workplace, but as a leader, it is your responsibility to manage them effectively. Emotional Intelligence can help you understand the underlying emotions driving the conflict and guide you toward a solution that benefits all parties involved.

4. Provide constructive feedback: As a leader, it is essential to provide feedback to your employees. However, the way you deliver that feedback can have a significant impact. Emotional Intelligence can help you frame feedback in a constructive and empathetic way that encourages growth and development.

5. Build strong relationships: Building solid relationships with your employees is critical to success as a leader. Emotional Intelligence can help you connect with your employees deeper, understand what motivates them, and build strong bonds that contribute to a positive workplace environment.  

6. Use tools: Using tools can help you gather input from others to better understand their perspective. While you can use various surveys, check out TSI’s Free (and short) Change Readiness Assessment.

Overall, emotional Intelligence is valuable for any leader looking to improve organizational management. By focusing on empathy, active listening, conflict management, constructive feedback, and relationship building, you can strengthen your emotional Intelligence and become a more effective leader.

If you’ve liked what you read and would like to hear more on this topic or similar topics, feel free to comment or reach out to TSI for more.

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Digital transformation is a popular phrase not only in business but in the world today. Pushed by customer demand, rapid advances in technology, a proliferation of data availability and value, and the covid-19 pandemic, those looking to survive and thrive in today’s world are focused on becoming more digital. We all know the benefits of digital transformation. But do we know the key elements that will help this transformation be successful and sustainable? At TSI, we value all the elements of transformation (our name is Transforming Solutions after all!) but 3 elements are key to ensuring the success of your transformation efforts.

1. Don’t Forget the Processes
2. Consider the Customer Experience
3. Ensure sustainability with OCM

Don’t Forget the Processes

Digital transformation takes on many forms and brings with it the opportunity for cost reduction, service excellence, and quality improvement. Maximizing the realization of these gains requires more than just installing a new technology and expecting to start living the high life! A failure to examine processes for opportunities to leverage the new technology will likely result in a true “lift and shift” where the organization is operating the same process, just in a new and more expensive technology. The ultimate loss here, in addition to risking the success of the transformation, is a decrease in the ROI for the new technology, effectively wasting the investment.

Well designed future state processes will strengthen the digital transformation by resolving past areas of waste, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. Handoffs will be clean, workflows will improve speed and effectiveness, and metrics will be collected to drive continuous improvement. The outcome? A future state that maximizes ROI and is truly transformative.

Consider the Customer Experience

Great, so you’ve taken a look at your processes, resolved your pain points, and have a solid picture of how your operation will work post digital transformation. But did you look at these improvements through the lens of those that will stand to benefit or lose the most? That group being customers, both internal and external. Adoption is all but guaranteed if the users help design and understand the new technology as internal and external customers. The interface must be intuitive, easy to use, and provide maximum value to customers. Otherwise, repeat use and repeat business will struggle to grow.

Successfully considering and incorporating Customer Experience ensures all of the hard work to design and implement is fruitful. This successful design will consider and incorporate a robust set of requirements for the transformation. As a result, these provide a comprehensive picture of the need.

Ensure sustainability with OCM

With digital transformation, process improvement, and technology implementation, a failure to consider organizational change management (OCM) and the impact on company culture is very difficult to overcome in the success of the implementation. We often see organizations neglect this consideration or do a ‘light’ version of OCM. Often the outcome is increased implementation cost, lower adoption rates, delays in implementation, and damage to company culture. 

However, utilizing a strong and comprehensive OCM plan instantly improves the chances of success for the digital transformation. For our engagements, this includes a change readiness assessment, clear communication plan, messaging from top down, providing the opportunity for organizational involvement and feedback, evaluation of the ongoing success, and the agility to adjust elements for continued success.

So What Does It All Mean For Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation can mean a lot of different things. Whether it is a modern system implementation (ERP, CRM, SIS), installing a customer portal, automating your operations, boosting supply chain management with technology, or optimizing your digital footprint, there are several elements to consider for success. We’ve touched on 3 key elements here: process, customer experience, and OCM. Others include the organization’s strategic plan, selection of the ideal software partner based on requirements, and implementation management. If you’d like to discuss how any of these may impact your digital transformation, reach out to Transforming Solutions.

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Transforming Solutions has had the privilege to work with some of the fastest-growing and progressive organizations in both the corporate and higher education sectors. Throughout these experiences, we have taken a deep dive into efficiency, quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability. While the fundamentals have not changed, process improvement principles continue to adapt to the times.

Our Top 5 Process Improvement Principles

1. Incorporate User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and Organizational Change Management

As you define and analyze your processes, we encourage you to consider the experience as a whole. There are countless examples of organizations that did not do this and failed as a result. One thing that comes to mind is a leadership group inadvertently creating an opportunity for a competitor through neglecting a more holistic approach. However, for those who take the holistic approach, topics such as people, culture, technology, and strategy are considered in addition to operations.

2. Don’t Assume Technology Will Automatically Change Your Processes

Many organizations assume that a change in their CRM or ERP will inherently fix their processes. However, there are two shortcomings in this thinking that organizations do not consider:

1. Technology is generally not built to drive processes – Technology has a built-in process (best practices) that may not align with your organization’s current state. Adapting to the technologies processes will yield incredible benefits as you can take advantage of all the features your new tool/platform has to offer. This is why it’s important to pick the right tool.
2. The ‘Lift and Shift’ Mindset – Organizations who exchange a legacy system for a new system, and apply the same processes to the new technology, will not properly extract the value of the investment. You will switch the systems out, but miss out on all of the benefits.

3. Improve and Renovate

In addition to a holistic approach and the integration of technology, you need to continuously renovate your processes. You renovate your processes through monitoring, evaluating, adjusting, and improving on a regular basis. However, neglecting these adaptations will result in a similar effect as the ‘lift and shift’ mindset. As a result, there will be a reduction in the value gained from your investment. Process improvement principles and processes are only strengthened by their supporting considerations.

4. Employ Continuous Improvement From End-to-End

As you keep an eye on your organization’s consistently changing environment and focus on process improvement, be sure to apply the first principle – Incorporate User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and Organizational Change Management. In addition, organizations must remember that their customer is consistently changing as well, not just their organization’s environment. Your customers are becoming smarter, more discerning, and are constantly offered other alternative solutions. With this in mind, you must consider these factors from end to end.

5. It’s Never Too Late to Act

Many Individuals in functioning organizations say something along the lines of ‘we’ve always done it this way and it works. They also believe their highly customized processes mean that there cannot be a better solution for them. Both of these scenarios neglect the potential for technology to greatly improve processes, highly configured systems, and consider software selection efforts. You may be functioning with your current processes; however, process improvement principles enable organizations to thrive.

So What?

Overall, these five principles are key to a successful organizational strategy. To learn more about how our process improvement consultants transform businesses, check out our services. Visit our industry offerings to determine how our methodology could benefit your industry and organization.

Don’t know where to go from here? Contact us! We would love to set up a brief call to further understand your organization’s needs and walk you through how our processes work.

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