Page 180 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

Getting orders out the door is an example of urgency without panic using TIM. I used to have a policy that if an order came in before two o’clock in the afternoon, it went out the door that day. Often, however, orders came in after two o’clock and we had the capacity to get them out. Some staff in the warehouse team didn’t have the urgency to get those orders out. I changed mindsets on getting these orders out. It utilised resources better and created capacity for the next day. It also created a wow experience for the customer.
Another situation when we had to create urgency without panic is when there was pressure from a client to install a product. A project manager would ring and say that the product must be installed now – today! Often inexperienced people would panic and start hunting for install resource and create absolute panic and chaos around them. They would pull people off jobs to find the job wasn’t ready. Although a request such as this should be treated as urgent, you must step back and take the panic out of it. Take a deep breath. Firstly, do we need to create chaos by pulling people here and there? Let’s talk to the project manager and find out whether the site is actually ready by asking specific questions. Find out what the envelope of opportunity is for installing and what indeed is the last day we can install. Nine times out of ten there was no need to panic, and the product, although urgent, could still be installed within acceptable time frames. Project managers are notorious pushers and full of mongrel. Stand up to them. Speeding up our businesses and service levels meant not only higher closure rates, but more revenue and happier customers, and therefore more referrals. Strong systems such as lead and install management enabled more business without panic. It is creating an urgency mindset. Speed improves the customer experience, and, the better the experience,