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To be more aware of customer needs, emphasise customer satisfaction, develop closer relationships with their customers and flatten the management structure some companies have adopted Customer Teams or Customer Focus Teams. These are cross-functional, customer focused teams exist to supply customers a ‘one-stop shopping’ service.
Teams have complete ownership of their accounts, with each team empowered to make a decision the way to work with each of their customers and convey together each service function like accounting, sales and repair into one team structure to serve all the requirements of the precise customers assigned to them supported a mindset of continuous improvement in customer experience. Teams are empowered to require corrective actions to resolve day-to-day problems and have direct access to information that permits them to plan, control and improve their operations. The teams manage themselves and work within the team is usually allocated on the idea of skills and strengths, instead of just job title. this permits a team to supply fast turnaround on all a customer's issues and concerns. By self managing, like players on a pitch during a team game, the managers’ role becomes that of coach, developing skills and knowledge instead of simply directing and controlling actions.
Working in customer focused teams interdependence and joint responsibility for outputs become the goal and thus rather than organizing work traditionally from the highest down, reducing processes to individual steps work becomes structured around whole processes. Traditional approaches reduce the specified skill at every level of labor resulting in boring and repetitive tasks, but team based approaches are more likely to think about the fit of team members with the work to be through with those closest to the roles agreeing the roles specifications.
The advantages of ownership and self management include customers being easier knowing who they're going to affect , and teams gaining in-depth knowledge of the requirements of every customer due to improved internal communications as team members understand the customer’s expectations and share information, realizing there's no advantage in hoarding knowledge – as their pay are going to be suffering from their customers’ results on their own company’s profitability.
Self managing teams don't just happen and that they aren't ‘an easy answer’. Teams undergo several stages on their thanks to self-management and it can take two or more years to realize this objective. Comprehensive training in basic management skills like problem solving and deciding is critical, as is functional cross training in order that they can manage their own processes.
To fully realize their potential, teams needn't only to be cross-functional but also got to be managed by entrepreneurial and experienced managers who understand that they exist to supply greater profitability for his or her company by providing better customer experience to their company’s clients or customers and to the present end support and drive team initiatives, including playing a lively role in building an ongoing working relationship with the customer’s management.
Teams also must not become ‘customer silos’ instead of ‘functional silos’ and must work on sharing policies, systems and processes and other people in order that the results of ‘winning teams - people who provide increased customer satisfaction along side superior profitability and increasing volume – are quickly tested and replicated elsewhere. to realize this senior management needs got to fine tune structure, roles, processes and systems to satisfy the ever-changing needs and increasing complexity of both the customer’s business and their own.
Senior management even have to line the tone and reality – teams exist to supply greater profitability for his or her company by providing better customer experience to their company’s clients or customers.
To achieve these corporate goals teams must:
1. Make customer satisfaction their top priority.
2. Have a standard understanding of the organization's vision and mission and their role therein .
3. Understand the roles of individual members within the team also as its role with the organization.
4. Work together to plan, make decisions and resolve differences and build trust.
5. Understand what's and isn't possible and walk before they struggle to run
6. Set goals for continuous improvement in inputs, processes, outputs and measured results.
It is during this last area that CRM software like Customer FOCUS [ http://www.e-crm.co.uk/crm/customer_focus/customer_focus.htm ] can really help.