4i Newsletter Masthead 400

Too much effort.

fouri 400 Effort

My hat is doffed to Seth Godin, who wrote about this in his blog last week, albeit I’ve been banging on about it to Property Academy members for almost two years.

If you, your team or your suppliers, are consistently being required to give extra effort, then that’s a sure sign you’ve got a problem.

Of course, there are occasions when going the extra mile is needed, but the thing is, they should be occasions, the exception, not the norm.

I believe that this is actually a part of a bigger change that we all need to realise is going on.

I’ve written before of how we’re now in the era of CX4.0 (the fourth major development of customer experience).

To recap:

CX1.0 – Local
CX2.0 – Brand
CX3.0 – Digital
CX4.0 – Proactive

Customers now expect suppliers to anticipate their wants and needs, not just to react to them. They want the functional to also be uplifting and they expect consistency whilst also being treated individually. These demands are hard, but to stand out in every sector, they need to be delivered.

The key is to automate first. Then to outsource to mitigate peaks and troughs, and finally, to add the essential people required.

The old way was to design a proposition to deliver a competitive advantage by asking, “What people do we need?” and then to support them with tech, etc.

This should now be reversed – “How can we automate this?” and then, “What people do we need?”

The alternative is to ask people to give more and more effort – and that’s just not sustainable, and will inevitably lead to significant fluctuations in service.

Too much effort is a warning sign – take heed!


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