Archive
Improvement projects should make things better, shouldn’t they?
I travel by ‘bus and train as often as I can, not just because of the green aspects, but because I quite like it; I get to look around and to think in a way that I can’t afford to do when I am driving, but looking around and thinking can lead to seeing and realising. For someone who has a long record of customer service seeing and realising can mean trouble. Read more…
the oddest presentation I’ve had to make
It’s a bright February morning as the sales team arrive in two cars, with the low sun shining bright off the disappearing frost. This is a big morning, for they are due to present as one of five short listed suppliers for a deal that will be worth at least £5m over the first three years of the contract on offer and, if they win, there is a lot more that they can do for this client. Read more…
the process is a tool, nothing more
It’s been one of those weekends really. I have had a couple of things come up that have meant some internet research to find a solution to a particular set of problems and so the lap top has taken a pounding, but then so has my patience. Read more…
dealing with prank callers
Hoax calls made the news last week in circumstances that turned out to have tragic repercussions. They are, of course, not a new phenomenon, so how are facilities management teams geared up to handle these sorts of things? Read more…
the office of the future needs to be flexible and productive; but what does that mean?
I saw a headline that said the office of the future would need to be flexible and productive, but that’s a bit like saying that a house has to have walls and a roof. Let’s examine those words in more detail though. Read more…
put your own people first and let them handle the customer
I spend a lot of my life moving about, and have done since the early 80s. As a compulsive observer; it’s one of the ways that I have earned a living, I’m struck by how people behave towards each other. Read more…
asset management; a hard lesson
Asset management is very much at the forefront of my thinking at the moment, and in a very personal sense. It was about 4 weeks ago that I took a long look in the mirror and decided that I needed to apply some first principles to my main asset; myself. Read more…
how hard is it to deliver decent customer service?
Back to customer service this week and a trio of unrelated incidents that have got me thinking about this again. Read more…
chuck out your KPIs and measure real performance
Something that crops up constantly in the line of business that I am in is measurement of performance; often it is as simple as “Did we get what we ordered?” not least in terms of my clients being satisfied with me, but it is also about service contracts where delivery can get harder to pin down. I am in the process of writing a short eBook on the subject, so let me share some of my thinking here. Read more…
Monday Musings holiday fun on travel to London
As it is a Holiday Monday I thought a little frivolity could surface and so, having been reading about the Mayoral campaign on a couple trips to London recently, it strikes me that I might make a suggestion.
One issue for both candidates seemed to be to do something about “the monolith that is Transport for London”. If so, then I ask that they axe the DffTCB; The Department for frustrating ThatConsultantBloke. I have a picture of something like this: Read more…
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the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 