ByMatthew Arnold
It’s all about the people. I was talking to someone this week about “the people” in transformational change. Its always about the people, and often in ways you might not expect. I’ve worked with Lisa and her Madabout team for years (we’ve known each other about 20 years now…) and I remember vividly one of…
ByMatthew Arnold
Whether it be electricity billing, payroll services, or fixing potholes, ensuring the work starts correctly with the right information is often the first issue I discover as I undertake my diagnosis. Why aren’t all the electricity bills going out? Because not all the information about the customer has come from sales, and/or not all the…
ByMatthew Arnold
In my last post, I talked about the potential waste in systems and processes in the service industry, call centre, and processing centres. So I’d thought I’d add another simple example. I was helping an HR Director with one of her Payroll Managers and teams. The team just seemed so busy – twice as busy…
ByMatthew Arnold
It’s easy to walk into a large contact centre or processing office and see lots of people, head-sets on or working from screens – all looking busy – but are they really being effective…? But take a closer look, and it doesn’t always look so rosy. Without purpose, you can very quickly find yourself, and…
ByMatthew Arnold
I’ve just completed a great assignment with an electric company – a rapid change to their collections processes that now focusses on outcomes rather than activity. In little more the two months, the team changed their priorities to tackling the larger/hardest debts first, dealing with them to conclusion, resolving upstream issues, and allocating more resource…
ByMatthew Arnold
I love my job. That might already be clear from articles that I write. There’s good reason – every day is like solving a Rubik’s cube. However difficult a situation is, I know there’s an answer. The solution is right there in front of you – you just need a method to work it out….
ByMatthew Arnold
In my last article I wrote about the difference between strategic and tactical thinking with respect to large processing / contact centres, and, in my opinion, explained why I thought this was just wrong-headed. When a large part of the organisation is there to ensure customers are happy, it’s fundamental to ensure queries are cleared as…
ByMatthew Arnold
Much of my work is undertaken in the service industry, and often in large processing centres where the work is done, customers phone in, problems are resolved, and often payment is chased. In recent times, these have included utility companies, banks and councils. I’ve had a few really interesting discussions over the last few months…
ByMatthew Arnold
I’ve posted before about how small changes in the system can deliver dramatic results. I especially like the ones where the answer isn’t where you’d expect it to be. One has to really study the system first: what is the purpose of the operation? what is the customer journey? what other factors are playing out?…
ByMatthew Arnold
Wow – I’ve just read this book, and its quite amazing – I’d recommend it to everyone. You may have seen or heard Hans Rosling in TED Talks in recent years, simply explaining that our mental models of the world today are broadly wrong – very wrong. His approach, very much like W Edwards Deming,…