The ongoing search for improvement

I love talking to people about Contact Centre Planning - if you’ve ever spoken to me for any length of time you’ll know that to be true, and I’m truly sorry.? It’s just that I love hearing the differing opinions that people have around best practice.? I love connecting with someone who is totally open to learning new things and who understands there is always a better way to do things.? Unfortunately, that’s not everyone that I encounter.

There are those in our community who are at a point where they believe there are no incremental, tiny improvements that can be made to any of their processes to improve how they operate and the service they offer to their customers. They feel that they may have reached the end of their journey of continuous improvement. And, to be fair, they’ve based this on the fact that they’ve worked incredibly hard and with great skill and diligence over a great length of time, talking to people like me, listening to advice and, after implementing everything, they feel assured that they are at the absolute cutting edge of planning and operational efficiency.?

However, I discovered something amazing the other day which should lead you to the conclusion that even the very best have improvements that they can find.

Let’s take a look at Usain Bolt.? He’s not renowned as a Contact Centre planner, I’ll grant you, but as the fastest human on Earth, I’ll grant him a little leeway in that regard.? I think it is pretty safe to assume that his training and dedication over an entire career have given him incredible technique. Coupled with his immense physical power and natural athleticism, this technique allows him to run 100 meters in a frankly ridiculous 9.58 seconds.? To run at that speed - an incredible 44.72 km/h - you would think there must be precious little in terms of waste in what he does.? He must be extremely efficient, surely?

Well, yes. And, on the other hand, no.

I was amazed to discover that during his world record run, Bolt was only truly accelerating for 43% of the race.? Humans can only accelerate when we are actively pushing against the ground.? Every time both of his feet were in the air - 57% of the run - Bolt was actually slowing down!? That’s hugely inefficient!? (By comparison, a quadruped like a cheetah accelerates for 70% of the time - more legs, you see, so they are in contact with the ground more often than a biped.)

Now, be honest - if you found a process in your business that was only 43% efficient - no matter how fast or slick it was - you’d look to improve it, right?? I am absolutely sure that Usain Bolt and his team were always looking for ways to find an extra hundredth-of-a-second, even though he was clearly the best at what he did. That's what made him great - the quest for continuous improvement never ended.

It’s safe to say that my area of expertise isn’t running at pace - as anyone who has ever seen me play football or at a Parkrun event will certainly attest. It’s Real-Time Management in Contact Centres, particularly how it can be improved through the particular brand of automation, intelligence and insight delivered by QStory.? And I can honestly tell you that I am yet to find a contact centre, a set of operational or planning processes, or a trip around the planning cycle that can’t be improved by our wonderful solution. Why? Because, no matter how lean you are, no matter how dedicated you are or how smart you work, no matter how brilliant your response times are, or how large your planning team is, there is simply no way that it cannot be improved through the intelligent application of technology.

QStory can help you to take your honed, stripped-down, efficient processes and super-charge them - automating non-value-add tasks, enabling mass changes at pace, ensuring that the experiences of the customer, the colleagues, and the business are all improved drastically.? We have huge numbers of customer voices, each one advocating that our customers could not have achieved what they’ve achieved without QStory, and highlighting the business-changing improvements that we’ve brought to every aspect of their day-to-day challenges.

So why don’t you join in? Contact me for a demo and let me show you exactly how we can help you to find those extra improvements and additional efficiencies.

Just like Usain Bolt.