CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer Service is Now About System Thinking
System thinking heightens productivity, including personal productivity.
Personal and business productivity increases when a system view is applied. System thinking involves identifying all moving parts in any operation and mapping how they are linked. Determine how they integrate and interact.
System thinking is the study of cause and effect over a greater range of space and time, factoring in more elements and actors than is typically considered. System thinking relates to broadening thinking to take in more than initially considered.
System thinking can get complex as the scope is expanded. That’s the challenge. System thinking can get out of control if the boundary is not drawn. It can get overwhelmingly complex.
Providing sales support is a part of a system. Improvement of the system is an improvement in customer service.
Customer service is no longer all about ongoing personal interaction. The corner milk bar experience is gone.
Once a system is designed and is effective, it solves the issue that most impacts the customer.
Of course, what is lost here is the sense of real-time feedback. This is still important, but with the view of improving the system.
For a support person to adjust the system, a range of tools are created.
Creating practical tools and systems is usually someone else’s responsibility, but the support person has a role in mastering the tools.
It is expected that the Knowledge Worker is a digital native. Confident in working in a system, strong in system thinking and able to master the system tools provided.
Good customer service now needs the operator to understand the company’s systems to be effective in their role.
Procrastination
Strategies to avoid procrastination
1. Break it up
Split your work into reasonable chunks. Get started choosing the least painful, then choose the next. Finish task by task.
2. Find inspiration (don’t wait for it)
Inspiration can come at unexpected times. But usually, it involves an activity like talking to someone, walking, showering.
Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.” –Henry Matisse
Most often, you find inspiration when you are already at work. Literally, “in-spiration” means “breathing in.” To get inspired, take a breath and start.
Go after [inspiration] with a club.” –Jack London
3. Separate procrastination and addiction
Your well deserved cigarette break or your needed glass of Bordeau won’t load your batteries. Resigning to addictions will not start or speed you up. Consuming consumes your attention.
4. Get active
Note the following:
No one came back from YouTube feeling fresh and energized.
No one peeled out motivated and happy after two hours of scrolling through Instagram.
No one ever got inspired to finish things up after a Netflix Bonanza.
Buying some stuff online is not very productive. It’s consuming.
5. Face the truth
Here are more exercises that have never ignited any meaningful action:
Checking up on old lost friends on Facebook
Being jealous of people that seem happy
Pretending to be morally offended
Pretending to be good looking
Pretending to be productive
Pretending to be successful
Discussing with strangers
Pretending to be healthy
Pretending to be amused
Pretending to be funny
Reading the comments
Reacting to comments
Pretending to be rich
Pretending to care
Reading the news
Reading tweets
Liking tweets
Pretending
If you work, you need breaks… If you work at a screen, a break means getting away from the screen. When? How often? How long? Depending on what you do and as you feel fit. Some need to stop every 25 Minutes. Some can work for 40 Minutes.
So, what’s the trick?
There is no other trick to do what needs to be done—other than getting started. If you still think about your task and…
…you don’t know where to begin…
…you feel like you’re being suffocated…
…you imagine that someone is holding a fork right in front of your throat and if you take just one step…
…then it is the time to take that step and discover that there is no fork.
Once you have gotten started, most things that seem unbearable or impossible turn out to be just something you do. Moving from passive to active feels good. Making order out of chaos is liberating. Getting stuff done feels great.
Turn your attention away from consumption to an active task, no matter how minor. Don’t ask yourself if you feel like doing it. Do it and do it right so you feel it. And then, when you are done and still in motion—do not take a pause. Do that other thing that was suffocating you before, right after.
Procrastination sounds sophisticated, complicated, and hard to get out of. Deep procrastination is a serious problem that needs outside help. Common procrastination is a ubiquitous glittering lure but it is not that big of a deal. It just means that you delay something a bit unpleasant for something a bit more pleasant. And if you want to move forward, whether it’s in an estimate, a design, or a text—don’t wait until you feel like it. To overcome delays: get started. Now.
WORK FROM HOME
Still Stuck on the One Desk Model?
Working from one desk was a measure to save the company money, not to help the worker do their best work. So why replicate it in the home work space?
We’ve all got a great option to now use our environment to inject inspiration and maximise our efforts to allow our work to be effortless. Find a different space to:
do deep work
brainstorming
tasks
planning
reviewing and reflecting
LINKS
Randoms
Even smart, well-educated people can struggle to learn from experience. We all know someone who’s been at the office for 20 years and claims to have 20 years of experience, but they really have one year repeated 20 times. More…..