A Question of Innovation

Isn't Design great? Who doesn't enjoy an opportunity to test ideas to overcome daily challenges and create a better way. But how do we get a chance to innovate like this?

Let me save you the trouble of reading Google's 27 million results for 'how to innovate'.

We all know that change requires a commitment to action. Without this, we're just dreaming. In the business context, that means developing a habit of questioning the status quo, filtering the best ideas and committing appropriate investment to make them happen. And the best way to start is to view value through our customer's eyes. Unless our innovations attract positive reviews, there's no differentiation, and without that we should question the value of any change.

Here's a conversation I had with a coaching client. At the time, Nigel was VP, IT in a $300m business.

Nigel; "My CEO has asked me to champion innovation across the business. I've spoken with my peers on the Management Team, and ofcourse, everyone thinks it's a great idea. But we've never really done anything like this before and no one has any suggestions. Where should we start?"

My gut feel was that this was more about kick starting an innovation mindset than any specific innovation. "Let's look at the initiatives you're already planning over the coming year to find the best context to build on. You have budget approval to install a new Customer Support system, right?"

Nigel described how the Call Centre team was challenged by the length of time it took to process a customer call.

"All well and good" I said, "but what do we know about the customer's view on their support experience?”"

Not much. We get about 5% response rate on our call close surveys, and most of the feedback is negative. I suspect that the customers are not happy. Let me pull that up.” We looked at some of the feedback. A lot of customers were asking for alternatives to phone and email support.

Nigel span around from his laptop, "So it takes too long for our staff to key in all the data that the system requires over the phone. And our customers don't want to use the phone. Can't we kill two birds here by setting up a 'Quick Issue’ form on our web portal?"

I asked Nigel how long this would take.

"Well I'd have to run the idea past our call centre leaders, and we could start with an experiment. I reckon we could push the Quick Issue form out within a week, two max, and leave the phone process untouched. Redirect callers to web support on our call hold message, and see how it goes for a couple of months. Kind of an A/B test."

"You know what you just did, don't you?"

"Innovated?"

I should add that this conversation took place seven years ago, so we have the benefit of hindsight. The Quick Issue button took three weeks to launch, and after some tweaks, was attracting 40% of customer support requests within six months. Call centre staff were able to focus more time on resolutions, and same-day ticket closes went up by 35%. This was more than enough to remove the call centre's concerns on ticket processing time. The system replacement was held off for two years, and the time freed up allowed a series of short sharp "innovations" to flower across the organization. Nigel hasn't looked back since.

What we did was straightforward yet incredibly impactful - we asked a few simple questions:

1. How do we fit in to our customers' daily routines?
2. How can we achieve better results with lower work intensity for all parties?
3. Which problems can we simply bypass, rather than fix?
4. How will the outcome result in a better experience for our Customers?
5. How will the investment improve the results for our business?

And we challenged current practices by asking "How would we do this if we were starting anew?"

I'm so glad we had that conversation. 30 minutes well spent.

Innovate Now

What questions can your organization ask to uncover simple, impactful innovations?

Please - let me know. If you send your questions to me at graham@primeFusion.ca and I'll give you my feedback.