98: Process Improvement with Matt Dale

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 98 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is process improvement. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today my good friend Matt Dale. Matt, it's lovely to have you back, and you're joining me this week to talk about process improvement, right?

Matt Dale: 0:42

Yep, that's that's right, Charlotte. Good to be back here. I love being on the podcast. Um process improvement is near and dear to my heart. Um, one of my kind of core values as a person is this idea of continuous improvement. Really just saying like anything that we're doing, we can get a little bit better, right? So even if I'm in a uh you know a seasoned support professional, which I hope to think that I am at this point, um, there are areas in my job and my work product and what I'm doing that that can get a little bit better. To get better, I need to know how I'm doing. You need to have a place to kind of start with that. And and taking a look at that work product and taking a look at that thing then allows us, sets the stage, if you will, for for that, the next iteration and the chance to say, hey, how did we do that time? So this kind of this continuous process of doing the thing, examining the thing we did and reflecting on it, doing the next thing and then examining and kind of going from there.

Charlotte Ward: 1:31

Taking things in very small increments is is a good way to look at this, I think. It's also tempting to make some sweeping changes as well, though, right? Do you think there's a time for small incremental improvements and a time for big sweeping changes?

Matt Dale: 1:47

I think there are those times. I think uh for our business, we're very um busy during the back to school season. I was joking to my directors this week, is like it feels like we have two seasons. We've got back to school busy season, and then we have the season that is preparing for the back to school busy season. And so for us, back to school is not a time when we're when we're busy, it's not a time to say, hey, let's make a big sweeping change. Those are a chance where we can say, you know, basically we're locked and loaded. We have the processes in place, we have all of our workflows, we have our tools, everything needs to be ready to go so that we can provide the best possible experience for our customers throughout that really uh intense and stressful time. Um so that's not the time when we say, hey, let's make a big sweeping change. As we move out of busy season, that's another time when we kind of take stock on that and how did how did our back to school season go? Did our was our customer satisfaction, you know, where we wanted it to be? Was our team arrayed appropriately? Did we have the right people on each product? And then you know, January to uh July is when we're looking at how do we how do we fix some of those key issues? Maybe it's uh doing a better job onboarding or hiring more people based on the volume that we saw. Maybe it's improving our help docs. Uh and and those are the times to do kind of those big stuff. But at the same time during that season, we're also looking at those small incremental changes and going, hey, how can I how can I do better on this ticket than I did last on the last one? Or how can we do better, you know, as a team with communication?

Charlotte Ward: 3:06

Yeah, I mean, your business is is very seasonal. So you have to be driven in your approach by the by the seasonality that you serve, right? But I I guess we can build something of that rhythm into any support team, however seasonal or not, the business, right? Um, I I sort of feel like what you're saying is that you you choose your time to make a bigger change. And then everything that comes for a little while after that is incremental improvement.

Matt Dale: 3:35

Yeah, I think that's right. And I I think it's important too to choose that time and be focused about it. I think if you try to say, hey, I'm gonna change every aspect of something right now and all at once, I think you're gonna have a problem with that. Like if you look at my personal life, if I'm trying to be more physically fit and more active, and at the same time I'm also trying to be worrying about my, you know, changing my budgetary habits and the way I deal with my finances, and if I'm trying to spend more time with my kids, those are all great things. But if I'm doing them all at once, I'm gonna get exhausted and I'm probably not gonna see success in that. And so being focused and able to say, hey, of these three things, the most important one is I need to spend more time uh working on my physical fitness because I'm I'm not in the shape that I want to be in, and that's just gonna have big benefits down the road. Um so I'm gonna choose to focus on that. I'm gonna spend a period of time where I'm kind of letting the other stuff sort of cruise along where they're at because I'm making a big change in this area of my life. Obviously, there's times that are um better or worse for big change. So, like when we had our first child, that was not a good time for me to say, hey, I want to spend more time working out of the gym because that's not gonna be successful for my family. And just like that, it would be it would be a bad idea at Illuminate if we're to change, make a big change in the way the phone system works and while we're in the middle of a busy season. Like that's not gonna work well for our agents, that's not gonna work well for our customers. So I think you have to understand what's going on in your world and and what bandwidth you have. And then I think you need to be very focused on this is the thing that we're working on right now. And then once you've done the change, work on that incremental improvement, building that into so it's a habit or just a way of life. And then once that's dialed, then you can move on to the next change and kind of go from there.

Charlotte Ward: 5:10

Certain things have to happen because they have to happen at a certain point in time. They're urgent, they they've got to be solved. Some things have to happen for the longer term and can wait a while. But there is this there is this third thing that I think people often forget. These are the things that potentially could wait a while, but have a lead time. I think there are some things you have to accept that we're prioritizing them now because we need the benefit sooner, even though the benefit might not be for six months or a year. The sooner we get it in, the sooner we see it. So I th I think there's some interesting prioritization there around what you place that big focus on.

Matt Dale: 5:48

I would also say that I think in our business world, it's very easy to get caught up in the quick fixes and not invest in those longer-term projects and not being very strategic in those. Being able to take that bigger picture perspective if you're thinking about you know being a leader in customer support. I think you need to kind of take that step back and really go, what are what what what kind of organization do we want to be? What's the end goal in a perfect world? What will we look like? And then you need to kind of work back from there and go, what are the um, you know, from a project planning perspective, what's that's that critical path that will get us there? What are the things that we must do right now or we must start right now so that we are ready to go when when we need this thing to be in place? And I think those are the things that as a younger manager and leader that I wasn't as aware of the importance of. But but I think I as I'm as I'm learning and growing, I'm seeing the importance of that longer term strategic planning.

Charlotte Ward: 6:41

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash ninety eight for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.