“Systems are not sexy, but they really do drive everything we do”.  [Carrie Wilkerson, Barefoot Executive]

Have you looked at your back office lately?  Quite often this is regarded as the ‘boring bit’ of the business, which can mean it’s not getting the love it deserves. But this is where your business can be leaking some serious profits.

The back office is all your admin and operational systems and processes, accounting systems, databases, websites, etc. In other words, it’s what gets your product or service to your customer and their payments to you. Successful businesses constantly monitor and tweak their back office to ensure every customer transaction / interaction is time efficient and cost effective, while still providing a WOW customer experience.

Do you really understand how your back office works? Are you absolutely familiar with your business processes, from when the customer first makes contact, to giving them all they need to make an informed decision about your product or service, to providing the service or product, to invoicing, to receiving payment? Because if you don’t how do you know whether your business is the best it can be?

Tip: Process map the customer experience around your business and decide whether you would enjoy it.  If not, change it.  And get your staff involved in the process mapping. They are an invaluable resource as to how the customer experience can be improved. Let’s face it, they live in that world all week, you just drop in from time to time.