Rehabilitation Matters

Help for Clients - and Helping Ourselves

We have set up a new support site for the business using Zendesk.  It seems quite simple to use so Im hoping that it will be a very useful tool for us on a few levels and become vital to customer support in the long term. 

As our business has grown - more products - more clients - more locations - its become really important to have a way of capturing some of the knowledge and problem solving expertise we have and put this in a central location.  It's also vital that we have a way of tracking and dealing effectively with any issues that clients have. 

Once upon a time my partners and I would be totally "hands-on" but after a few years of weekend and holiday "emergency" calls, the novelty of that approach starts to wear off.  And you know what, these days with Smart Phones we are never far away from that email or voice mail.  Just a week ago I was in the Cairngorm mountains on holiday-  and still trying to email a client and fix an issue.  I don't find it all that stressful but I cant say it's nice for family harmony.

There is another issue too.  One day we will wish to exit from the business and hopefully someone will want to carry on.  How much easier that will be if we have robust and useful support processes in place.

http://acuk.zendesk.com/home

The problems of a product focused manufacturer

All product manufacturers tend to love their products - and that's a good thing because if they dont... well who will.  But any of us that are client-facing and trying to offer products know that clients dont really "buy" a product.  They instead buy a "feeling".  The total service and support package, feelings of confidence with the supplier and many subtle things often make the difference. 

Disruptive forces mean that it is harder and harder to compete with product innovation alone.  Henry Chesbrough has talked in his books about the commodity trap that recognised:-

1. Manufacturing and business process knowledge and know-how is widely distributed - so its hard to differentiate your business on that basis
2. Manufacturing of products is moving to areas of the world with the lowest costs.
3. Shrinking product lifetimes - means its harder to get a return on investment based on maintaining a competitive advantage with any product.

It's imperative that manufacturers become much more client and service focused in their innovation stategies. Leveraging services innovation effectively is a challenging task that requires nothing less than a new approach to doing business.

In rehabilitation enginerring, service and support is absolutely critical.  A few years ago, the Clinical Director of a Spinal Injuries Unit said to me, "We rely on you guys so that WE don't have to get the phone calls from clients on a Sunday morning".  Thank goodness as technology for effective support is imporving I have to take fewer of these Sunday calls these days.  It's just holidays still.