Quick question: When did you last walk through your business processes in your customer’s shoes?

You might be surprised at what you discover if it’s been a while. For instance, that online order form that seems perfectly clear to you might be causing confusion and abandoned carts.

It’s easy for businesses to become nearsighted regarding process design. We get so focused on efficiency, cost savings, and internal needs that we sometimes lose sight of the most important stakeholder: the end customer.

Your processes can make or break the customer experience. And in a competitive market, customer experience is king. It’s what differentiates you, drives loyalty, and ultimately determines your success.

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So, how do you ensure your processes are truly customer-centric? It starts with committing to continuous improvement.

Evaluate Processes through the Customer Lens

The first step is to take a hard look at your current processes and evaluate them through your customer’s eyes. Ask yourself:

• What value does this process deliver to the customer?

• How easy and intuitive is it from their perspective?

• Are there any steps that create confusion, frustration, or delay?

• Does the process enhance the overall customer experience or detract from it?

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Mapping out your key customer journeys — from initial awareness to post-purchase follow-up — can be helpful. As you diagram each point of contact, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What are they thinking, feeling, and trying to achieve at each step?

Identify and Eliminate Points of Friction

As you evaluate your processes, pay close attention to any points of friction or steps that negatively impact the customer experience. These could be things like:

• Lengthy or complicated forms

• Unclear instructions or messaging

• Slow response times

• Unnecessary handoffs between departments

• Rigid policies that don’t allow for flexibility

Each of these friction points is an opportunity for improvement. Perhaps you could streamline that intake form, clarify your instructional copy, or empower your frontline staff to handle issues without escalation. Small changes can significantly affect how customers perceive and engage with your business.

Re-engineer Processes Around Customer Needs

Once you’ve identified areas for improvement, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and re-engineer your processes with the customer at the center. This means:

• Designing with empathy and a deep understanding of customer needs, preferences, and behaviors

• Prioritizing ease, speed, and clarity with every interaction

• Building in flexibility to accommodate diverse customer situations

• Communicating and setting clear expectations

• Gathering and acting on customer feedback continuously

The goal is to create processes that meet customer needs and exceed their expectations. Processes that make them feel valued, understood, and delighted at every interaction. Build customer surprises into your processes and budgeting, and you’ll see a payoff.

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Continuous Improvement is Key

Of course, customer needs and expectations are constantly evolving, which is why continuous improvement is critical. Regularly collecting and analyzing customer feedback — through surveys, interviews, reviews, and other channels — can help you stay on top of shifting demands and identify new opportunities to enhance your processes.

Consider establishing a regular schedule for process reviews and improvement initiatives. Engage cross-functional teams to brainstorm ideas, find solutions, and test new approaches. Most importantly, keep putting yourself in your customers’ shoes to guide your efforts.

Need a Partner in Customer-Centric Process Design?

At HireSmart Virtual Employees, we’re passionate about helping businesses create processes that wow customers and drive results. We’ve built our independent brand on core values: Service, Mindfulness, Availability, Respect, Teamwork, Ethics and integrity, and Relationships (SMARTER). These values guide everything we do, from the clients we work with to the virtual employees we hire.

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Here’s what one client in property management said about Jennifer, their virtual employee through HireSmart.

“Her smooth steady approach to her tasks is always on mark, she handles her work with pride in a perfect finished product and doesn’t hesitate to be assertive with vendors, tenants and as needed with her team,” said the client. “Jennifer knows what true work ethic really looks like — this woman can out-work anyone. We actually have a difficult time stopping her from taking on too much because, when it comes to work and tasks, she is a taker!”

HireSmart provides its VEs with free health and dental coverage at no cost to the clients. We also provide the VEs with educational scholarships for their children, leadership training, ongoing assistance through our training team, and special care when disaster strikes, such as after Typhoon Rai in 2021 when we helped 31 Filipino HireSmart families get back on their feet.

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Whether you need to revamp your customer onboarding, overhaul your support processes, or create self-service options that delight, we have the expertise to help. Our virtual employees can help you ensure that the “voice of the customer” is never lost within the process design.

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We’d love to chat if you’re ready to improve your processes. Click here to schedule a free meeting.

After all, happy customers are the heart of every successful business. That’s our top priority, too. We want our clients to be happy and fulfilled. There’s such joy in making other people’s lives better. In the process, you live a fuller life yourself. We want to help you improve the lives of all you serve.