Paul Graham, author and programmer is quoted as saying: “For [a product] to surprise me, it must be satisfying expectations I didn’t know I had.”
Use SNAP to set and steer these expectations. This is what you want from SNAP. To set expectations and to meet and exceed those expectations. It is good to surprise your customer by exceeding expectations. It is not good to surprise your customer by failing their expectations.
The four parts of SNAP all work together and are best used when snapped into your key workflows.
We all have workflows. Some formal, some less formal. Any pattern of work that you use on a regular basis is a workflow. At times we document these and call them Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs. You might call them policies or a processes. Whatever called, the patterns of what you do are your workflows.
Does SNAP care about your workflow? No, not really. Will SNAP require you to change your workflow? Again, no, not really.
The “not really” part of the above answers is that SNAP is not a workflow analysis process and is not used to improve workflows. However, purposeful use of SNAP may result in you seeing your workflows differently. Basically, SNAP will easily snap into any part of your current, existing workflows.
We will not be spending time on building or deconstructing workflows in this book; there are many other resources for that. We will reference how SNAP fits into existing workflows since that is one way to get the real power when using SNAP. However, this coffee cup chat will focus on how to put a SNAP together and how to leverage SNAP.
Let’s look at a high level, generic customer workflow. Trigger > Processing > Completion.
Adding a little more detail, yet still staying high level, your workflows may share some of these steps:
Greeting
Request / Order / Trigger
Acknowledgement / Acceptance
Processing / Tasks
Check In / Status Update
Completion
SNAP will fit easily into any step of your current workflow. We will go into the details of setting up a good SNAP a little later, so for now let’s continue to look at this from a high level.
Pick one of your most routinely used or triggered workflows. To get started, I suggest you snap a SNAP into your workflow right at the start of the engagement.
Greeting
Request / Order / Trigger
SNAP
Here’s an example from work I do. As a human resource leader, I spend a lot of time hiring people for my company. This is one of my most routine workflows. This process is triggered by a request from a manager. The start of this process for me is: Request Submitted > Request Approved > Job Posted …
This is very routine. It all happens by email or other electronic process. It happens several times a day. And, just as routinely, I used to get calls or emails from managers asking: “Did my request get received?” “Did the request get approved?” “Did the job get posted?”
The workflow does not necessarily need to be edited or changed for me to improve customer service. All I have to do is add in one or more SNAPs.
This is what we did to the job request process. Request Submitted > SNAP > Request Approved > SNAP > Job Posted > SNAP > SNAP …
SNAP is a positive, informative message that you purposefully insert into key places in your key workflows. The repeating of these messages both informs your customers and frames their perception of the relationship they have with you.
When you don’t give your customers the information provided by a SNAP, your customers will fill in the blank spots on their own. They will guess at the information they don’t get from you. Don’t leave your customers guessing; use SNAP to guide and steer perception and to deliver much improved customer service.
Perception does not change overnight, however, considering the example shared above about posting jobs, after a few months the overall perception was that requests to fill jobs and the posting of jobs took place in half the time it had taken previously. The only real change was the addition of SNAPs. Managers were much happier. The HR team was able to spend less time responding to questions about the status of things, and to move the communications of the relationship to more productive topics.
The way SNAP works is pretty simple. Look for an opportunity to get your message to your customer. The importance of workflows is that they provide a routine delivery vehicle for us. All of our key or core customer transactions are driven by workflows. A customer comes into your shop: you have a workflow to greet and determine what service or product is desired. A customer walks into your office: you have a workflow to welcome your customer and connect them to services or answers to questions. Insert one or more SNAPs.
“People tend to look at their business from the inside out—that is, they get so focused on making and selling their products that they lose awareness of the needs…of their customers.”
…from Execution – The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Larry Blossidy and Ram Charan
Using SNAP messages forces you to look at what you are doing from the view point of the customer.
Make SNAP work for you. Add it into key locations of your key workflows. Workflows are awesome delivery vehicles for SNAP.
Invest some time and thought, then pull the trigger: plug and play. Won’t cost you a dime.
© 2012, Philip Espinosa. All rights reserved.
