Before You Know It...

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Communications Management   CRM   Stakeholder Management  

It’s not like we carry tarot cards in our laptop cases or keep a crystal ball app on our smartphones, but as informed IT professionals we often have the ability to predict what technology can go wrong at a customer site. This power of precognition is a good one to have, particularly in the field of customer service and support.

To be recognized as a leader in how you “foresee the terrible future” for your customers requires you being aware of potential issues so that you can work on them before they become escalated into real trouble. To perpetuate this fortuneteller image, you might even have success at spotting and fixing problems before customers even recognize them.

Small issues have a tendency to turn into bigger problems--it’s the nature of the beast. Unchecked and forgotten, minor difficulties are left alone until they bubble up and become real irritations. Having a systematic process in your customer service and support area to act proactively with clients to correct these issues can set you apart from competitors--and give your own project teams peace of mind.

Tape Measure
Measurement is one way in which to catch a problem. Being upfront with your customers and negotiating methods in which to monitor activity, send automated metrics, track usage points and data exchanges, etc. helps provide both you and them with reviewable …

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