You have put in place processes that are refined to the point that you nearly can operate on autopilot – be that for prospecting new accounts, for basic operations, or delivery of your services to clients.  You feel good about this and feel you have reached the pinnacle of process perfection.  But have you lost something valuable along the way?

You admittedly can turn around a proposal in a day at most.  You can respond to any request for information with a set packet of information.  You can deliver white papers, or responses to FAQs in lightning speed.  But are you really responding to the needs or just responding fast?

How have your customers’ needs changed over time?  What new processes have they put in place?  What are your prospects looking for given the current economic conditions?  Are all of your prospects alike in their service requirements from you?  How do they expect, even demand, to have customized solutions and processes to meet their needs?

The risk that a company takes in becoming overly focused on their internal processes is that they may be overlooking the changing environment outside their organization.  In particular, the most important changing environment – that of their prospects.  We can become so self-centric, and pleased with ourselves, that we begin to resist change that is required to meet the needs of our customers.

It is easy to fall into this trap since proven processes provide a comfort zone in which to operate.  You may have incorporated dashboard measurements to manage your company, but what key metrics are you using on your dashboards and are they the ones that are the most meaningful for your customers?  Over time a thriving business needs to change, adapt, and evolve into a different entity in order to stay current with the needs of the market place.  Just look at the industries of the past and those new ones that have been better at responding to current market needs.  It becomes a truism, but a seemingly oxymoronic statement, that staying current requires constant change.

The way to test your present state of being current with your customer’s needs is to employ a simple solution – once a year have a face-to-face meeting with your customers and do a process review.  Go into the meeting open minded and ask three basic open-ended questions:

• “How are we doing in meeting your needs?”
• “What do you like about our current processes?” 
• “What would you like for us to change or reevaluate?”

The findings from these three questions will open a plethora of opportunities if you have an open mind and don’t resist the customers’ input.  Realize that they are providing to you the keys to future business opportunities with them.

By objectively evaluating the comments from your customers you are now in a position of not guessing about what to do to improve your business.  Instead, you have a roadmap, which if you choose to use it, will lead you to more profitable and long-term relationships.

To achieve this point of success takes an open mind, a willingness to serve your customers’ needs and a willingness to relinquish current processes that may have been comfortable but, unknowingly, very limiting.