My first hands-on experience with a box of crayons and a coloring book at school provided a feeling of freedom and independence, not to mention excitement ~ right up to the point when my teacher looked at my masterpiece and said those creativity crushing words, "You need to work on coloring inside the lines."  Life and professional experience has since taught me that, while coloring inside the lines absolutely is quite often necessary, there are also big advantages to going outside of the lines.

Businesses work hard to establish functional standard operating procedures for carrying out routine operations. These are the lines to color inside of for consistency~ if you will. This structure is mandatory for success. ProSolutions works with many businesses helping them to establish and deliver their processes with standardization.  The consistent delivery and/or execution of many of these processes is inflexible, and some businesses understand this better than others. For example, offering a standard greeting when customers call into your business gives them a sense of comfort because they instantly know they have called the right place, regardless of who answers the phone. Another example is standardizing your company's email signature. If we are customer focused, this is another opportunity to "make it easy" for your customer, as well as provide them with that sense of comfort by the visual consistency. How many times have you hunted for someone's phone number or title in their email signature just to find name only? In your signatures, be sure to have your name, title, phone #(s), fax (if applicable), and website address.  Make it easy, consistent, and customer focused. 

While "coloring inside the lines" clearly has many business benefits, what are the benefits of coloring "outside the lines"?  Some of the most memorable customer experiences are those where a company professionally and/or playfully took liberties with "standards."  How many of you have been on a Southwest Airline flight where the expected/traditional standard operation of delivering the safety procedures was embellished for the sake of adding humor to the mundane, yet necessary, process? This company does an excellent job connecting with their customers by showing the lighter side of "standard." Also, we recently shared an article about a customer calling into Netflix about a problem. When the agent answered the phone, "Captain Mike of the good ship Netflix," the idea of the traditional scripted exchange was replaced with memorable service that has now hit the internet. Way to go, Captain Mike!

As you know, in addition to setting new goals, the new year is a great time to create changes or make improvements.  Here are some things we suggest for you to consider and analyze:

• Consider if your polices and procedures are making a positive difference to your customers and employees.
• Are there missed opportunities to make it easier for your customers to do business with you? 
• Are you closely monitoring the processes that need to remain consistent, as well as allowing your associates the freedom to be playfully professional like Captain Mike?

Here's to good and creative coloring with your crayons. Happy 2014!