A client recently told me that they have only one company policy: ask how this impacts the customer – if the result is positive, do it; if not, then don’t.

My first reaction was that this was far too simplistic – policy manuals are usually thick binders containing pages and pages of detailed procedures. Could it all really be simplified into just one simple concept? Maybe not – but I do think this one simple concept could be an important evaluation tool for all companies.

What might happen if we all took our policy manuals and viewed the impacts of those policies through the lens of the customer? I think we’d find that some of them actually hinder, or in some cases, even prevent us, from servicing the customer properly...which should lead us to ask – why do we have these policies in the first place?

Here’s an example of a policy that left me as a customer feeling completely disenchanted. After we replaced the wristband on my husband’s watch, we had to get it resized again. When I enquired at the high-end retail store about having this service done there, I was told that they would only be able to resize the band if we had a receipt because (and I quote) ‘they are taking ownership of the watch while they are resizing it and if something goes wrong, they have to know that the watch was purchased at the store and not elsewhere’. This seemed like an example of a policy meant to protect the store instead of servicing the customer. Seriously, the effort to resize a watch band takes about a minute – realistically, what could go wrong in such a short amount of time? And for the one in a million cases where something does go wrong, is it really worth inconveniencing countless other customers because of your store policy?

Take a minute to review your policies through the lens of the customer. If there is a policy that hurts the customer experience, ask yourself how we might amend, or dare I say, eliminate it? Policies should be focused on helping, not hindering, the customer experience.

#customerexperience #policiesandprocedures