We recently posted an article about the importance for Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) to take care of some "Simple Stuff" that can have a significant impact on customer and public perception or experience. See that article
HERE.
And we promised a simple solution to ensure the necessary "attention to detail" needed to avoid lapses in this "Simple Stuff".
So, here it is. It's using a thoughtfully created, standardized, reusable checklist.
WHAT !?!!#? "You mean you can't do any better than that?!"
Frankly, NO.
And we're not alone in that thinking. Airline pilots, surgical operating room teams, first responders of virtually all disciplines, astronauts, etc, etc, etc, all agree and utilize their checklists every single day. And they work!
If you have doubts about the value of checklists, or you're really interested in this topic, we suggest the following book to read (yes, it's nearly 15 years old and has stood the test of time): The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. This Harvard-trained and practicing surgeon and public health expert has extensively researched AND proven the value of simple checklists.
To bring the discussion back to everyday reality for SMB owners, there are just two things to do - (1) Create your checklists, and (2) Use them.
To CREATE your checklists, first, identify those situations where you're most likely to need "help" to ensure that "you've covered all your bases", and then clearly identify each individual "base" that you need to be covered.
Based on our experience, here are just a few business situations that will benefit from a checklist to help ensure that everything that should get done, actually gets done:
- A change in business hours from either the present or normal.
- Onboarding a newly hired employee.
- Completing the process of a voluntary or non-voluntary employee departure.
- Following up on any online reviews of your business or social media.
- Ensuring ongoing operational compliance with governmental mandates.
- And, possibly others.
To USE your checklists, you need to have them in both a readily available format and readily accessible when the "situation" occurs.
- If you're a "paper person", we suggest you create the checklist, print out multiple copies, and have them readily available to use for each specific situation.
- If you're OK with digital use, you have a number of options. One of the best apps we've found for recurring checklist use is Google Keep. It's free, it offers a number of features that make it extremely easy to actually use in your daily work, and it can produce documentation for record keeping. If you want some assistance in setting up and using this tool - for FREE - just contact us for help.
So, there you have it. Take some time to view your business interactions from your customers'/employees'/others' point of view and I suspect you'll discover that all they really want is current & accurate information or record keeping.
Checklists can help you make sure you do that!
