Customer Service

• Industry Customer Service Benchmarking Assessment

1. 1. 1. Call the customer service line or inquire via email. Document your experience. How does this compare with competitors?
      2. What does the company do that makes their customer service more effective than competitors? What could be improved?
      3. How important is good customer service in this vertical or industry? How does it affect the lifetime value of the customer?
      4. How does the business model affect the level of service required?  Is there any automation that can be incorporated into the process to increase efficiencies?

• Customer Service Diagnosis Challenge

1. 1. 1. How does the customer service team troubleshoot issues? How effective are their current processes?
      2. What is the most time-consuming part of the troubleshooting process? Is there anyway this can be automated?
      3. What process improvements would you recommend? Pay close attention to communication tools, knowledge base resources, and follow-up procedures.

• Customer Service Process Improvements

1. 1. 1. How long does it take for the issues and cases to navigate through the internal organization before arriving at a resolution?
      2. How can the process be optimized? Is information being circulated effectively internally?
      3. Should the company consider circulating certain materials externally as well? If so, how? Can we reduce redundancy by leveraging existing resources and cases?

• Customer Feedback Driven Process Improvement Recommendations

1. 1. 1. How does the company collect feedback from customers?
      2. Can you identify consistent feedback from customers related to the company’s product or service?
      3. What is the customer feedback process? How do the customers feel about the feedback process?
      4. Does the company use technology or social media to collect customer feedback?
      5. How can we better incorporate and address customer concerns before it escalates?

• Customer Service Process & Technology Assessment

1. 1. What technology is the company leveraging to administer the customer service process?
   2. How does the company feel about the customer service process? Interview key team members inside and outside that part of the organization.
   3. What other technologies could possibly improve the process? What is the cost of implementing new tools?
   4. Would you recommend implementing new tools and procedures?

Organizational Culture, Diversity & Inclusion

We've included some sample project ideas below. We encourage users to mix-and-match components from various departments for the best cross functional project experience. In all cases, we customize the projects based on company goals and student learning objectives. 

• Organizational Structure Assessment

1. 1. How has the company evolved to its current state? What growing pains have they experienced to-date?
   2. Visually map the company's current organizational structure.
   3. How effective is this layout for a growing organization?
   4. What competencies is the company missing that it really needs? What should be the highest priority in terms of hiring?
   5. Create a leadership profile highlighting some of the management team’s biggest strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to highlight the areas of the company that can leverage their strengths.

• Company Culture Pulse Check

1. 1. Create a survey for a few existing employees to measure company culture and analyze the resulting data: Is there a positive culture? Are there any red flags that the company needs to address?
   2. What are their favorite and least favorite parts of the culture? (Consider workspace, benefits, and other perks).
   3. Based on the survey results, what are the essentials for company culture? What are the cost implications of keeping these benefits as the company scales?
   4. What might not be scalable within the company culture? Does this cause a concern?
   5. How might the company need to modify and scale company culture in the future?

• New Office Launch

1. 1. Assess the need for a change in office/organizational structure. If a company is preparing to expand operations into another city or add/change working protocol, asses the potential impact.
   2. How would company culture be impacted by this addition/change?
   3. What are some best practices for opening up new offices? What are some of the major challenges they can expect to wrestle with as they prepare to launch in the new city?
   4. What tools and resources can be used in order to efficiently launch and maintain company culture?

• Growth Trajectory & Future Org Culture Evaluation

• 1. How has the company changed over time from an organizational culture perspective? How does the company expect to change/grow over the next 1-3-5 years.
  2. Assess the ways this might impact your host organizations. What key investments might need to be considered?
  3. What new roles and positions might be critical for them in the future? Where can you find these types of people?

• Assess the Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

  1. What types of standards exist around diversity and inclusion? Does this differ internally vs. externally?
  2. How does the company’s standards compare with competitors and/or other similar regional companies?
  3. What areas can be improved? Is there a plan in place to make improvements?
  4. What tactics would you use to make the environment more inclusive? Consider: events, recruitment strategies, trainings, rewards, etc.

Talent Management

We've included some sample project ideas below. We encourage users to mix-and-match components from various departments for the best cross functional project experience. In all cases, we customize the projects based on company goals and student learning objectives. 

• Company Talent Skills Mapping

1. 1. Get up-to-speed on the business model and organizational chart.
   2. How does the company manage talent? What’s the on-boarding process? How well is the company able to retain talent?
   3. How satisfied are employees with the current organizational structure?
   4. What crucial skills are required for each department/function? How do these departments link with other departments? Do they lend/share skills in between parts of the organization? Can this be done more efficiently or effectively?

• Organizational Vision, Values, and Goals Temperature Check

• 1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure.
  2. Does the company seem to have a clear organizational vision, mission, and goals? How does this differ when speaking to folks in different departments that are at different levels within the organization?
  3. How does the organization come up with the vision, values, and goals? How does management share this vision with the rest of the organization? Is this an effective process?
  4. Is there a way to measure progress when it comes to adoption of organizational vision, mission, and values?

• Talent Management Troubleshooting

  1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure.
  2. Interview key stakeholders and learn more about strengths and weaknesses of the current organizational set-up. Be sure to assess whether the organization has addressed any of these challenges previously.
  3. Synthesize data and distill challenges to 2-3 concrete challenge statements that need to be addressed by management. Why do you feel these are the most important based on your research?
  4. How can the organization address these challenges? Are there specific tools or tactics that might be able to help?

• Talent Optimization

  1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure. Where is the company most productive? Where is the company struggling?
  2. What are the main challenges that exist for struggling parts of the business? How far are they from meeting expectations?
  3. What is the final level of output that is needed?
  4. Map the output gaps.
  5. Map the inputs and processes that will be needed to achieve the desired outcomes.

• Recruiting Process Assessment

1. 1. How does the company recruit talent?
   2. What process does the company use to funnel talent into the business?
   3. What tools are most/least effective? How much does the company pay for those tools? Can you measure the ROI?
   4. What tools could the company be using more efficiently? Are there other tools or best practices that you’d recommend the company adopts? How would this impact the current process? How much would it cost and how would you measure the impact?

• Training & Development Program Creation

1. 1. Get up-to-speed on the current business model and organizational structure and identify a key function that has room for improvement in terms of process and/or technology.
   2. Get up-to-speed on the company’s current training and development tools and tactics.
   3. How does the department need to be trained? Can you repurpose some of the existing tools or structure for the training or will you need new materials?
   4. How will you measure success of your training?