Process Mapping

I speak with a lot of clients who have a hard time nailing down their process. This is important for many reasons including: Knowing what should and could be automated, measuring metrics for success, getting the most out of each lead, identifying training areas around bottlenecks in the process.

The easiest way to think of it is as a linear model. If all things are perfect, what are the stages a lead goes through to become a customer and beyond. An example of this is a call comes in, it is answered by an agent who in turn qualifies and sales the deal. The new customer then goes to a compliance department where a call is recorded and the contract is verified. Afterwards, the customer is sent a welcome packet and put in touch with his/her new account manager.

Now that you have the perfect process mapped, you can start looking at deviations. Start at the begining. The phone call. What happens if no one is available? The qualification. What happens if the person isn't interested or is unqualified? The compliance call. What happens if the person starts to bring up issues that should have been covered durring the sales call?

Try to identify as many deviations at each point as possible. As you do this you will be able to identify bottlenecks, training opportunities, flaws in your process, nurturing opportunities and other. Always think of it as a linear process and start at the begining.