You started the business because you were passionate and had a great idea. In the beginning, when it was just you, it seemed things were done exactly how your customers wanted them. It was hard work; it was long hours, but things got done perfectly and customers were happy. And your business grew!

And because your business grew, it became necessary to hire an assistant so that you could meet customer demand… Your team is growing and with it, it seems, demands on your time. Performance is dropping and you can’t seem to understand why. After all, you have a clear goal – service within 3 minutes in your shop or a flawlessly executed corporate event if you’re an event planner. You have a clear plan – everyone has their role to play and has the skill or experience to play that role. 

What can you do in advance then to make sure that on D-Day, when a customer comes in to buy a product or you have an event to run, everyone does what you expect them to? What you do is train. Practice. Role play. Test the service delivery. Have a dry run. In advance. I’ve seen sales people in training pitch to their colleagues before going out to meet clients. I have had ghost calls made to office managers to check how they pick and answer the phone. Dry runs help you know how you will do on D-Day so that you can adjust things before they hit the customer. 

You may think you don’t have time for this, but how much it will cost you if a customer is badly impacted is a lot more than any time taken in doing a dry run. And dry runs don’t have to be expensive or take a lot of time. All you want to know is that your team understand what’s needed to serve customers effectively.

So you’re wondering how this applies to you if you’re already past D-Day. Your business is running, and there were no service dry runs. Don’t worry. There will be plenty of opportunities to keep trying new things, new products or a new service. After all, you will be continually improving your systems and how you do things.

Each day is an opportunity. An opportunity to succeed. An opportunity to do a great job for your clients.