The term Operational Excellence sounds like something that you would hear in the board room of a fortune 500 company, but there is no reason that small businesses can’t implement the same practices, albeit on a smaller scale. The backbone of your medical spa is your employees, operations, clients, technology and your brand. How all these pieces work together is like the cogs on a clock. At every minute of the hour, your business is like those cogs, moving in sync and yielding customer satisfaction.
When areas of your business are not moving in sync, it creates skips in time, and effects your bottom line. So the big question is: how do I build Operational Excellence and keep everything moving along, and have happy clients?
Creating Operational Excellence is not a quick fix, but something that you need to be constantly striving toward. It is like building a house. You must have a strong foundation and move up layer by layer. Operational Excellence is something that you can improve upon daily.
When areas of your business are not moving in sync, it creates skips in time, and effects your bottom line. So the big question is: how do I build Operational Excellence and keep everything moving along, and have happy clients?
First, you need to understand how your business is working right now. Using secret shoppers can help you find your weak areas and how to improve them, as well as talking with your current clients, either with a follow up phone call or survey. Additionally, talking with your staff and managers – really listen to their feedback. Take assessment of how your business flows from a client perspective. Small issues on the backend of your business can permeate into much bigger problems on the front end.
Second, take action. Work systematically to troubleshoot and improve areas of weakness such as: sluggish sales, staff motivation and training, HR issues, customer satisfaction issues or an unprofitable bottom line. If these are problems that you feel you can’t improve on, hire an outside expert to get you headed in the right direction.
Third, execute your plan in a systematic way, and start from the inside out. Target one area a time and you will be on your way to Operational Excellence. Taking stock of your people, business processes and business practices and policies is the only sure way to secure a stable and profitable business.
A solid business and plan will yield profit and customer satisfaction. Every few months be sure to revisit your plan and be sure you are on track. Never assume that things are perfect – there is always room for improvement.
