Viewing your organisation from the customer's perspective is, of course, the best way to improve customer service. And this way of working is the central tenet of systems thinking which examines how customers draw value from the process of interacting with an organisation and conversely, how the design of an organisation and its processes can drive poor service and poor performance.
The Institute of Customer Service estimates that poor levels of customer service costs the British economy £50 billion a year, which equates to an average of £248 in lost business from each UK citizen.
During the last century, organisations developed a method of evaluating design and management of work known as traditional thinking. This model is top-down, based around functional specialisation, and measures progress according to budget, activity, productivity and standards. However, this model is now growing increasingly obsolete.
Systems thinking offers a very real alternative to this and is fast gaining an increasing reputation as a leading method for improving customer service and business performance.
Wikipedia defines systems thinking as: "an approach to problem solving, by viewing 'problems' as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation."
Systems thinking explained
Where traditional thinking is top-down, systems thinking is outside-in; where traditional thinking separates individual pieces for analysis, systems thinking is holistic; where traditional thinking measures according to budgets