How To Spot Problems Inside of a Business & Act on them
It's often said that business is all about solving problems for customers. And, while that is true, it's also crucial that internal problems are solved. Otherwise, a business can face significant consequences such as bankruptcy.
Of course, before you can solve all your internal problems, you must first be able to define them clearly. Throughout this article, we're going to talk you through everything you need to know for spotting problems inside of a business and acting on them.
How To Spot Problems Inside Of a Business
When it comes to spotting problems, there are three main methods you can use.
Polling
Requesting Feedback
Financial & Other metrics
From each of these areas, you can gain a lot of valuable information that will help you identify any problems within your business. Below, we've explained how to use these areas to find internal problems in your business.
Polling
One of the most effective ways to find problems is through polling your customers. This allows you to see your product or service from their eyes.
Additionally, you can also poll your employees anonymously which can also help you identify problems that you may have not noticed before.
Polling both your employees and customers is incredibly effective because it shows you the perspective of the people working behind it, and the people paying for the product or service. Because of how involved both these parties are the chances of them spotting some issues that you haven't is quite high.
Requesting Feedback
Secondly, you can also simply ask for feedback from your employees and department managers.
Many executives and managers make the mistake of never asking employees for any type of feedback. And usually, the employee doesn't go out of their way to let the management know of any issues they find, either.
Seeing the processes from their perspective will often lead to a better overall understanding for you to help make the business more efficient.
Plus, you can also ask the employees about how they are finding their own role which can help employee-retention.
Some of the questions you could ask include:
How satisfied are you with your position?
What is the part of your position that you are the least satisfied with?
Have you noticed any inefficiencies in the processes?
Do you think any improvements can be made to improve customer satisfaction?
Financial & Other Metrics
Lastly, there are also the more obvious signs that there could be problems within your business. These mainly include financial & similar metrics.
Some examples include low cash, low sales, and low revenue. We also recently covered signs that your business in distress, which also includes similar signs.
However, what's important though is that you understand that these metrics are not the actual problem, their causes are.
So, for example, low sales may be due to a bad reputation, or ineffective marketing.
If you see the metrics as the problem and just try to fix those without fixing the cause, you won't get very far.
How To Act On Problems
We also wanted to talk about how you can act on these problems, as finding them is of course only the beginning.
Defining The Problem
After you have found the problem, you'll want to create a clear definition of it. This means, knowing which department it's in, what is causing it, and how it's affecting your business. As we have mentioned in some of our previous blog posts, it's also crucial that you create a true definition of the problem.
This means everyone involved including the employees must be honest to create a true picture. Otherwise, finding a solution to a fake problem will not fix anything.
Finding Solutions
Finding solutions is all about ideas. Sit down with everyone involved and speak. That also includes employees. Often, they can find solutions because they want to prove their value, so taking in their ideas is not a bad idea.
Depending on how urgent, you must find the solution, you can also consider waiting a certain period of time to see whether you come up with any ideas.
Narrowing Down
There can be more than one solution that works to a problem. However, in most cases trying them all at once will not solve anything. Instead, you should first choose the one that is the most likely to work.
Depending on your organization, it may be chosen through a voting system, or the person with the most authority will be able to pick.
Planning & Execution
Once you have chosen the solution, it's about planning and execution.
When you're planning how you will execute the solution, you'll want to create a step-by-step actionable plan that you can follow. The steps should be bite-sized and realistic giving your organization the clarity it needs to solve whatever you are facing.
Of course, you can also make tweaks while you go along, but it should still be a general outline of what you need to do.
Final Thoughts
Spotting problems and acting on them is often easier said than done. However, if you follow the steps outlined in this article closely, you should be able to come up with solutions.
Just remember to speak to everyone involved, and if in doubt you can also contact us for further assistance.
If you did also enjoy this article, you can check out our recent posts below.
7 Strategies To Revive Your Business