Can SMEs Productise Services to Help Increase Sales? (Part 2)

In the last post we asked the question Can Businesses Productise Services to Help Increase Sales? and we briefly covered the difference between a product and service, what constitutes a successful service, the challenges of scaling a services business and introducing the idea of productising services to scale/grow a service business. In this post we continue with this productisation theme and highlight at a high level what service productisation means and how it can help scale/grow a service business.

There are a number of things that service oriented businesses can do to help the service delivery process with future prospects before scaling issues kick in, firstly:

• Get references from satisfied clients - this will add positive testimony to the services you are offering and will communicate positive outcomes that other businesses have achieved using your services.
• Develop client case studies - These should summarise the clients problem, challenges or opportunity, your recommendations and the outcomes from the approach adopted. Depending upon the number of target audiences you have, these will help prospective clients see that you have delivered your services to businesses similar to theirs which in turn will help make them more comfortable with your proposed services offering.
• Gather service feedback - ask clients if the promise and delivery were matched, ask prospects who did not use your service why - find out how could you improve things.

These are simple first steps that help your business build up its credentials and this is invaluable part of the service productising process.

The harder part comes next, but once this is completed you will wonder how you ever managed without it before. Next, you have to productise the services that you offer. While this may differ slightly from business to business, the principles are essentially the same whether your business is an IT, IFA, Legal, Cleaning, Surveying, Courier, Accountancy etc. service business. Put simply, you have to map out and document how things get done in a way that captures the vision and ethos that the founder(s) have for the business. This needs to cover both strategy and tactics i.e. vision/direction and deliverables. The good news is that you are probably already doing many things right, but in order to scale you have to document your winning ways, process and communication - good and bad - so that others within your business have an agreed point of reference and clear set of methodologies that can be followed in a professional and consistent way. This is essentially cloning the founder(s) knowledge, skills and experience by documenting what is in your/their head(s).

The following example albeit quite simple in nature may help bring some context to this point of view. Imagine you are given a model aeroplane to build but there are no clear instructions. The majority of people will eventually succeed in building the model plane but will take different approaches. Some of these approaches may take longer than others, result in some parts not being used, impact the quality of the finished result or even cause the project to fail to be completed and the user to become dissatisfied. However, by providing a set of clear documented instructions the user will be guided through a “how to build a model aeroplane” journey that will result in correct assembly of the model aeroplane every time. While the above DIY model example is probably too simplistic compared to a real service businesses processes, it aims to highlight the point that with documented process/instructions the journey undertaken provides a greater likelihood of consistent, professional deliverables and results.

In some respects productising your business services is really just building and recording a repeatable service model by clearly mapping out and documenting your service delivery processes. This allows you to also document who does what and when and what communication is required at various stage of the delivery cycle. This represents the closest thing to cloning the founder(s) skills, knowledge, experience and approach which will help ensure that any vision, ethos, processes and methods that are successful and valued by clients can be transferred to, and deployed by, other team members in a professional, consistent and engaging manner.

Put simply it is like creating a set of information and instructions that will enable your team to deliver your services consistently every time i.e. it creates the right balance/mix of people, process and communication that enables you to scale your service business while maintaining quality of service and delivery.

Can SMEs Productise Services to Help Increase Sales?

In this post we briefly cover the difference between a product and service, what constitutes a successful service, the challenges of scaling a services business while introducing the idea of productising services to scale/grow a service business.

So, can businesses productise services to help increase sales?

The simple answer is Yes but it does require change!

However, before we get into the who, what, how, why and when etc., it is probably best to first try and simply distinguish between a product and a service and provide some examples of each so that we have a basis to work from and so that we can develop an understanding of what is involved in productising a service.

Typically a product can be viewed as something that is tangible right from the word go i.e. you can normally see it, feel it, use it and in many cases experience the quality, benefits and value of using it very quickly which can help drive the sales process forward. Consumer electronic goods are typical examples that fall easily into the ‘product’ category e.g. mobile phones, MP3 players, Games consoles etc.

Services however, are usually intangible at the onset and normally require the user to experience the delivery of the service first in order to be able to quantify the quality, benefits and value of the service. This can make it more challenging for services providers to engage with prospective clients as the service value and benefits are not usually demonstrable upfront. Most successful services depend upon providing the right mix between People, Process and Communication. In many cases, while service oriented businesses are small, these three elements are presented and offered in an ad-hoc way which can lead to inconsistencies in terms of service delivery, quality and therefore perceived/actual benefits and value delivered.

However, this is not to say that many service businesses don’t perform well even though the service delivered may be a little ad-hoc and inconsistent at times, in fact the opposite may often be true. The problems generally arise or become more visible when a service oriented business looks to expand or grow rapidly i.e. double, treble, quadruple turnover.

The challenges often occur in scaling the three key elements (i.e. People, Process and Communications) that enables the business to grow in a professional and consistent way while maintaining quality of service and delivery.

Many small service oriented businesses find they are initially successful because of a small number of key people - usually the business founder(s) - who live and breath the business and who apply a set of skills, knowledge and experience that enables them to deliver a quality of service that they had envisioned when starting the business. The problems come once the founder(s) become capacity bound and have to expand by hiring more people. I am sure many an entrepreneur has at some point thought it would be much easier to handle growth if only they could clone themselves. Alas this is not possible!

It is always going to difficult to bring on board new staff who will then be able to deliver your services in a way that your clients are used to getting from you, or is it? The key to ensuring that your service business can grow while retaining your vision, ethos and deliverables is to productise your services which will include your skills, knowledge, experience and approach to service delivery. Training is also important but without a service blueprint providing direction for your business and taking the time and effort to productise your services then you will still end up experiencing the same problems.

In part 2 we will consider what service productisation means and how it can help scale/grow a service business.