The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our lives, businesses, and the global economy. Many organizations had to switch to a remote, distributed workforce practically overnight, and business leaders had to quickly re-examine workflow processes, try to maintain department productivity, manage new staff scheduling needs, and assess new ways to service customers. At the same time, employees have faced the new realities of staying home, working in a remote environment, adjusting to new deadlines, and new relief legislation.

Communication is critical to our relationships, whether personal – with friends, spouses, and children – or professional – with peers and team members. It isn’t enough to just communicate, however. I’ve worked in customer-facing positions for over 25 years – starting as a cashier at the local grocery store in high school and summers as a waitress at the local country club – and have learned that effective communication with a customer is 10% the message being delivered and 90% how the message is delivered.

Customer service is a key component of any successful organization, especially in times of turbulence and uncertainty. Whether you have a dedicated team or everyone is customer-facing, how you treat a customer is critical to your business development and growth. At XCM, we focus on four fundamentals as part of our conscious commitment to exceptional customer service.

When discussing the benefits of workflow, a great deal of focus is placed on standardization, optimization, and automation, with good reason. These are the building blocks of business process improvement (BPI) and workflow and productivity enablement solutions.

“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb

Welcome to part two of this three-part series on Business Process Improvement (or BPI). In part one I referenced Seth Godin’s quote, “We’re so busy doing our jobs, we can’t get any work done,” and it’s true. The combination of workload compression and dysfunctional processes is creating an environment where we know that there is a better way but continue to SALY (Same as Last Year) the process.

Note from the editor: This post is directed at those who coach or mentor their colleagues.

What can a coach do during a global pandemic? Plenty! Now is the time for coaches to step up their efforts and keep coaching relationships strong during this crisis.

In reaction to the rapid spread of COVID-19, on March 24^th, the Indian government passed mandated stay-at-home legislation for private businesses. For many tax outsourcing organizations, this meant temporarily pausing operations. A few outsourcing partners, like Xpitax, were able to implement business continuity plans and maintain security while operating in a reduced, work-from-home capacity.

Let’s be honest; no-one (well, almost no-one) likes the budgeting and planning process. The median organization takes 32 days to go from establishing budgeting objectives to delivering a ready-to-use budget.