In every enterprise, you can find the revenue generators – the personnel directly accountable for driving revenue. Their roles and targets are clear-cut primarily designed to align with the objective of revenue growth. However, have we ever contemplated the latent revenue potential nestled in other departments of our organization?
Although not explicitly gauged by revenue-centric Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), these sectors might hold the key to substantial contributions to your organization’s growth. The real challenge is unearthing and leveraging these insights in a productive manner.
Service Desk: Your Untapped Goldmine
Let’s consider the service desk – often overlooked, yet a reservoir of significant revenue insight and potential. Ideally, the KPIs for each department should harmonize with the critical metrics steering organizational success. However, it’s vital that these KPIs are granular, relevant, and equitable, empowering individuals to feel a sense of influence and impact.
Rethinking Metrics: Unleashing the Revenue Potential
While a typical service desk metric might focus on ticket resolution rate and response time, we need to critically ask: “Do these metrics truly resonate with customer satisfaction?”.
To unlock the hidden revenue potential within the service desk, we should consider an alternative set of metrics that offer more profound insights:
- Duplicate Visibility: Assume responsibility for identifying and reporting recurring issues to address root causes more effectively.
- Competitor Insight: Capture customer sentiments regarding unmet needs, even if a solution or workaround closes the ticket.
- Won’t Do: Report instances when a customer raises a known issue with a “won’t do status,” indicating a potential problem or opportunity.
- Use Case Insight: Capture unique use case scenarios from existing customers, shedding light on product gaps or areas for improvement.
- Upsell Opportunities: Report identified opportunities for upselling additional products or services to maximize revenue potential.
Viewing Business Risks Through the Lens of Profitability
Each of these metrics plays a significant role in the service desk’s contribution to evaluating business risks. However, shifting from subjective risk classification to an objective understanding requires a certain degree of education.
By comprehending and categorizing risks, such as product risk (competition, pricing, features), revenue risk (renewals, use case redundancy, down-sell potential, deployment delays), and customer satisfaction risks – organizations can wear a profit lens to mitigate potential revenue losses.
Optimizing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Another critical facet in unearthing hidden revenue potential is considering Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). LTV plays an instrumental role in determining where investment and attention should be directed.
By aligning the service desk and customer success teams with key timeframes and renewal dates, enterprises can enhance customer satisfaction and retention. Regrettably, renewal dates are often overlooked within the service desk process.
By making account-level information accessible, organizations can elevate their prioritization and solution strategies. Collaborating with the marketing team based on support desk insights ensures targeted campaigns and prevents dissatisfaction among unhappy or unsuccessful customers.
Summary: Unlocking Hidden Revenue Streams
Unlocking the hidden revenue potential within our organizations calls for a shift in perspective. By aligning departmental KPIs with key organizational metrics, viewing risks through a lens of profitability, and educating the entire organization on customer LTV, we can harness the collective power of our workforce.
This piece serves as a call to action – reminding us that revenue generation extends beyond specific departments. By implementing these insights and strategies, we can unearth the hidden potential within our enterprises and propel extraordinary growth.