I'm currently working on a project with a business that wants to modernise some of its operations. We're looking at everything from how it communicates with its customers to how it handles enquiries, manages bookings and shares information internally.
During a conversation about the project, I found myself saying something that rather neatly summed up the direction we're taking.
"We're not really digitising. We're professionalising."
And I think there's an important distinction between the two.
There's an assumption, particularly when we talk about modernising a business, that the solution involves technology. We need a new website, a booking system, a CRM, automated emails, digital payments, perhaps a dashboard or two. We need to move away from the way we've always done things and embrace something altogether more sophisticated.
And sometimes, absolutely, we do.
But one of the things I find particularly interesting when I start working with a business is establishing which parts of its existing operation actually need to change, which parts simply need to work better, and which parts are perfectly bloody fine as they are.
Because digitising something doesn't automatically improve it.
What are we actually trying to achieve?
One of the areas we're looking at in this particular project is the customer enquiry and booking process.
Now, the obvious suggestion might be to introduce an online booking system. Customers could check availability, make a booking, pay online and receive an automated confirmation. Lovely. Very modern. Everybody's happy.
Except, before we even consider whether that's the right solution, there are some rather more fundamental questions to answer.
What information does the customer need before they're ready to make a booking? What information does the business need from the customer? Who is responsible for dealing with the enquiry? At what point does an enquiry become a confirmed booking? How is that information communicated to the other people who need to know about it?
And, perhaps most importantly, does everybody currently involved in that process have the same understanding of how it works?
Because if they don't, introducing an online booking system isn't necessarily going to solve the problem. It might simply introduce another place where information exists, another system that somebody has to manage and another opportunity for things to go wrong.
What we're actually trying to achieve is a better experience for the customer and a clearer, more manageable process for the people delivering it.
Technology might help us do that. But technology isn't the objective.
Sometimes the paper diary is absolutely fine
I think we can be a little too quick to dismiss traditional ways of working simply because they're traditional.
A paper diary, for example, isn't inherently a problem. If it's accessible to the people who need it, accurately maintained and understood to be the definitive record of what's happening, it can be an entirely effective way of managing bookings.
The problem arises when there isn't a clear process around it. When somebody takes an enquiry but doesn't know whether to record it. When somebody else accepts a booking without checking whether the date is available. When information is written down in three different places and nobody knows which version is correct.
Those aren't necessarily technology problems. They're process problems.
And you can have exactly the same problems with a very expensive piece of software.
Part of the work I'm doing on this project involves looking at how we can introduce digital elements where they genuinely improve the customer experience, whilst retaining some of the existing operational processes that work well for the business.
The customer might benefit enormously from being able to access clear information online, submit an enquiry at a time that suits them and receive a professional, consistent response.
That doesn't automatically mean that every subsequent part of the booking process needs to happen online.
What matters is that the transition between the digital and the physical is properly thought through. That information reaches the right person, that responsibilities are clear and that the customer knows what happens next.
We're not trying to make every part of the business digital. We're trying to make every part of the customer journey work.
The expensive business of solving the wrong problem
One of the reasons I approach projects in the way I do is that businesses can spend a considerable amount of money addressing the symptoms of a problem without ever really establishing what's causing it.
A business might be struggling to respond to customer enquiries and conclude that it needs a CRM. But if nobody has responsibility for responding to those enquiries, what exactly is the CRM going to achieve?
A business might decide that it needs a new website because customers keep ringing to ask questions. But perhaps the existing website is perfectly functional and simply doesn't contain the information those customers need.
A business might introduce an automated email system because its communication is inconsistent. But if it hasn't established what it needs to communicate, when and to whom, all it's really doing is automating the inconsistency.
None of this is an argument against technology. I use technology extensively in my own businesses, and I'm a great advocate for introducing systems that genuinely make people's lives easier.
But I think we need to be considerably more discerning about what we're asking those systems to do.
There is a difference between identifying a piece of technology that could be useful to a business and identifying a problem within a business that technology could help solve.
The starting point matters.
Professional doesn't have to mean complicated
Something else that has come out of the work I'm currently doing is just how much of professionalisation comes down to clarity.
Clarity about who's responsible for what. Clarity about how information moves through the business. Clarity about what the customer can expect, what the business has committed to and what needs to happen next.
Sometimes achieving that clarity involves introducing a new system. Sometimes it involves rewriting a piece of communication, establishing a consistent procedure or making sure everybody is working from the same information.
And sometimes it involves taking something that a business has been doing quite successfully for years and simply making it easier for everybody else to understand how it works.
I think there's a tendency to associate professionalisation with becoming bigger, more corporate or more technologically sophisticated. But for many independent businesses, the real value lies in becoming more consistent, more reliable and easier to deal with, without losing the very things that make them good at what they do.
A customer doesn't necessarily care whether their booking is being managed through an enterprise-level software platform or a diary behind a reception desk.
They care that their enquiry is answered, that the information they're given is accurate, that their booking is secure and that the business delivers what it said it would.
And the people working within that business need a process that allows them to deliver that experience consistently, without making their working lives unnecessarily complicated.
Start with the business, not the solution
This is a significant part of the work I do through Vector & Verse.
When I look at a business from the outside in, I'm interested in understanding what its customers are trying to achieve, how the business currently enables them to do that and where things become more difficult than they need to be.
But I'm equally interested in what happens behind the scenes. Because a customer journey doesn't exist independently of the business delivering it. The website, the communication, the internal processes and the people responsible for making things happen are all part of the same experience.
Improving one element without understanding its relationship to the others can create as many problems as it solves.
That's why I don't start with a shopping list of software, a recommendation for a new website or a predetermined idea of what a business needs to become.
I start by understanding what it's trying to achieve.
The work I'm doing at the moment will undoubtedly result in some new digital infrastructure. But it will also result in clearer processes, better communication and a more consistent experience for both customers and the people working within the business.
And some of the things that are already working well will remain exactly as they are.
Because the measure of success isn't how much of the business we've managed to digitise.
It's how much better the business works.