We’ve all bandied the words ‘best practice’ around at some point like some self-justifying mantra. The mere mention of these two words like some magic spell that immediately protects the success of the project that we are working on. But please don’t follow ‘best practice’.
At a time when social media is giving each of us the possibility to express our individuality, and the tools to voice our differences and opinions, best practice does its best to water everything down into a homogeneous mush of sameness. At a time when the only differentiator is the history of your relationship with your customers, best practice does its best to nullify that, that one brief moment of competitive advantage. Don’t waste it.
Be different, celebrate your difference. Be you.
Make your customer service different. Smile where others frown. See complaints as opportunities to engage, to converse, to pursue something mutually better. Remember each customer and their history, where others might simply treat that ‘moment of truth’ as a production line divided into three minute blocks.
Don’t be indifferent. Be memorable. And leave the best practice to others…
AudioBoo: Do your own thing, don’t follow ‘best practice’
I think that I agree with you though I think individuality is a necessity to create diversity that drives evolution more than a goal in itself. Theories about self organization say that chaos is required in order for self-organization to occur. More new ideas are born out of chaos than order though chaos is a very scary word to through around (like individuality :)). If we all follow best practice there is no chaos, no (or little) diversity and ultimately no (or slow) progress from the current state of things.
I definitely agree that “best practice” is overrated. Saying that you follow best practice is like, in a discussion, being the first to say that you’re pragmatic or violated. You cannot lose from that position but it does not bring the discussion further either.
I found your post from a wordpress suggestion for similar posts to my post: http://johlrogge.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/there-are-no-best-practices/ My take on it is not “do your own thing” but “do new things”. I think it’s possible that we see the same problem but just phrase it differently?
I enjoyed reading your post. It’s nice to see some more individuality!
[…] Stephens @guy1067 has written a short but I think very insightful post called Do Your Own Thing, Don’t Follow Best Practice. In a world where everyone’s chasing the picture of customer service perfection I think […]