Tracing a Success & a Failure – a Chillibreeze
Case Study

Radhika Chitnis

Our last Newsletter got us many responses – thank you all for your feedback. One e-mail, however, stood out from the rest. It was from a customer whose project had been completed some time ago. He was writing to say that he was, well…displeased with the work we did for him. Of course, we followed up and are working on making amends. But this got us thinking...while we celebrate the successes, we need to pay attention to the failures too.

Each time a customer fills our enquiry form is a learning opportunity for us. We went through our records and past experiences to find two prominent projects. Projects that had been completed and delivered, where equal amounts of time, energy and hard work had been invested, except for one difference: only one customer went away happy.

Why on Earth are we telling our customers about our failure? Because we learn even when we stumble. With every failure we become better equipped to handle future projects. We are not focusing on how we failed but why we failed and what we have done since then to improve our processes, systems and quality.

The projects we chose for this case study were both content related – the first was a Book Development job that has resulted in one book becoming a reality; the second was a Business Writing project that did not meet the customer’s expectations. This is a quest to find out where we delivered and where we fell short. Read more…

Since we promise complete confidentiality to our customers, we are not sharing any names or specific details about the projects. But you know who you are, and you know we appreciate your business – that is enough for us!

A Success:
We recently completed a book development project for a client who wanted to share his thoughts and insights with the world after going through a difficult time. The book was all about coping with a life-threatening disease and it was ready in outline form: he knew what he wanted to say. Our job was to help him say it in the best way possible so that his voice and the clarity he gained through experience shined through.

We began by assigning the project to a writer we selected from our network. She interacted with the client through a Project Coordinator. But the customer was unimpressed with the first draft. So, we made a few changes – we brought in a few more writers and gave our customer a chance to test them until he found just the voice and tone he was looking for. This was done by having the chosen writers work on a short draft based on one of the chapters. The customer chose the one which came closest to his expectations.

We often find that Book Development projects start slowly and there is a short delay before they take off. Since the person writing the book is eager to see results, this sometimes causes stress. But writing a book that exists in someone else’s mind is like painting the Mona Lisa by listening to Leonardo da Vinci describe her! Translating another’s vision and getting the voice, tone, style and content just right is possible (we know, we have completed numerous book projects to our customer’s satisfaction), but it takes time and patience.

Coming back to this particular project – the customer’s brief and outline of the chapters was detailed. But our writer did not seem to be able to produce the kind of writing that would wow him. Our coordinator realized that the writer needed to read the customer’s emails to understand how emotionally invested he was in the project, so we put the customer in direct contact with our writer. They could now discuss and collaborate with ease.

As a policy, we do not encourage this, because our writers too expect complete confidentiality from us. But the one constant at Chillibreeze is change – we customize to help our customers reap the benefits! The drafts flew back and forth under the watchful eye of our coordinator and before we knew it, the book was complete. We then brought in an editor, a fresh set of eyes, to go over all the chapters of the manuscript and ensure that everything was smooth and that the book read as one from beginning to end. Then the baton was passed to our design team for the graphics and illustrations.

The customer is currently working with his publisher and we are eager to see the book in print.

A Failure:
We did an editing project in February 2007 that did not turn out as expected. The job was to improve upon an Executive Summary and Business Plan such that the final product was a much more appealing and creative one. The customer, who continues to give us recurring Design orders, also wanted us to add visual appeal.

The project required high-end business writing skills besides the ability to fully capture the client’s needs. While we love it when customers send in detailed project briefs telling us exactly what they want, we accept full responsibility for capturing those requirements. It is often difficult to explain what is needed, especially so in cases when one wants a piece of writing improved. That is why we encourage communication via e-mail – it is more precise than talking because we can directly pass it to our writers without anything being lost in the transition. Read more about project briefs in our November 2008 newsletter.

So, we found a really experienced business writer and put her on the job. The customer wanted to use the Executive Summary and Business Plan for a couple of presentations he hoped to make that very week, so everything was speed processed. We usually charge extra for short-deadline, quick-turnaround projects, but this customer was different. He had been referred to us and had put much faith in us and we wanted to prove it all worthwhile.
The work was delivered on deadline and we eagerly awaited the client’s approval. He wrote to say that the design part of the project was so commendable that he had already referred our services to a friend. But the editorial styling of the Business Plan and Executive Summary did not turn out as he wanted it. Due to the lack of time, we did not get a chance to re-vise and re-work it until it did come up to par.

We take failures to heart and so, we pursued the matter further to try to find out what went wrong – it was clear that extra time, maybe the work of an editor could have improved the final output. But deadlines are not flexible and since we had committed to the customer’s timeline, the failure was entirely ours. We offered the customer a credit for the content part of the project.

He continues to place regular orders with the Chillibreeze Design team and also refers us to other entrepreneurs. We know that if he has another content-related requirement, he would not hesitate to place the order with us – just to see how we perform and how much we have improved. After all, it has been more than a year since that project and he knows – at Chillibreeze, we are always learning, improving and excelling.

What did we learn through this case study?
We found that both projects were within our grasp – we could have delivered just as satisfactory a result for the failed project as we did for the successful one. The problem lay in the fact that back then (early 2007) we used to rely heavily on the time factor. Revision and reworking played an important role in our process.

Not so any more. Our Project Management team has tested some very reliable and experienced writers and editors and we feel confident in their abilities to deliver high quality results the first time around. But more than that, we have learned to say no. Our Sales team does not commit to short-deadline projects without confirming whether we can deliver the required quality in the given time. We prefer to tell customers if we are not confident of delivering – we are happier if they are able to get satisfactory work done elsewhere rather than taking on their project and delivering below par.

We want to hear from you:
Our measure of our success or failure relies on your feedback. We understand that you are busy, but we really appreciate it when a customer confirms receipt of the deliverables and gives us feedback – whether positive or negative. It is also to your advantage, especially if you have been unhappy with the work. Because we are hungry for happy customers and so, we may revise or rework the content until it does meet your expectations. As you can see, we believe in change, in introspection and innovation. Our services are constantly being updated to include the very latest that you may need. So check back often and if something is not listed on our services page, ask us anyway – if we cannot do it, we will tell you so!

 

“Radhika has been a part of the Chillibreeze team since 2005. She is currently Asst. Manager of External Communications. She writes and edits the Customer and Writer newsletters and assists with Writer Network related work.”