Consulting is an important mechanism for business process improvement and engaging an outside perspective can breathe new life into stagnant areas of your business.

In fact, a good customer experience consultant can help your organization walk through your entire customer experience and identify the essential touchpoints that define your customer’s experience with your organization.

Yet, there is a treasure trove of wisdom sitting within your organization: your team.

These internal consultants can show you where processes break down and why, how projects are derailed and by who, and a whole host of other insights into the operation of your organization.

Of course, team members can often only see their piece of the puzzle, and the quality of the insights they share might be limited by their lack of a wider lens. However, just as often, their insights provide valuable intel that cannot be gained any other way.

Like an external consultant, your team members offer a variety of fresh perspectives that cannot be found in the manager’s office or the C-Suite.

So, below is a list of …

33 Ways to Tap Your Internal Consultants

First, a few different mechanisms for getting information:

1. Surveys
2. Brief Huddles
3. Coffees
4. Meals
5. One-on-one Meetings
6. Team/Group Meetings
7. Workshops
8. Conference Calls
9. In-House Retreats
10. Offsite Retreats

Now, some ideas of areas to explore with your internal consultants:

11. Highest impact challenges
12. Most common challenges
13. Areas of excellence
14. Areas of deficiency
15. Operation inefficiency
16. Cultural issues
17. Personal issues affecting business performance
18. Staffing levels
19. Staffing quality
20. Onboarding process
21. Training effectiveness
22. Additional training needed
23. Inter-departmental communication
24. Intra-departmental communication
25. Regulatory compliance
26. Bureaucratic challenges
27. Client facing materials
28. Effect of marketing on sales
29. Effect of marketing on customer expectations
30. Customer pain points
31. Customer WOW moments
32. Customer experience improvement
33. Reactive service effectiveness

Obviously, this list could be a lot longer. It is meant to be a starting point for brainstorming. Skim through the choices and see what other ideas it inspires.

Your organization has a lot of wisdom within its walls. Make sure you make use of your internal consultants as much as possible. You will gain valuable information, and your team will enjoy greater buy-in.

It’s a win-win all around.