Company's Coming!
We all have them. A black streak on the wall left by a teenager’s shoes. A room that needs touch-up painting or a chip mark on furniture. Something that we know needs to be fixed, but we just don’t get around to it. It takes time. It takes effort. And somehow it’s just easier to overlook the flaws. We simply use time as the excuse for not getting it done.
We put up with things being that way until company comes, or a daughter graduates, or we host a party for family and friends. Often times it’s company coming that makes us see the flaws in our homes, and we act. We paint, we mend, we fix.
Putting up with flaws at home doesn’t cost us much. But putting up with flaws at work in customer service can cost dearly. Customers are like company coming. They see your business with fresh eyes every day. But you--being there, in the midst of the situation day in and day out--may not be able to see how well you’re doing. We get accustomed to the flaws and don’t see them. But those flaws are risky and can hurt your business.
Take the following customer service test and see how you and your employees measure up.
1. Is every customer warmly greeted by a smiling person? Do all of your employees believe that it’s THEIR job to greet customers, and not just up to the front office staff?
2. Are customers escorted to the place they need to be? Does your staff believe that it’s up to them to ensure customers get to the right part of the business, and do see that as an opportunity to inform the customer about a product or service?
3. Does every employee speak plain, simple English to customers? Or do they speak in technical jargon common place in your industry but unfamiliar to the customer?
4. Do your employees view customer objections, concerns and negative comments as feedback? Do they see that criticism is a way to learn what the customer really wants?
5. Do your employees view each other as “internal customers” deserving the same courtesy and respect as “external customers?”
6. Do your employees do what they say they’re going to do for a customer, when they say they’re going to do it? And if not, do they contact the customer or wait for the customer to discover the delay?
7. Do all employees believe keeping your business looking neat and clean at all times is THEIR responsibility? If they see trash, do they pick it up? Are they proud of the facility? Is clutter evident?
8. Do your employees empathize with angry customers by listening, empathizing and apologizing?
9. Does your business operate under a philosophy that all of the details of great customer service are everyone’s responsibility? Do you have a customer service department as well as a customer service philosophy?
10. Do your managers actively reinforce positive customer service behaviors used by your staff? Do they look for ways to point out what a great job someone did in dealing with a difficult customer? Do they reward teamwork that leads to great customer service?
If you answered no to many of these questions, you don’t understand that customer service is a marketing tool that cements relationships and sells. You don’t get it, and your customers don’t get the level of service they need and deserve.
If you answered yes to most of these questions you get it. Congratulations! You understand that customers are like company. And you want them to be customers for life.
Look at your organization. See the flaws. Don’t tolerate poor customer service. Make the changes necessary to give your customers the service they need and deserve. Company’s coming, and you want them to keep coming back.
Buying Brooms
Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to do things your way? I remember Mom wanting me to dust the floor a certain way. I rebelled, thinking I knew the right way to do my chores. When I finally let her show me how, I listened and learned a better way.
What can you do as a leader to reduce reluctance to follow? Or on the positive side, what can you do as a leader to increase the desire to follow?
Encourage innovation and ownership.
Howard Behar, former CEO of Starbucks and author of the best seller, It’s Not About the Coffee, recently said: “The guy who sweeps the floor should be the one to select the broom.”
What decisions can your employees make? Which "brooms" can they select?
A great way to know that answer is to see how they respond when you ask them questions about how they can make something better. Asking employees how they can make something better is a great communication strategy for these reasons:
1. Asking suggests strongly that they know something that would be valuable to the organization and you're requesting that knowledge be applied in ways that makes your organization better. Sharing, after all, is a good thing.
I once asked a woman working for one of my clients what could be done to improve the organization. Her answer: "Dee Dee, I've worked here 21 years, and nobody has ever asked me that question before."
Her answer led me to believe strongly in #2:
2. Asking suggests that you don't necessarily think you have all the answers, and that you are humble enough to seek the opinions and ideas of others.
Ego can get in the way of asking for input. After all, if we think we are supposed to have all the answers, we can be a bit embarrassed to have to ask for help. Get over it. In today's world, your ability to communicate with your employees to solve problems is a strength you need to cultivate to be competitive.
That belief leads me to reason #3:
3. Asking lets you hear the answer, which if you listen carefully, can tell you what your employees are thinking. What they are thinking can tell you a great deal about which "brooms" they can buy, and why they would buy them in the first place.
Leaders need to teach....and good teachers know what their students think. It's the starting point. What do they already know, believe, think about in their jobs? Knowing that can help you work with employees as individuals and pay more attention to what they need to know in order to increase their skill in buying brooms.
My three points are not rocket science. They're just really good people-related communication skills that can help you build employee involvement and engagement through innovation and ownership. A simple formula for service success--and for buying brooms!
What we appreciate
Most people appreciate sincere, authentic customer service. They may not even call it "customer service." They may simply feel great about how they are treated in your business, and that all by itself leads to retention, referrals and a deeper, lasting relationship.
The people who provide the service to your customers need to feel appreciated by you and other leaders or managers. That appreciation, when sincere and authentic, serves as a fuel to inspire employees to keep going.
We all like to feel appreciated. Some tips to make that alive in your organization:
1. Encourage "thank you therapy." In my client seminars, I sometimes ask employees to identify what the people on either side of them do well in their jobs and write a thank you note for what they do and for being part of the team. Use the same practice at a staff meeting to help employees identify what they like and appreciate about each other.
2. Practice appreciation with your own thank you notes. Tom Peters in his great book, The Pursuit of Wow, says the number one way to create a culture of "wow" is the hand written thank you note. Never underestimate the power of words on paper that say "thanks!"
3. Break routine to thank the entire team. If it's been a busy summer, or if you're getting ready for a busy fall, find a fun way to say "thanks!" Root beer floats work well. So does music, pizza and brownies. OK...take the healthy approach and offer vegies. It doesn't matter....just do something you haven't done before to say "thanks." It won't soon be forgotten!
We tend to focus more on what we appreciate. When you appreciate the effort your employees make to provide great service to your customers, your employees will feel better about what they do and do more of it. What we appreciate grows in value. You value great service and your employees. Find creative ways to let them know it!
Clean out the Ugly
Make sure your culture lets go of ugly customer stories. Those stories are in the minority, but they take on huge importance when they become part of the culture of stories that get told, and sometimes, even used as examples.
As human beings, it seems easier to hang on to negative stories. Sometimes we wear them on our sleeves like badges showing what we've survived.
Customer service isn't a reality show. It's real life, with real customers--and co-workers--who deserve the best. At the bare minimum, don't they at least deserve you being the most positive person you can be?
Creating the culture of positive service requires positive actions and stories. Find positive examples of people giving great service, meaningful, caring service. Little things count big time here. By emphasizing the positive, you'll reduce the life of stories that carry negative weight.
Why fill your brain with negative stories? Go for TOMA—top of mind awareness—of successful service stories that uphold values and teach the lessons that create the service that build the loyalty that grows your business.
Then employees will be too busy focusing on the good to remember the bad.
Voices from the Past
"In matters of style, swim with the current;
In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson
- What are your values of service?
- What guiding principles do you communicate to inspire your employees?
"The key to success leadership today is influence, not authority."
Ken Blanchard
- How can you inspire in order to influence instead of counting on a title or a position to be an effective leader?
- How can your positive influence encourage others to be their best?
"Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing."
Albert Schweitzer
- What examples do you strive to set every day in your words, actions and traditions to form a culture of great service?
- What values form that culture and guide you through good times as well as tough times?
Copyright 2011.
Customer Service Stories
A female clerk who checked us out in WalMart in Valdosta, GA, asked my daughter and me how we were, how we were enjoying the beautiful weather, and smiled at the end of the transaction as she said, "Blessings to you!" Being nice isn't hard. And the "nice" I received over and over made my trip both pleasant and very memorable. But what stories do we tend to share? The pleasant stories on how we were treated, or what I have come to call "Customer Service Horror Stories," that reinforce how lousy service is "out there." Yes, sometimes the service journey is
filled with customer horror stories. I have worked with
organizations where employees could much more readily tell me stories of
ugly customers before they could tell me stories of great customers. But I also know there's a lot of wonderful people providing great service, and those stories are repeating. Something’s wrong with a
culture when the ugly outweighs the good. What stories are shared in your organization? What stories do you personally tell? We tend to get more of what we focus on, so let's shift our thinking to both telling the good and analyzing how it happened in order to make it happen more often. It's a critical step in creating a culture that consistently delivers great service. What positive customer service experiences have you recently enjoyed?
I just spent a week in Georgia. There's something very comforting about Southern hospitality delivered consistently with a smile and simple kindness.
What Are You Building?
Building rock walls must have been excruciating work in Medieval Europe. And yet, if the work hadn’t been done, some of our most magnificent cathedrals would not exist.
I was in awe of the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway. It survived much of the Nazi’s bombing of WWII, miraculously. It was smaller than the Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral I’d seen in Iceland on the same trip—a much more modern approach as is typical of Nordic folks in Reykjavik.
Both styles are amazing. Both were built with strong arms carrying rocks, bricks and other building materials by people who worked hard, were committed to quality and teamwork.
Think about what components build your service programs. Timeless values like teamwork, quality, trust, gratitude and optimism produce excellence in construction and service in any era.
Techniques may change—we seldom carry rocks any more—but the values that created magnificent places to worship are the same values that build a magnificent service program. Those values will build a culture your employees own because they helped build it. And that’s a great way to sustain a program for a long, long time.
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