Help your employees experience the sort of service you want them to deliver

I read the following this morning while browsing the internet. It is an article about helping your associates experience the kind of customer service you are expecting from them. Many of our associates may not have ever experienced the level of service we are expecting of them so they may not have any idea of how to provide it. It has caused me to think about the issue and I do not have any answers this morning other than to send everyone to Disney for a week! (I love Disney and am always overwhelmed by the level of service I have received while visiting.)
I would love comments or suggestions on this topic.



Help your employees experience the sort of service you want them to deliver
By Adrian Swinscoe

Recently I read an article by Xenia Carr-Griffiths in a newsletter from Hudson Walker International, a global luxury executive search and recruitment firm, called: The Luxury Of Service And The Service Of Luxury.

In the article, Xenia says that:

“If all our customer facing staff have not had the benefit of experiencing first hand luxury service we should at least ensure that we impart a greater understanding of what it means to both work in and deliver high standards of customer care.”

Xenia’s comment made me wonder two things:

How many firms want their employees to deliver a level of service that they have never experienced; and
Whether traditional methods of training and development are sufficient if a firm wants to build the sort of culture and capability that is required to deliver top-class customer service.
Personally, I think there is an opportunity for many firms to go further and think differently about how they help their employees understand the sort of service that they want them to deliver.

Too often businesses rely on telling their employees how they want them to be, what they want them to do and when in order to deliver great service. This helps employees ‘know’ what is expected of them.

But, do they ‘get’ what is expected of them and what it takes to deliver that level of service? Especially, if many employees have, as Xenia explains, not experienced the ‘luxury’ service the firm aspires to? Moreover, if many employees have not ‘felt’ the sort of service that firms want to deliver then how will they really know if they have delivered it?

One of the main challenges here, however, is that experiencing that level of service may not be affordable for some customer facing staff.

Therefore, could ambitious companies turn this challenge around and turn it into an opportunity? Could they benefit from helping their employees experience the sort of service that they aspire to deliver? Could that help their employees better ‘get’ the sort of service and experience that they want to deliver? Could it inspire insights and innovations that could lead to them improving their own service in ways that they had not expected?

I think there is an opportunity to build ‘service experiences’ into a company’s training, continuous improvement or induction programmes, where the company takes it’s employees to experience and learn from the service of a firm that they look up to. Doing so will help the employees of those firms ‘get’ the sort of service and experience that their employers want them to deliver.

As Confucius once said:

“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.”

http://customerthink.com/help-your-employees-experience-the-sort-of-service-you-want-them-to-deliver/

Standing Ovation!

Just a thought I had today...it may not be an original thought because I have the idea I may have read about this sometime in my past but I can't remember where so...we'll just move forward... :-)

When was the last time you received a standing ovation?  Probably awhile ago in school if you have ever received one at all.  But you liked the feeling didn't you?

How can we give our associates that feeling?

How about during a huddle - or just at a random time during the day/week - we get a group together and take chairs with us to recognize an associate for doing good things.  We all sit in our chairs as we offer the recognition and then we stand up and give the associate a round of applause - a Standing Ovation!

Imagine the impact!

I'm going to try this at my store this week.  Who's with me?

Kroger Gone

From 1988...hee hee...not quite...

(Thanks Andrea Berry, @akberry on twitter, for Sharing!)

Empty Our Plate

I constantly hear that a store director's plate is full.  That we are responsible for so many things that it is hard to get everything done.  This may be true but I would like to give everyone - including myself - something to think about.

One of the hardest thing to do as a leader is to delegate.  It is hard because we became successful by doing many of things that we should now be delegating...and we probably think we do them better than anyone else anyway.  But we cannot be successful as a leader without being able to delegate and trust the people who trust us as a leader.  As a leader we have to do our jobs differently than we did as we worked our way up the ladder.  We have to learn a new way to be successful.  There is too much to do in a store to try to do it all by ourselves.  Let's look at some of the things that fill up our plates everyday and see if we can pull some things off of it.

Green Half Hours - a big part of our day and a big statistic that we must meet.  However there is a co-manager over the front end as well as the front end manager, the back-up, the floor supervisors, the self-checkout attendant and the cashiers who are all responsible for this.  With that many people looking at it we should be able to move this off of our plate.

Out of Stocks - there are co-managers over each departments as well as the department heads, the assistant department heads and the lead clerks.  They should all be responsible for this part of our business.  Move it off your plate.

Wage Management -  there are co-managers over each departments as well as the department heads, the assistant department heads and the lead clerks.  They should all be responsible for this part of our business.  Move it off your plate...or at least move it to the edge with some of it dangling off.

Merchandising -  there are co-managers over each departments as well as the department heads, the assistant department heads and the lead clerks.  They should all be responsible for this part of our business.  Move it off your plate.  See a pattern developing?

Sanitation and Food Safety -  Care to guess what follows?  You're right!  There are co-managers over each departments as well as the department heads, the assistant department heads and the lead clerks.  They should all be responsible for this part of our business.  Move it off your plate.

I could go on and on about many of the things on our plates and give the same answer.  What we have to do is make sure that all of these people - our co-managers, department managers, back-ups, leads, supervisors, etc have the training and the tools to properly do their jobs and then we hold them accountable for the results - and we should expect positive results if we give them what they need.  My point is that we have many people in our stores to help us get things done if only we let them.

We can then concentrate on the thing that we cannot delegate...creating the environment that allows for success.  As a leader this should be our focus.  Success for our associates and success for our customers.

What?  Success for our customers?

Yes

Success for our customers means that they are getting what they want, when they want it, how they want it...a Highly Successful Shopping Experience or as we say a Highly Satisfied Shopping Experience.

If we learn to delegate.  If we give our team the tools and the training.  If we create the environment that allows for success to happen our plates become much lighter - with much healthier stuff on it.  And the lighter our plates become the more time we can spend on creating the successful environment which lightens our plates, which gives us more time, which lightens...

Just something to think about...

My Responsibility

The subject of my last post made an impression on me.  That is why I posted it of course.  The general idea of the post was that if a business - in my case a grocery store - wanted great customer service than it would be the responsibility of the person in charge to make sure it happens.  If the business is providing bad service the reason is the person in charge allows for the bad service to happen.

I guess you always know this in the back of your mind to sometimes you need to get slapped on your head to bring it to the front.  Reading the blog from www.marksandborn.com was my slap.

In running my store I have two assistant managers and multiple department managers.  Many times it seems that my plate is overloaded.  When examining why I realize that it is because I am loading my plate with other people's responsibilities - my assistant's and my department manager's responsibilities.  Because of this I cannot do what I need to be doing and what is in fact the most important thing for me to do - create an environment of service...making sure my customers are highly satisfied with their shopping experience and become ambassadors for the store.

My assistant managers and department managers are the subject matter experts in their areas - or should be.  I should not have to concern myself with the minutia of running their areas.  What would be the reason for me having them on my payroll if I am going to do their jobs - or interfere while they are trying to do their jobs.  I need to let them run.

Of course I need to train, follow up, train some more and follow up some more to make sure they are taking care of their areas of responsibility but by turning them loose and letting them run I can then concentrate on my job.

My boss read the blog from my last post and challenged all of his store directors to create the environment of service in their stores.  The leaders of our company have determined that this is the path we should take as an enterprise.  Now we just have to execute in our individual stores.

There are many paths that can be taken to get to the goal.  I will cover those in upcoming posts.  For now though I am going to turn my managers free and do what I am supposed to do - take care of our customers!

Why is Customer Service So Bad At Most Places

I came across this on www.marksanborn.com - It's a GREAT read...

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From Scott McKain:

Customer service is bad at most places, because evidently that is what CEO’s and managers want.  What other reason could there be for them to accept such miserable performance?

Most care more about selling than serving.  We know that when sales decline, companies will buy ads, offer new customers better deals than existing ones, deliver training, hold major events, and take any number of extraordinary measures to pump up revenue. They are passionate and precise about customer acquisition — but reserved and reticent about customer retention.

Here’s evidence:  most companies have annual sales rallies – how many have one every year for customer service?

Educated and cared-for employees should be prepared to deliver “Ultimate Customer Experiences ®” to everyone spending money with you.  In turn, these customers replicate their purchases, and refer you to their friends and colleagues.  Your business grows.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If everybody – from front line employees, to entrepreneurs, to major corporate executives – would create experiences so compelling to customers that their loyalty becomes assured, organizations would experience enhanced levels of both acquisition and retention.

Yet, if it’s not the priority of the leadership or owners – why should the folks on the front line get excited about it?

To find out more about Scott McKain, go to: www.ScottMcKain.com

From Larry Winget:

Customer service is bad because we allow it to be bad. What do you do when you get bad service? Tell the truth. Most do nothing. Most people simply don’t have the cojones to speak up when they get bad service. They don’t tell the person delivering it. They don’t ask for a manager. They don’t leave an online review. At most, they might – maybe – possibly (though probably not) stop shopping with that business.

If you aren’t willing to speak up, then you are an accessory to the crime. You have allowed a crime to happen and stayed silent about it. Shame on you. You owe it to yourself, the next shopper and to the company to speak up in an effort to make things better in the future. You can’t ignore bad service and expect it to get better. Behavior that is ignored will be repeated. It’s a law. Write it down.

Next time you get bad service, speak up. Remember: it’s your money you are defending – money you worked hard for. Tell the company and others. Use the internet and social media. That’s how customer service will improve for all of us.

Larry Winget, the Pitbull of Personal Development©, is a six-time NYT/WSJ bestselling author, social commentator and appears regularly on many national television news shows. To find out more, go to www.LarryWinget.com.

From Mark Sanborn:

Larry makes a great point about the customer’s culpability in enabling bad customer service. Here is the employer’s role:

1. Customer service isn’t taught. No matter how motivated an employee is, they can’t perform a job without the right skills. (And don’t confuse “smile and grin” training with true customer service training. There is more to great service than simply “being nice.”)

2. It isn’t rewarded. Most organizations pay no more attention to those who provide great service than those who don’t. As the old adage goes, what gets rewarded gets done. The corollary is what doesn’t get rewarded usually stops being done.

3. It isn’t required. If delivering extraordinary service isn’t part of the job description, don’t be surprised when you don’t get it and get push back when you “request” it. Great service shouldn’t be an option.

Require your team to provide great service. Just make sure you teach them how and reward them appropriately when they do.

Mark Sanborn is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio for leadership development. He is an award-winning speaker bestselling author of books including, The Fred Factor. For more information and free resources, visit www.marksanborn.com.

From Joe Calloway:

At 90+% of the places I do business, customer service runs from good to absolutely great.  I travel a lot, and renting a car used to be torture.  Now I hit about 4 clicks on the rental website, get to the airport, walk into the lot and pick any car I want (I tend to rent from National), and drive away.  I recently returned some hiking boots I’d worn for a while to REI (I wasn’t happy with the fit.)  They smiled, got a salesperson to help me with another pair, and I was on my way.  The kids working at Chik-fil-A are friendly, efficient, and the chicken is good.  Amazon Prime is one button to buy and ships in two days.  Zappos service is legend. My car dealer loans me a new car to use when I get mine serviced.

“But wait!  You aren’t going to the places with bad service!”

Exactly.  Read  Larry Winget’s post on this.  If I get bad service, I fire them.  I don’t go back and I tell them why and they don’t get my money any more.  Lousy service happens when customers let them get away with it.

Joe Calloway helps great companies get even better. www.JoeCalloway.com

From Randy Pennington:

My friends are correct – service is bad because leaders want and/or allow it.

From my experience, this leadership failure is rooted in one critical idea: Companies with bad service view it as a cost to be managed rather than an investment that creates a competitive advantage.

This view will never be acknowledged. In fact, most companies say that they strive for service excellence. Words are not action, however. Focus on these three areas if you want to make service your competitive advantage:

1. People: Who do you hire? How are they trained, compensated, and rewarded? Do your front-line leaders develop them and provide a great environment in which to work? Who is promoted, and who is fired?

2. Process: Is every process clearly defined, documented, and communicated? Are your processes designed to deliver the best possible result for the customer or the least expensive result for the company? Do you continually evaluate and update processes to stay current and relevant?

3. Tools: Do your people have the resources and information they need to succeed? Are they empowered to actually use the tools at their disposal?

Stop managing service as a cost. Start leading it as an investment.

Randy Pennington helps leaders deliver positive results in a world of accelerating change. To find out more, go to www.penningtongroup.com.

Service

Excellent service does not simply come from a friendly transaction or helpful technology—it is the result of truly understanding your customer’s expectations and putting the right guidelines and service standards in place to exceed them. When an organizational framework properly unites its people, place and processes by putting the customer at its core, exceptional service becomes possible across customer touch points. This creates greater intent to return and recommend, as well as a stronger competitive edge.

Great people + clearly defined standards + well-managed processes = exceptional CustServ

(from The Disney Institute)