STARTING CUSTOMER SERVICE OFF RIGHT!
STARTING CUSTOMER SERVICE OFF RIGHT!
Perhaps it all starts with hiring people who really want to be engaged in something worthwhile at work and who genuinely like people.
Do you think so?
I do !
Think about it , most organizations embrace , at least on paper and in public , how people are the foundation of their business enterprise.
That being the case it seems simple enough to create an organization that provides world class customer service and have the majority of your staff in the top level of employee engagement by hiring and retaining staff by having their first line supervisors get into a worthwhile relationship with them, hold out a shared vision and then empower them.
As you travel around your world do you see many employees using empowerment? Empowered and engaged employees are the ones who act quickly in service recovery situations , for example , and take a bad customer service situation into a solution and a loyal customer. Frankly, from my experience, I think empowerment is close to non-existent.
It is very difficult to get employees to make fast decisions in favor of a customer without them being actively engaged at work , in alignment with what your organization stands for and where it is going , and are empowered to take action.. Front-line staff too often are very skilled at saying NO. The fear of getting fired or criticized is so great that it is impossible to find employees making decisions on the spot in favor of the customer. However, without empowerment and employee engagement you will never be a service leader. Funny, a hot topic of the day in circles that are concerned with increasing work force productivity is employee engagement. Perhaps " customer engagement " , as well as customer retention goes hand in hand with "employee engagement"
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Recent studies have shown that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs. 40% are not engaged and 31% are , alas get this, actively disengaged. That's over 70% of employees who are far from empowered.
So ,based on survey results , the 40% of your not engaged staff members are like " R.O.A.D. Warriors " an acronym for retired on active duty.Another 40% of your workers , if your organization is anywhere near the norm , is made up of actively disengaged workers who are even more toxic to your strategic plan and customer service engagement initiatives, are " C.A.V.E. Dwellers " this time an acronym for complaining about virtually everything. Over 70% of your payroll investment down the drain!
Companies spend a fortune on marketing- Often millions of dollars a month. Over half of the advertising investment is wasted.
When you have a live customer on the phone, in person or over the Internet, why not use marketing money to keep him/her happy and create positive word-of-mouth advertising. What is the worst thing that can happen? You might have an overly happy engaged customer. If you get thousands and possibly millions of overly happy customers you will have more growth, revenue and profit than you ever dreamed possible.
I have never met a CEO who disagreed with this simple concept of empowerment : "Every employee must make fast decisions on the spot to take care of a customer to the customer’s satisfaction. If the customer wins your firm wins."
You will never be a customer service leader without empowerment and a high level of employee engagement. There are too many crazy things that happen each day.
The employee is on the front line. Make sure they are empowered to make quick decisions in favor of the customer. If the customer loses, your organization loses.
Word of mouth advertising is 100 times cheaper than paid advertising and far more credible and believable. Empowered and fully engaged employees will help you create "customer experiences" your competitors will rarely achieve. Remember, good service is nice but will never create the marketing “spin” you want and need. Only awesome service, employee engagement , empowerment and service recovery will elevate you to the level of world class service leader.
When your employees use empowerment, celebrate it. Put it in your internal publications. Make a big deal out of the employee breaking the " rules " and taking care of the customer. Provide lots of recognition. Never terminate, threaten or criticize employees for making empowered decisions- as long as the customer wins. All you need is one low level supervisor to scare an employee and empowerment will disappear in seconds.
Train all employees on customer service and empowerment. Far too many employees don't realize how critical customers are to your very existence. No one ever got fired for following the rules. When you tell a customer "I am sorry, but we have a policy." it is like putting gasoline on a fire.
Avoid wherever you can coming up with scripted responses and catch phrases. First off , most customers can spot the lack of feeling and belief , not to mention real empathy ,too often lacking behind these paragraphs learned by rote. Your staff, generally , does not have " method actors " on it who can pull this kind of acting off.
Research shows that:
1-The best staff members do not all do it the same way,
2-Actually the best achieve the same outcomes using very different means,
3-Some behaviors and steps can be learned, yet others prove very difficult to learn, thus
4-We need to legislate the outcomes not the steps thus the vital need for empowerment and employee engagement.
Empowerment and employee engagement is lacking in every country in the world. There is a perception that the US is better. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a person. use empowerment recently. Employee engagement and empowerment is the most critical skill necessary to be a service leader and the hardest skill to get employees to master. Without it however you will never be a service leader.
If you would like to explore with us how we may be able to assist with establishing a customer service culture , perhaps conduct a staff survey of where you are now with employee engagement via your staff's execution of your strategy for customer engagement and customer retention please call us at:
212 362 5215 or if you prefer , e mail us at info@communicationstrat.com
Communication Strategy is an Organizational Development , Customer Service Culture , Employee Engagement and Training consulting firm located in New York City with affiliates throughout the United States . We are affiliated with the Service Quality Institute , Majers Research Institute and facilitate the Leading 2 Engage impact workshop.
Contact: David Hellman (David @communicationstrat.com)
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