Joseph Michelli, was granted full access to Zappos employees across the organization in preparation for writing his new book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow. I have invited John to share some thoughts from his research with you this week.

For more information about Joseph and his book visit http://www.josephmichelli.com/

The Zappos Experience – Getting Caring Right!

It is a subtle but powerful distinction – do you care for or care about your customers?  I’m not suggesting that you can’t do both but I am asserting that most businesses struggle to do the former let alone the latter.  The “caring for” dimension emphasizes service competence while the “caring about” aspect focuses on the personalized or humanized dimensions of a compassionate experience.  In my recently released book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow, I take a deep dive into how leadership at Zappos (an innovative online – clothing, shoe, and housewares provider) executes both the “caring for” and “caring about” experience dimensions of their business.

Here are just a few Zappos examples from each of these categories:

Caring for (Operational excellence committed to “getting it right” and “making it right.”)

• Obsessive attention to website loading speed
• Consistent qualitative and quantitative analysis of user website behaviour as a guide to improving user experience
• Return policies that maximize customer ease (365 days to return product with free shipping both ways)
• Tenacious focus on the pictorial, video, and content accuracy when presenting products online
• Consistent training for call-centre staff (referred to as Customer Loyalty Team members) to assure product knowledge
• Email follow-ups after customer calls and web chat contacts to evaluate customer satisfaction and engagement

Caring about (Authentic personal connections committed to delivering happiness)

• Encouraging call-centre staff to form PEC’s (personal emotional connections) with customers
• Allowing staff to find products for customers that are not in-stock at Zappos by searching for those products at competitors’ websites
• Supporting staff as they send personalized handwritten thank you notes to customers
• Facilitation of staff development of personal twitter accounts so staff can authentically connect with customers
• Dedication of staff resources to immediately engage in service recovery conversations through social media

While The Zappos Experience offers a detailed exploration of how Zappos creates a service culture that has catapulted the brand from veritable extinction to a game-changing thought leadership, Zappos really offers an opportunity to benchmark our own business practices to see how committed we really are to world class customer-centricity.  In essence, are we doing what the best of the best service companies do to engage their employees and their customers.

Much of Zappos commitment begins with how well Zappos leadership cares for and about their employees (at Zappos this has led to being chosen among Fortunes best places to work) and it travels out to decisions that affect the daily customer experience.  For example, are you willing to spend less on advertising and spend more on expediting service?  Are you allowing staff to take the time needed to address customer needs or are you rewarding rapid movement of customers through lines or phone cues (possibly at the expense of accurate service delivery)?

If you say you care both for and about those you serve, what do you point to to prove your claim?  How do you know how well you are caring?  Would your customers’ assessments align with your responses?  In the end, Zappos get it! “Caring for” builds satisfaction — “caring about” fuels loyalty!

What might you learn from Zappos?

You have just established a new team. Maybe a small work group, or possibly you have moved to a new department in a leadership role. How do you set the foundation for a strong team to achieve their full potential?

There are 4 things I like to keep in mind.

1. Create a Strong First Impression: Make sure that you start out strong. Come to the first meeting/introduction prepared to make a good first impression and establish expectations. How the team initially starts their working relationship has a huge impact on their long term interactions.
2. Establish Expectations: Set expectations early. Don’t assume people have shared values on expectations and don’t wait until things are below and then try to rise them up. Starting high and keeping them high is easier than trying to raise expectations after they have settled in too low. Set ambitious goals together and then work hard to achieve your potential.
3. Create a Sense of Importance: People perform better when they believe that what they are doing is important and will have a positive impact. Create some urgency with a specific delivery date or milestones so the team has a concrete target and the opportunity to see the successful completion of their assignment.
4. Deliver a Challenge: Decide to do something that isn’t easy, but requires something extra. Set goals that will challenge the team to exceed expectations and will engender a sense of pride in the team. When faced with a challenge, people are willing to step up and achieve more.

My Perspective: Successfully leading a team is a complex task. By keeping these 4 thoughts in mind you can motivate, inspire and lead any team to greater heights.

In May we discussed the first 5 of 10 tips to create more powerful employee engagement. We are continuing this article with the next 5 tips.

Clarify what’s expected of employees
It’s essential that your team members know what’s expected of them. When they start, generally they’re given a job description but that’s not enough.  Clear expectations set the standards and means there’s no confusion and everyone is working towards the same goal. Putting things in writing is a valuable step to avoid confusion that can occur if only verbal instructions are given.

Offer internal career opportunities
People don’t want to feel they are stuck in a dead end job. If you consider current team members for promotion before ever going outside the organization, people will be more willing to stay because they can see room for improvement and promotion if they perform well. Give people opportunities to learn and grow within their own role. Make it clear that your desire is to promote internally where possible. This will also minimize people looking elsewhere for new jobs without your knowledge.

Empower frontline employees
Are your team members able to use discretion when handling customer complaints? Do they have to always seek permission for something that isn’t within their power to correct? A great deal of frustration can build up if frontline employees are powerless to take immediate action to satisfy a disgruntled customer. If they can save a customer having to wait for action to be taken, it’s a win-win for everyone.

Encourage teamwork
Employees should work together as a team and support each other. No matter what sort of work it is, teamwork is essential to a healthy, positive work environment and helps employees feel more engaged in their work. Team members also learn from watching other members interact with customers. No amount of training can prepare a new employee for what happens on a daily basis better than observing a skilled team member — regardless of whether they’re working with easy or difficult customers. If team members offer each other support, it enables them all to get through any difficulties they may encounter without having to necessarily get a supervisor involved.

Provide regular feedback to employees
It’s crucial for all employees to be given regular feedback on their performance. Regardless of whether they’re excelling at their job or they’re new to the company, people need to know where they stand. Are they doing everything they’re supposed to be doing? Are they doing too much? If they arrive late all the time and leave early, that must be addressed. If they’re doing other people’s work because some people are lazy, that should also be addressed.

Employees need to know how they’re doing and it does keep them more engaged if their performance is regularly being reviewed. It makes them work harder to achieve everything expected of them.

So now you have a reminder of 10 techniques that drive employee engagement. Maybe you are already executing all 10, but if you employ just one new technique, or renew focus on one you are not fully leveraging, you will see an improvement in your employee engagement and be closer to developing a high performing work environment

Positive, engaged employees will stay with a company much longer than those who simply turn up and do the bare minimum because they’re unhappy, bored or the job isn’t challenging enough for them.

Studies reveal that engaged employees:

• Have a 38% higher productivity rate.
• Create 50% higher customer loyalty.
• Deliver 27% higher profits and
• Produce 50% higher sales.

So it makes good business sense to build more powerful employee engagement. Although it’s impossible to do everything your team wants, there are plenty of ways to get your team more engaged in their work so they become more positive and you’ll retain them longer.

In this 2 part article, we will examine some of the techniques managers can utilize to build engagement with their teams.

Lead by example
Staff models the behaviour of their leaders. If you have a negative attitude, your team will soon see through it and copy it, even if it’s only subconsciously. If you want your team to remain actively engaged and care about their work, you need to be actively engaged and to be seen to be actively engaged in the work you do. It’s the old philosophy of “do what I do” as opposed to “do what I say.”

Delegate responsibility
Delegate additional responsibilities to deserving team members in addition to their normal role. This acknowledges the excellent work they have done and provides an opportunity for growth. It’s also a great way to determine if they can handle more responsibilities and demonstrates that you trust them enough to give them that extra work. If they handle the new responsibility well, in some cases, this may prepare them for promotions or transfers to other departments within the company.

Acknowledge staff performance
Employees need to be acknowledged and appreciated for the work they do. Regardless of how it’s done, recognition for a job well done goes a long way towards boosting morale and keeping your team engaged in their work. After all, people don’t leave their work — they leave their supervisor.

Recognition can be in different forms including: promotions, financial incentives, plaques or certificates or a simple pat on the back or a thank you. All of these forms say the same thing – well done!

Recognition doesn’t always have to be for the person who has “done the best.” It should also be for consistent effort or marked improvement in their work. There are people who consistently work hard but never seem to appear at the top. Recognizing their efforts is a positive way to inspire them and keep them just as engaged as the highest performers.

It’s important to be specific about the action that was noteworthy instead of just telling them they did a good job. Examples reinforce the desired behaviour and help others to learn and improve their own performance.

Solicit employee input
Employees appreciate being able to have their say on issues relating to work. It may be personal or specific work issues but being able to speak up is a fundamental need of every team member.

If they don’t feel management are willing to listen and even implement worthwhile ideas, they will lose interest and may believe they’re better off working somewhere else. This input can be offered face-to-face, via email or through the use of a suggestion box. The result is the same.

Keep your team informed
Employees deserve to know about changes in the workplace that may affect them. If you want their loyalty, you need to “keep them in the loop” and you’ll find they perform better and will be more engaged when there are no secrets. Trust and respect are also aspects of communication that enable you to retain those team members that really do add good value to your company.

So there are the first 5 simple techniques that are easy to implement in any department. Watch for our next article in July.

This is the second in our series of six articles that looks at different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to increased overall profitability. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

In our last article we covered four foundational elements that every employee needs to provide superior customer service. But once we have the foundations of a strong customer-focused employee in place, we need to continue to build on the on-boarding training they receive.

Rules are an essential part of any business. Rules are necessary to ensure we make intentional decisions. Rules are written to make sure people are treated equally and consistently.
While there’s nothing wrong with this in principle, there are always going to be situations where a certain degree of flexibility is essential because people are unique. The way they react to situations is also unique and if you’re trying to offer great customer service, you have to be flexible enough to respond to their needs.

So, apart from rules that tell an employee what they can or can’t do, it’s also essential that employees have guidelines as well. These guidelines will provide the boundaries that allow your employees to make decisions for the benefit of the customer — and the organization — without having to seek a supervisor’s approval every time.

Guidelines enable employees to exercise personal judgment which may mean all the difference between retaining and losing a customer. Customer satisfaction often leads to loyalty which greatly improves the company’s overall profitability.

It’s impossible to make rules to govern every possible scenario that may occur. When dealing with customers, situations will arise where an employee may have to use some initiative to solve a problem but they can’t do that if there’s no latitude with regards to the rules they have to follow.

Empower Your Front Line
It’s essential that customer service staff are empowered with a certain level of authority. It’s pointless if they have to check with a supervisor before making every little decision.

While a company may have a strict policy of no refunds or exchanges without a receipt, there may be times when it’s impractical for the customer to provide one. If a strict policy applies and there’s no flexibility to allow the employee to use their discretion and bend the rules in such a circumstance, they may lose that client and everyone they choose to tell. However, if a refund, exchange or gift card is granted, the customer would be happy and word of mouth would be positive.

Common Sense should Prevail
Employers should respect and trust their staff to make decisions based on their merit. Often it’s these types of quick decisions that will mean the difference between keeping or losing a customer. There are plenty of examples where guidelines would be more appropriate.

If meals are late in a restaurant, offering a bread basket or some free drinks may quell the customer’s frustration. A heartfelt apology would also be appropriate. There are times when things don’t run smoothly. Perhaps even a discount on their total bill may be necessary and the front-of-house staff need to have the autonomy to do what is necessary.

Restaurants regularly replace spilled drinks; their rules might indicate no free drinks but they replace a spilled drink because that’s good customer service. The drink doesn’t cost much but is worth much more than the cost in positive customer response.

In any customer-focused organization, we must look at the situation from the customer’s perspective to discover an appropriate solution. Often, asking the customer what they feel would be an appropriate solution will provide some direction. Experience tells us that when asked, a customer often expects far less that we would be prepared to give to remedy a situation — so it make sense to ask.

Cut the scripted responses
Have you faced the situation, whether on the phone or in a retail store, of asking questions and receiving responses from staff members that are robotic or scripted? If you ask a question they don’t know how to answer, do they seem stuck or confused? Do they just repeat what you have already been told or give you information you never asked for?

If the problem doesn’t have a “cookie cutter” response, they can become lost. This is because their training hasn’t prepared or empowered them to think for themselves.

Staff should be trained to handle customer service enquiries and provided with specific language that you would like to see used. But not all scenarios can possibly be covered during this training. Although many of their problems are similar, customers and their expectations are unique — so you can’t treat everyone the same way. It’s up to the employer and staff to realize there’s an unknown human element to dealing with people.

It’s imperative that staff understand the rules but they should be allowed to use their initiative where possible — within the agreed guidelines. Most problems can be solved if someone demonstrates they care enough to understand the issue and look for a solution; even if it requires a slight adjustment of the rules, but still within company guidelines.

Without rules, chaos would govern the workplace. There’s no doubt about that. However, management must trust their staff enough to establish guidelines with a degree of autonomy/flexibility when it comes to making decisions in the workplace.

When customer service staff takes the initiative, ask a few sensible questions and pay attention to the answers, more problems get solved and more customers leave happier.

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Now we understand why customer service staff should have guidelines, not just rules, our next article is going to talk about 4 Steps to Give Exceptional Customer Service.