It’s essential that staff receive support or they can’t do their job properly. Support isn’t limited to merely work-related aspects of the job but to other things such as morale and recognition as well.

There are plenty of different ways employers can support their staff. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind in your work environment.

Training is vital
It’s crucial that staff receive all necessary training when they start a job and also ongoing training as often as required. It’s also essential that training is consistent for all staff members. It’s not acceptable for answers to vary from one employee to another because this can cause confusion and further problems. Proper training is inevitably what makes better quality employees.

Positive work environment
Whether you work in a call centre, an office or a retail store, it’s vital that you have a positive work environment. If employees dread the thought of going to work each day, they’re not going to perform at their best and they may even feel resentful for being there.

There are many ways to create a positive workplace. Attitude is essential — people should be respectful and friendly towards one another. Bitchiness or backstabbing should not be tolerated. Not just by supervisors, but among colleagues as well. If anyone has issues, the supervisor/manager should always be available to help resolve such problems so they don’t linger and taint the rest of the workplace.

Décor and proper equipment also contribute to your environment. Do you have ergonomic chairs and desks? Do you have a proper lunch room where staff can take breaks away from the public eye? Is there somewhere you can store your personal possessions if you don’t have a desk? All of these things contribute to a harmonious working environment.

Motivation is an individual thing
Employers should know what motivates their staff and use that knowledge to build stronger relationships. People are motivated by different things and so it’s important to learn what motivates each individual if that’s possible and incorporate that into your overall leadership strategies.

Take the time to get to know what motivates each member of your team. Having a staff suggestion box is a great way to get ideas and suggestions. Motivations change over time and if you want to keep your team working at peak efficiency, it’s vital that you learn what’s important to them.

Recognition and rewards
Staff have to be acknowledged and rewarded for the good work they do. Financial bonuses are always great if they are available — but they’re not your only option. You could have an employee of the week or month plaque that is presented and then displayed on the wall for everyone to see. Acknowledgement for most improved staff members could be another idea. When staff do something wrong, managers are quick to admonish them so they should be just as quick with their praise, in whatever form they choose. Like motivation, your team can also suggest great ideas on what works for them.

Scope for advancement
Most people don’t like to feel trapped in a dead end job. Internal promotions should always be considered before advertising externally. Staff are more motivated to excel in their work if they have a vision for the future growth and development.

If you’re not seen to be actively supporting your staff, you can’t expect them to perform at their best. Everyone wants to feel appreciated and to be a part of a team. If you do that, you can’t lose.

Many people are familiar with the expression, Start, Stop, Do Different from personal evaluation processes — those regularly scheduled reviews by our supervisor. They will often use this outline to give us feedback of our performance.

But I also think it should be used more regularly, both personally and with colleagues.

No leader improves without feedback and personal introspection.

So rather than waiting for a formal review by a supervisors, consider asking your colleagues these questions.

1. What should I start doing? What activities or behaviours should I add into my daily activities to provide more leadership to my team?
2. What should I stop doing? What behaviours are unproductive or are interfering with my ability to positively influence others?
3. What should I do differently? What can I do differently to lead my team to achieve greater success?

Lastly, don’t forget to ask what you should keep doing — what behaviours are working and should you continue to demonstrate? In your effort to improve don’t forget to reinforce the positive attributes and behaviours that are working. So be sure to confirm those as well and make sure they don’t get lost in the quest for improvement. After all growth is about building on top of versus replacing.

My Perspective: Whenever I am asked to speak, at the end of every presentation I ask the question, “Beginning tomorrow, What will you Start, Stop, Do Different, as a result of what you have heard today?”

It might be worthwhile asking yourself and others these questions on a more regular basis if you want to become the leader of your dreams.

Best Practices. Another great business term we all know and love. We love to throw out in meetings because it sounds good and rarely will anyone disagree.

It’s safe. But is it wise.

Who said that adopting best practices is right for your business? Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do in your case.

Sacrilege? Maybe, but here are few thoughts to consider before deciding whether to adopt best practices or develop your own best practices.

Are They Transferable? If the best practices are to work effectively in your business, then the businesses have to have similarities. Do you share similar strategies, customer groups, work forces, business models, margin structures. Before deciding if adopting best practices make sense, make sure you are not trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Is there a Downside? What happens if you are wrong? Can you respond quickly and refocus? Make sure that you have an escape plan if you don’t see the results you anticipate. However, don’t bail too early since any new initiative may initially reduce productivity. Ensure that you have a clear set of evaluation criteria, aligned with a time-line when you expect to see some deliverables that will confirm you are moving in the right direction.

Are the Best Practices the Success Factor? Companies may succeed — or not — for many reasons. Don’t be too quickly assume that the success of a company is because of their “best practices”. Some companies succeed in spite of themselves because of a host of other reasons. So before you adopt their best practices, be sure to examine other reasons for their success. If there are not evident in your business environment, dig deeper before making a decision.

My Perspective: Studying best practices is great input to your own thinking. It is always good business to look at other businesses, both inside and outside your industry. But don’t fall in love too quickly with the success of others.

Evaluate and test anything you see as a best practice against your own business model to make sure it makes sense. Selectively choose those that make sense and then adapt versus adopt to your business. That way you create your own best practices based on the best thinking that is applicable to your business model — and they will be uniquely suited to your business.

And then other companies will look at you and want to copy your best practices.

Remember, even best practices were once a new way of thinking that drove success in a business — that’s why other people copy them.

This is our final article in the series of six articles dealing with different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to an increase in your overall profitability. It is now available for download as a White Paper at www.BillHogg.ca.

If you have been following along, we have focused on a number of elements of the customer service experience that lead towards building stronger — more profitable — customer relationships.

Every single interaction with a customer affects your business. Whether it is positive, neutral or negative, the goal is to build a loyal relationship so they return again and again to spend their money with your business — and tell their friends. This leads to greater profitability. The loyal customer is the ideal customer and all employees should be focused on building loyalty at every opportunity.

In this article we’re going to cover a few key ways to turn customers who are satisfied into those loyal customers who are responsible for most of your company’s income. Loyal customers mean more profitability for the company and stronger job security for the employees. Customer loyalty literally pays the wages so taking active steps to turn satisfied customers into long-term loyal ones is in everyone’s best interests.

Actively solicit customer input
How many companies demonstrate an interest in what their customers want to see happening in the store? Regular customers may surprise you with ideas that are really good. Of course there are bound to be some that are impractical. But why not ask them what they would like? Tap into them as a vital resource.

There are different ways to get customer input. One method would be to have a suggestion box in a prominent place. Another would be to have a section on your website that enables customers to provide feedback for you to act upon.

Although many businesses can use a similar technique, we’ll use a restaurant as an example. As patrons get up to pay their bill, many restaurants ask “was everything okay…” only to receive a curt “yes” as the patron rushes out the door. A better way to handle this would be to ask them what you could have done to improve their dining experience.
This type of question signals that you are interested in hearing what they have to say and encourages customers to provide feedback on how you can improve — versus just hearing from customers who want to complain.

It’s essential that you take action based on the feedback provided and you could even give that customer a $10 voucher to use on their next visit so they can see for themselves that you have listened and taken action.

Treat every customer like pure gold
Every customer that walks through your door is a chance for you to make a good impression and create a loyal customer. But how do you do this? You have to “read” each customer because they’re all different. Watch their body language. Do they come in and demand immediate attention or do they want to browse first?

We all experience that salesperson that comes up and offers help and if you don’t need it, they stand there like a vulture, watching and waiting. Let them browse if that’s what they want. When they want help, they’ll ask for it. Once you have made yourself available, step back and give them space.

It’s essential that you provide the service they need without being too pushy. You can actually drive them out the door if you push too hard. Once they ask for your assistance, then it’s time to shine. You want to make their customer service experience a positive one so they’ll come back again and again.

Try to personalize each customer interaction to suit the specific customer. If they’re chatty, have a brief chat with them while helping them. If they prefer to simply pay for their goods, handle them courteously and professionally so they can get on with the rest of their day.
Anticipate and meet their needs on every level and they will have no reason to go elsewhere. If you exceed their customer service expectations, they’re well on the way to becoming loyal customers.

Look for Small Ways to Exceed Expectations
In many cases, your products or services may be similar or identical to those of your competitors. If that’s the case, you have to find the small things that will differentiate your experience and add up to an outstanding customer service experiences that not only inspires satisfaction but loyalty too.

Some examples can include: ordering in items that you may not normally stock, carrying heavy items out to the customer’s car, providing a delivery service, offering a free gift wrapping service, ensuring your store registers are always open when the queues build up and being a little flexible in your hours of operation if circumstances dictate.

Customers see these little things as big to them although they may seem insignificant to your overall business. If you’re doing all the extra things that your competitors don’t care enough to do themselves, you’re sure to stand out as a business that really cares for its customers in every possible way.

Build relationships
Everyone likes to hear their name used by other people, whether they realize it or not. Employees should get to know customers and use their name (if appropriate) whenever possible. This creates a relationship that is a little more than just an employee/customer relationship.

If your team greets people by name whenever they enter the store, the customer will feel welcomed and be more inclined to keep coming back. Obviously this isn’t always possible but it’s definitely easier to do than people think, especially if the same customers keep on coming back.

If you keep a database of your customers, you can send them promotional material and discount information on a regular basis. While this may not be a new idea, you can add another function to your database. Utilize it as a reminder service and send out birthday cards to your customers, letting them know that you do care. Make sure the card is handwritten so it’s personal. Perhaps you can include a small gift card or voucher to honour their loyalty and encourage a return visit. This sort of touch lets them know you care.

Conclusion
We have covered a lot of different aspects of customer service in this series. Everything is important when dealing with customers, even if it may not seem that way at the time. Loyalty means everything to the longevity of the company and employees must be trained to have “big picture thinking.”

Without customers, your business would cease to exist and so it’s critical you do everything in your power to ensure that every single customer gets the best treatment, no matter what they need.

It’s not enough to merely satisfy your customers — you can’t differentiate yourself by simply providing that basic level of service. You need to work smarter to build loyalty.

And remember, make them unhappy, even once, and your competition will be glad you did.

How often have you attended a meeting — or worse, a number of meetings — without any concrete decisions being made or action steps agreed?

Too often the team just seems to be going in circles.

This form of indecisiveness — or paralysis by analysis — plagues many organizations. In fact, some people actually use this as a strategy to avoid being held accountable for the success or failure of any initiative.

This lack of decision-making hurts organizations financially because issues and opportunities are not addressed and it creates a sense of powerlessness with the team members who recognize that nothing is happening. It effectively creates an under-performance malaise  that affects the financial goals of the organization and the engagement of the team.

Years ago I worked with a leader who was faced with a team that was unable or unwilling to make a decision. He decided that going forward they would make a decision and then be prepared to adjust that decision if it wasn’t the right one. He felt that they could make a decision; find out it wasn’t the ideal decision and then make a new decision based the new input — faster than they were currently making any decision.

This approach introduced nimbleness to the organization and also sent a signal that people would not be criticized for making a wrong decision. Both excellent messages for any organization.

Here are some tips if you are faced with indecision in your organization

• Ensure people feel safe when making decisions. Of course, decisions need to be made based on good information and thoughtful consideration, but if a decision turns out wrong based on the best use of information at the time, then people should feel safe from criticism.
• Use decisive language in your communication. Confidence and clarity in language sets a tone. Give people honest feedback and discourage indecisiveness. Be clear when providing direction and expect the same from others.
• Ask for opinions and then ensure the opinion is valued — even if everyone doesn’t agree.
• If a decision needs to be delayed, make sure there is a specific reason (i.e. additional information is needed) and establish a time-line to re-group with responsibilities identified to gather the missing information.
• Make sure every meeting ends with a summary of decisions and next steps. Every discussion point should have a concluding next step.
• Ensure each next step has clear accountability on time-lines and responsibilities.
• Follow up to ensure that next steps are being executed; offer support where needed to get the task concluded.
• Solicit feedback to ensure that the decision continues to make sense. This isn’t second-guessing, it’s simply monitoring outcomes. Don’t be afraid to re-visit a decision if the facts change. Sticking with a bad decision is as bad as making no decision at all.

My Perspective: Sometimes I like to say “I never change my mind.” The statement is intended to cause people to pause and think about what I said.

I then add that if presented with additional facts, I haven’t actually changed my mind — but made a new decision.

Good decision-making is evaluating all available facts and then having the courage to make a decision to take action. In some cases, that decision might be to take no action for a specified period, because you need more information — but it needs to be intentional, not by default.