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.

In May 2007, Ranjay Gulati (Michael Ludwig Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management), wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review entitled “Silo Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus”.

Galati’s main point is as true today as it was then — that while many companies claim to be focused on their customers, they are unable to deliver on these promises within their current company culture. His basis for this argument is that companies continue to focus on their own needs versus the customer needs.

Gulati identified four values that companies must adopt in order to successfully be customer-focused. These are coordination, cooperation, capability and connection.

Coordination: Most companies are organized around a specific function, product or geographical location. However, customers don’t think that way, and often the solutions they need do not fit within those boundaries. Gulati suggests that companies need to create processes or mechanisms that break these divisions – or silos – so that the customer gets the benefit of the entire company.

Cooperation: Here the focus is two-fold. Separate business units need to cooperate to support each other’s activities to achieve measurable customer satisfaction, and employees who are closest to customers need the authority to make decisions that benefit the customer. This kind of cooperation ensures the customer always comes first.

Capability: According to Gulati, companies need more “generalists”. These are described as employees who “have experience in several products or services and a deep knowledge of customer needs” as well as having the skill and flexibility to cross organizational boundaries. These people see the big picture and resultant are able to produce tailored solutions that meet customer needs.

Connection: Gulati’s research supports aligning with suppliers and partners. The rationale is that it support better solutions for the customer as well as provide cost-cutting opportunities.

Gulati’s four “CAS” make sense, as they provide companies with a process map that focuses on the customer. Interesting to note, everything still focuses on the big “C” — the customer.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

When discussing the “How to’s” of building an engaged culture, we hear lots of talk about “reinforcing the positive” and “catching people doing things right”, but what happens when people are doing things wrong and we need to provide corrective direction.   Specific steps need to take place to get the person moving in the proper direction while still keeping them positive and motivated.

Most importantly, you must focus on the situation or issue versus the person, while sharing a more appropriate course of action. We all need to avoid falling into the trap of confusing criticism with constructive feedback.

Constructive feedback is information-specific, issue-focused, and based on observations, while criticism is a personal judgment about a performance effort or outcome, usually given is general and vague manner, focused on the person, and based on opinions or feelings

These steps you will help you have more success.

1. Describe: Start by describing what the person did accurately and concisely. Be objective and neutral — remember, how we say something is just as important as what we say. Provide specifics of what happened and do not exaggerate or minimize the situation. Focus on the positive contribution.
2. Explain: Explain the impact of the behaviour on the customer, team or organization. These need to be observations of what you have seen or heard — not your interpretations or opinions. Observations are factual and non-judgmental. It is helpful to start focused on ‘I’. ‘I notice’, ‘I have seen’ or even I have been told’. This will help keep the discussion issue focused. Avoid using ‘but’, ‘although’ or ‘however’ to link this to the first section. These words create contradictions and send a mixed message that effectively negates any positive message you started with.
3. Suggest: Suggest specific changes that you would like to see made and explain what you want the person to do differently. The more specific, the more likely they person will be able to implement the suggestion next time.
4. Commit: Seek a commitment to change. Be clear on the consequences of continuing in this vein. Seek an agreement about the new, modified behaviour. In extreme cases, be clear of the consequences of not making these changes — but again be objective and neutral to minimize this sounding like a threat.

Example: One of your team is being described as harsh or bossy when providing direction to other team members.

Describe: Bill, I really appreciate that you have taken ownership of this project and are providing clear, well thought-out input on what next steps are needed. I wanted to let you know how valuable this is to the team and the overall success of the project.

Explain: I notice that sometimes when you provide direction to other team members, you are very quick and specific when giving input — which sometimes creates the impression that you don’t value their input and think that only your way is the correct way.

Suggest: I’d like to suggest that you take some time to understand why they did it the way they chose and what next steps they are considering. Then building on their ideas, share some additional thoughts on how they can accomplish their goal.

Commit: That way, they will feel that you are adding to their thoughts and helping them be more successful. Does that make sense? Would you give that a try next time and let me know how it works?

Feedback should be given, as close as possible to when the performance incident occurs so that the events are fresh in everyone’s minds. When feedback is given well after the fact, the value of the constructive feedback is lessened.

The exception may be when giving negative feedback. Sometimes when a negative incident happens you may need time to get your thoughts in order before you give negative feedback (coming on too strong or in an angry manner will negate any good you hope to achieve). Giving the feedback tomorrow rather than immediately will come across as far more constructive — and tomorrow is still timely.

Lastly — and hopefully these go without saying — your feedback should be person-to-person versus in writing. The very nature of feedback is a mentoring/coaching activity, which should be done verbally and informally. You should also provide positive feedback in the same manner at least as often as you provide corrective feedback.

By focusing on the positive and keeping the discussion fact based when providing correction, you are able to modify and build new behaviours, without challenging their current behaviours. What do you think? Is it worth a try?

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

There are a few common imperatives shared by all successful customer-focused companies. Scholars may debate the exact number or wording, but it is universally agreed that to create a well-integrated organization, these basic characteristics must be in place. If any of these essential ingredients are missing, no organization will achieve its full potential.

1. A Customer-focused Vision: Nothing is more important than a clear vision. In a customer-focused organization, the vision that is not just making money, but has the customer as a central element. Every person should understand what that vision is — and how their role within the organization contributes directly to the implementation of that vision. A well-defined and widely shared and understood vision will allow the organization to work in alignment towards serving your customers well.

2. Inculcate the Voice of the Customer: Understand your customer intimately. Make sure your decision-making process includes their voice at the table. Evaluate all your processes and procedures to ensure they are designed with the customer in mind — not the organization. You will revolutionize your own behaviour and create linkages to your customers your competition will never duplicate.

3. Be a Student of the Best: Be a life-long learner. Study the methods of other successful companies, and share your learning in return. Japanese companies learned how to be great after World War II. Some North American companies have made great comebacks after studying those from around the world — while other have chosen not to learn and suffered greatly as a result (American Auto Industry comes to mind.)

4. Empower Your Customer Champions: Most employees want to serve customers well. When the organization demonstrates that providing exceptional service in an organizational priority, and that the employee are critical to success, then employees will rise to the challenge and amaze you with their commitment to exceed customer expectations.

5. Break through the Barriers to Success: Too many organizations have processes and procedures in place that inadvertently create artificial barriers to successfully serving customers. Procedures and processes are designed with the organization in mind versus the customer and resultant, the customer is unclear or frustrated. Are your sale processes clear to the customer, are your invoices easy to read and understand, do your policies make sense from the customers’ perspective?

6. Measure What Matters: Most organizations have measures in place. Successful organizations have the right measures. Measures that are aligned to their overall vision and that inform them on how they are doing with their ultimate judge of success. Measures of satisfaction, loyalty and intent to repurchase are just as important as profit and how long to answer a call. Successful organization measure and track their performance against their past performance, the customer desires and benchmark against others who are the best at what they do.

7. Lead by Example: Today, top corporate leaders personally put the customer first. They demonstrate their organizations’ vision in the way they lead each day. They believe and invest in people, constantly seek new and better methods, build customer-focused teams and celebrate performance that serves the customer.

I’m not going to pretend that being customer-focused is easy — because it’s not. It requires an absolute dedication to the cause, starting from the top, right on down throughout the organization. But the imperatives are relatively simple.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved

Employees report that one of the key factors they are engaged in their organization is predicated on how well the organization treats their customers. So treating your customers well will also have a corresponding positive impact on your employees.

Here are 7 critical success factors to providing exceptional customer service.

1. Timeliness: Customers want their questions answered quickly and their problem resolved in a timely manner. Be specific about when something will happen and then make sure it happens.

2. Attitude: Attitude is everything. When customers are treated with respect, courtesy and professionalism they are most receptive to having a satisfactory outcome.

3. Empathy: Having empathy to their situation will usually calm down the most irate customer. Always treat others how we ourselves would like to be treated.

4. Ownership: Take responsibility for the situation. Even if you cannot fix things yourself, make sure the customer doesn’t get bounced around trying to find the right person to help them.

5. Active Listening: Listen first, act second. Only when a customer feels that you have heard what their situation is will they have confidence that you will provide the correct solution. Plus, sometimes we inadvertently leap to an incorrect conclusion on the best solution before we have all the information. This leads to frustrated customers and repeat calls.

6. Expertise: Be knowledgeable about your product or service. If you don’t know the answer — say so, and then quickly get the information from someone who does. Don’t simply pass the customer on to someone else without an introduction.

7. Dependability: When you say you are going to do something, do it. Never leave it up to the customer to follow up. Even if you don’t have a solution, don’t leave the customer hanging with timelines like “as soon as possible”. Make a commitment to respond, even if it is to say “we are still working on it”. Let the customer know what is being done.

Bonus:

8. Follow up: People remember when someone follows up to make sure everything is OK. Many organizations miss this opportunity to turn customers into fans!

The secret to great customer service is not having a perfect product or service — it is resolving each situation to the complete satisfaction of the customer. No one expects perfection — they just want it fixed right and in a timely manner.

If you employ these key success factors, you will build trust and confidence with your customers. And in return, they will give you another opportunity to earn their business.

Performance Excelerator™ | Leadership Expert| Professional Speaker

Bill is recognized as the Performance Excelerator™ because of his uncanny ability to create profound change and deliver extraordinary results with the most demanding organizations. He works with senior leaders to inspire and develop high-performance teams that deliver exceptional customer service, higher productivity and improve profits.

Bill is passionate about results and works only with clients who share that passion — ready to take steps to achieve immediate, significant and continuous improvement. Whether working with boards or operations teams and employees, his no-excuse approach breaks down the silos and gains consensus and clarity throughout the organization.

Bill Hogg provides dynamic keynote presentations, transformative workshops, and world class executive consulting.

© Copyright 2008 – Bill Hogg & Associates All Rights Reserved