Sell your team on customer service:
The Customer Service Intervention, PART II
By Carolyn A. Martin, Ph.D. and Bruce Tulgan
How do you get your team to really care about customer service? You have to sell them on it and then keep selling them on an ongoing basis. What's your sales message?
1. "Customer service is not negotiable."
Take time with all those employees
involved in a customer service failure and treat the instance as a crisis; debrief
those involved; identify the learning opportunities within; and review the steps
that should have been taken. Be prepared to remove team members who
repeatedly fail to deliver good customer service. And don't keep it a secret.
The price for delivering poor service should be dismissal from your team.
2. "It makes everybody's job easier."
Unsatisfied customers are less respectful to
employees; they create disruptions and buy less; they badmouth to other customers and complain to
staff. When this downward spiral takes hold, employees spend a tremendous
amount of time and energy soothing bad feelings, solving problems, and
cleaning up the mess. On the other hand, customers who feel well served, tend
to reflect their satisfaction, behave in a more relaxed manner, buy more, and
express gratitude to service personnel.
3. "It is one of the most valuable skills you can possibly master."
Customer service
is a broadly transferable skill---that is, it will make any employee more valuable in
any role in any organization. It is a skill that does not become obsolete. With your
support, training and coaching, your employees have an opportunity to
become customer service experts. Every single customer service interaction is
an opportunity to practice and fine-tune this valuable skill.
4. "Every customer is a potential contact worth impressing."
Remind your
employees that every customer has the potential to help them in one way or
another. Your customers are worth impressing. Do a fantastic job, be positive,
motivated, polite and focused on the task at hand. They will notice you. They
will remember you. Learn their names and they might learn yours.
5. "Take care of our customers and we'll take care of you."
Make sure that
every one of your employees knows that the way to get financial and
non-financial rewards on your team is to deliver great service to customers. That
means the best assignments, the best shifts, the best learning opportunities,
exposure to decision-makers, days-off, cash, gift certificates, promotional
giveaways, and everything else you have to offer. That means you’ll have to be
more hands-on, setting goals, monitoring and measuring performance, and
holding employees accountable on a daily basis. Reward those who succeed
and, just as important, withhold rewards from those who fail. Use small
bonus-style rewards and use them frequently, but make sure to tie every reward directly
to specific instances of performance.
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Winning the Talent Wars® |
106th Edition - January 30, 2004 COPYRIGHT, RainmakerThinking, Inc.® http://www.rainmakerthinking.com |