Train, coach, remind, and reward:
The Customer Service Intervention, PART IV
By Carolyn A. Martin, Ph.D. and Bruce Tulgan
When it comes to customer service, you simply cannot remind employees too often or too enthusiastically.
1. Team meetings. Even if you meet with your team only once a week, every meeting should include reminders about customer service. Why not build a brief customer service lesson into every team meeting?
2. Manager as coach. As a manager, if you are not meeting one-on-one with every direct report for at least ten minutes at least twice a week, you should start. And when you do, you should dedicate at least five minutes to remind each person of the customer service focal point of the week.
3. Golden opportunities. Every time you observe a front-line employee interacting with a customer, that is a golden opportunity to remind that employee (and any employees nearby) of customer service principles and tactics. It is equally important to seize golden opportunities whether you see an employee delivering great service or not so great service.
4. The individual logbook. We recommend that you ask every front-line employee to keep a logbook on his/her customer service:(1) How did you dazzle a customer today? (2) What was your biggest customer service challenge today? (3) What was your biggest customer service mistake today and what did you learn from it?
5. Peer leaders. Encourage peer leaders to meet with each other, to develop their own ideas and strategies and initiatives. They should coach their peers in customer service, take turns in team meetings leading discussions and training modules, and lead customer service initiatives.
6. Customer commendations. Ask customers to write down the story, date, time, and the name of the service employee involved in the success story. To make this work, you'll have to provide easy opportunities for customers to provide commendations and incentives to customers who do (free samples, add-ons, entry into a contest, etc.).
7. Signage. Printed reminders of customer service principles and tactics can be very effective. Get employees involved in creating the slogans and choosing the specialty items on which those slogans will be printed. Make it a contest. Provide a budget and let the team decide together what printed reminders to create.
8. Games and rewards. Throughout your training and coaching, become as innovative as you can with fun activities, customer service games, and every possible opportunity for recognizing and rewarding those who significantly and consistently contribute to the mission.
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