Developing role of managers towards customer service

Line managers have an important role to play in coaching and developing their staff to deliver excellence service. This can be achieved by:

• sharing ideas and information with staff and colleagues
• including service criteria in the recruitment and selection processes
• involving customers in the selection of new recruits
• developing and reviewing department action plans
• linking customer satisfaction to performance reviews
• setting up and encouraging problem-solving teams
• sharing progress and ideas on service improvements with customers
• adopting a customer
• making time to be with staff
• measuring supplier performance
• undertaking 360 degrees appraisal
• publicly recognising the service excellence
• issuing questionnaires on the quality of the service the department or function provides
• encouraging visits to customers among staff
• becoming mystery shoppers
• attending external conferences on service quality
• providing feedback from customers to staff
• reporting regularly on departmental or team progress
• facilitating training sessions in customer service
• agreeing specific goals and performance standards with staff
• encouraging creativity and new ideas
• facilitating the setting and revision of standards
• ensuring regular contact between front-line and support staff
• recognising the cost of quality, conformance and non-conformance
• holding informal discussions with staff on the importance of service quality and welcoming and acting on their feedbacks
• setting up a management quality action team, with managers seconded on a rotational basis from all parts of the business
• having managers in the organisation's customer service and complaints department, rather than members of staff
• developing a customer service training package for line managers to use in coaching their staff