Word of Mouth

The act of word-of-mouth is often preceded by an actual positive service experience. Essentially, service providers need to work on the customers' hearts and minds before they can gain word-of-mouth. The share of heart concept suggests that delighting customers is the key to connecting with the hearts of customers. Share of hearts refer to the extent to which the customer is emotionally linked to the service provider in response to the verbal and non-verbal acts of the service provider.

The share of hearts marks the start to how a service provider engages the customer., in the sense that customers form an emotional linked to the product, service or even service provider. Service providers need to work on the customers' hearts and minds before they can gain word-of-mouth.

Service mindfulness suggests that service providers are alert to both the spoken and unspoken needs of customers.

Service providers win the share of customers' hearts through their heartfelt and caring services, triggered by their service mindfulness. The sustained efforts of service providers move customers towards the share of mind, navigating into their subconscious and resulting in top of mind recall when they are again in need of the service. The share of voice is earned when customers are willing to testify about the goodness experienced from the acts of the service providers. Gaining the share of heart, share of mind and share of voice is becoming progressively more important in light of ever-increasing competition.

When customers are delighted, they become brand ambassadors and give their heart, mind and voice to the brand.

New perspectives to customer service

Traditional methods of gaining competitive advantage over other service providers have become less effective in this new era of social media empowered services. To succeed, service providers need to take on an entirely new paradigm when it comes to customer service: one which seeks to put customers first, is willing to go far beyond their expectations and strives to delight and surprise them. This change in service begins with a change in perspective.

Excellent customer service starts from within an organisation - from the way that service providers function within the organisation when working with internal staff and systems. The 3 important aspects that determine how well an organisation fares internally are its systems and processes, internal communication and personal support for staff. Excellent service begins here - getting these aspects right means a step in the right direction for the organisation.

Real Service Providers serve their customers as they would serve their grandmothers - wholeheartedly, with tender loving care to delight them.

 

How to facilitate feedback from employees?

"If you do your job correctly, there will be sufficient ongoing communication so that all your employees know what is expected of them and how well or poorly they are doing."

Below are 6 steps approach to facilitate feedback:

1. Identify successes and failures - Be specific. Don't tell an employee he or she is too often. Instead, tell him the exact number of times he or she has been late during a defined period. Be equally specific when offering praise, such as the amount of money or time a worker has saved the company. When talking to employees, focus on the action rather than on your conclusions.
2. Stop talking and start listening - Ask employees to respond to your observations and pay careful attention to their words and body language; ask questions as necessary to make sure they have had a full opportunity to get their views across. If you don't listen to what an employee has to say, it's less likely he or she will listen to what you have to say.
3. Discuss the implications of behaviour - If you are dealing with problem behaviour, convey the probable outcomes in clear and unmistakable terms. Likewise, let performing employees know if they are on target to receive a bonus or other recognition. Specific information about consequences provides employees with benchmarks against which to asses and adjust their behaviour.
4. Link past accomplishments to needed changes - Look for areas where the employees has been successful and point out how the traits that led to those successes can be applied to areas that need improvement. Don't just offer exhortations; build an employee's confidence by letting him know exactly why you think he or she will be able to handle whatever tasks are at issue. Explain how current workplace requirements are related to his previous accomplishments.
5. Agree on an action plan - Ask employees what steps he or she can take to address issues that have been identified. Solicit his or her suggestions. This is a powerful tactic because people are most likely to follow through on their own ideas than on what they are told to do by someone else.
6. Follow up - Set a date and time to meet again for a formal review on progress related to the action plan. But don't wait for that date to stay engaged with the employee. Instead, use the development of the action plan as the starting point for the more regular, informal feedback sessions that distinguish a good manager. Let employees know when they are on plan and when they might be falling short.

Instead of continually reprimanding your employees, who are fighting the battle for you in the front line, talk quite specifically about how that employee needs to improve. Give employee a goal to work toward, not a legacy to overcome. Your ultimate goal "is to energize and excite people about the role you need them to play and the development they need to go through".

Remember: Employees are your core asset in a successful business.

The Mystery of the Missing Wow!

Why it's difficult to find delightful experiences or even just good service out there?

There are hundreds of posters on company walls with quotes on the customer and how they should focus on them but very few act on them.

Why?

Here are several possible reasons:

1. Never experienced it before - positive experiences are not painted for them and they are not trained to recognise them and deliver them. If they have not had the chance to experience what it feels like to be delighted as a customer, they would not know.
2. Leadership focus - leaders should see connecting not delighting the customers as a necessary focus in order to grow the business. Resources should therefore be channelled to the right places. Training and equipment that will help deliver a positive experience to the customers will be a better investment.
3. Leaders not walking the talk - some leaders do tell all staff members that the customer is important and they should always put the customers' wants and needs first, but they may not act accordingly themselves.
4. Measures differently - many companies that preach that the customer is the most important being and that staff members must go to great lengths to please or delight the customers, but they measure staff members against all other indicators that are not related to the customer.
5. Many service staff don't have basic manners themselves - often it's not about 'service' or an 'experience'; it's just plain manners!
6. The "What's in it for me?" culture - a culture that calculates what we put in and expects the same or even more in return, we will be sorely disappointed. A true blue customer-focused person is a true giver-one who gives more and expect less.
7. Perception of the people - organisations focuses on getting its people equipped with what is necessary to deliver the positive experience and at the end of the day, appreciates their hard work and efforts and rewards them accordingly is necessary too. 

The Employee Wow! Experience

To deliver The Wow! Experience, one must first experience it.

The point is that staff who are managed well and given the best environment to do their jobs, in tun do their best to delight their customers.

Leaders of organisations who want to deliver The Wow! Experience must focus relentlessly on providing the necessary environment to make their staff positive and happy.

What does the company need o do to ensure The Wow! Experience for the employees?

1. Select the 'Best Fit' not the 'Best' - It is also very important to hire people who are positive about themselves and the world around them. They must, firstly, like themselves.
2. Equip them - Resources channelled into developing people are never a waste.
3. Empower them - Empowering builds a sense of ownership in the staff. This leads to them seeking the best for the customer and the company.
4. Recognise and reward positive behaviour - Recognition for the staff can come in many forms- a simple 'thank you', a pat on the back, an award given during the company dinner.
5. Involve them, build ownership - Front liners should not be looked upon solely as implementers of corporate strategy. They have valuable insights that could save the company thousands of dollars in market research activities.
6. Trust them! Trust them! and still Trust them! - Communication is the key in building trust.

The Customer Experience

Good service is not good enough. Today's customers are different. Their tastes are different, their demands are varied and they have raised the bar. Companies that want to make it have to open their eyes and ears and realise that the customer service landscape has changed dramatically.

The Wow! Experience is one where the customer's expectations are met and exceed at every stage of his interaction with you - from the beginning to the end. There is an emotional connection with the customer which cause him to respond positively in a way that helps grow your business - he buys, he returns and he tells others about you. Your engaged customers become loyal and choose to return and even become your 'salesperson' as they tell others about you.

The Wow! Experience involves the 3Cs:

1. Customer first focus - the key focus of the strategy is centred on the customer and how to connect with her. The people, place, product and processes are focused on the customer.
2. Customisation - tailoring and personalising components to suit the customer's specific wants.
3. Complete - an end to the experience - meeting and exceeding the customer's expectations at every stage of the transaction - from beginning to end.

Companies which get their customers to say 'Wow' are those which strives to go beyond and to exceed expectations at every stage. Emotional engagement makes these customers return, and tell others about you. Your business grows.

The Wow! Experience involves engaging the emotions over and above meeting the 'given' expectations of speed, quality and the like. Customers today are willing to pay a higher price for such experiences because they are rare. They also make customers feel like individual and specific needs.

The 4 Ps of the Wow! Experience

1. People - quality leaders who hire the right staff who are then trained diligently in the different products until they are truly skilled and confident.
2. Product - high quality and easy to use.
3. Place - appealing décor and a comfortable space to conduct business in.
4. Process - processes are developed with the customer in mind; efficient and consistent.

The Wow!Experience is about meeting and exceeding the expectations of the customer at every contact point to create something that is unique and memorable.

So from today onwards, make an effort to stand out from the crowd and be noticed - it pays to be different in a way your customer value.

Positioning Customer Service as a Profit Generator

It can be difficult for executives to consider the impact on customer service when making strategic decisions about their companies. They often lack direct contact with customers, and the limited customer service data they have is not as comprehensive, easy to understand, or reliable as the financial reports they are so comfortable using. However, leaders must understand that outstanding customer service is not a  cost to be minimised; it's an investment in future profitability.

Below is a summary of the solutions:

• Executives must capture and analyse customer satisfaction data to ensure strategic decisions are not based solely on financial metrics.
• Customer service leaders should dig deeper into their financial statements to understand the true cost of poor customer service.
• The long-term benefit of customer service investments should be carefully understood before implementing cost-cutting measures that might drive customers away.
• Investing in the right number of qualified, well-trained employees pays off when the employees are able to drive sales and customer satisfaction.
• Self-service technology can be tempting because of the promised cost savings, but the expense of lost customers and lost revenue can be high if the technology doesn't function properly or customers find it irritating or difficult to use.
• Executives should carefully consider the impact of any price or fee increase on customer retention, revenue per customer, an referrals before making a final decision.  

Helping Employees Overcome Emotional Roadblocks

Customer service is an emotional job. There are highs associated with knowing you helped someone, and there are lows that come from working with challenging customers, co-workers, or even bosses. Helping employees avoid or manage negative emotions is essential to creating an organisation that consistently serves its customers at the highest level.

Below are some solutions:

• Make employees, not customers, the top priority for the organisation. The employee-first approach fosters a supportive work environment, promotes a sense of belonging, and encourages self-esteem.
• Meet with employees - in a supportive and non-judgmental way - after they have encountered an angry customer to help them learn from their experience and develop skills for handling similar situations in the future.
• Encourage employees to develop friendships with their co-workers, so they will find more enjoyment in their work environment.
• Ensure that supervisors apply a positive and supportive leadership style that encourages dedication and commitment from employees.
• Make your company a place where employees can easily leave their personal troubles behind and look forward to coming to work each day.
• Help employees identify their personal attitude anchors to help them maintain a positive outlook or recover from a negative encounter.   

Helping Employees Demonstrate Empathy with Customers

Empathy does not always come naturally to employees, but they can learn to understand and validate their customers' emotions. Below is a short summary of solutions:

• Help your employees develop relevant, related experiences they can use to empathize with customers, such as giving them the opportunity to be customers themselves.
• Share stories and testimonials from real customers to remind your employees how delivering great service can make their customers feel understood and acknowledged.
• Hire employees who use your product or service, so they can easily relate to the people they serve.
• Train employees to understand how customers feel when they encounter a problem by asking employees to recall a similar experience they have had. Have them describe how the experience made them feel, then discuss ways they can help their customers avoid those negative feelings.
• Teach employees to use the pre-emptive acknowledgment as a technique to diffuse the negative emotions of customers before they explode.
• Show employees how to deliver service from their customers' perspective; you can start by demonstrating the correct way to hand change to a customer.
• Demonstrate empathy toward your employees when they experience negative emotions, to validate their feelings and prevent them from taking out their frustrations on a customer.
• Eliminate the sources of employee angst that could cause them to fail to identify and react to their customers' negative emotions. 

Helping Employees Establish the Right Roles

The service that employees provide is often dictated by the role they are playing. Great things can happen when employees understand their primary role is serving customers at the highest level. getting employees to make that commitment requires a conscious decision and the right working conditions.
Here is a summary of the solutions that can help your customer service representatives make the right choice:

• Align employee responsibilities with your company's service philosophy so that they will naturally deliver outstanding service when they are doing their jobs correctly.
• Have employees write a description of their jobs and the value they provide to their customers.
• Use the "thank-you note" exercise to help employees integrate a customer focus into their daily activities.
• Take extreme measures, if necessary, to avoid poor customer treatment and to compel your customer service reps to find new ways to achieve results. Avoid creating working conditions that could lead employees to subject their customers to poor treatment by maintaining a direct connection to customers and frontline employees, acting as a steward of your organisation's customer-focused culture, and understanding when to prioritise service over short-term cost efficiency.    

Helping Employees Pay Better Attention

Customer service should be priority number one for customer service employee, but as we have learned, actions speak louder than words. Employees often need help to pay careful attention to each customer.

Below is a summary of the solutions:

• Develop work processes and procedures that discourage employees from trying to complete more than one task at a time.
• Create automatic reminders that capture employees' attention at the right moment such as a pop-up screen that reminds an employee to return a customer's call.
• Establish and reinforce clear customer service priorities so that employees know where to focus their attention.
• Reduce the number of task customer service employees are expected to complete, so that they can devote more attention to serving customers.
• Help employees put customers first by maintaining an expectation that they proactively greet anyone who is in their vicinity.
• Train employees to use active listening skills when serving customers.
• Provide appropriate staffing levels so employees aren't tempted to compromise service quality in an effort to serve more people. 

Creating a Customer-Focused Culture

Employees are powerfully influenced by their workplace culture. Delivering outstanding service requires organisations to develop a positive, customer-focused culture - but it also takes more hard work, discipline, and dedication than many organisations realise. Here is a summary of the solution discussed below:

• Ensure that your customer service leaders act as role models who actively demonstrate a positive customer-focused attitude and encourage their employees to do the same
• Work closely with persistently negative employees to help them change their behaviour, or else remove them from the team if they are unwilling or unable to do so. These employees can be detrimental to both customer service and team morale if their behaviour is left unchecked
• Create a clear definition of your customer service philosophy so that employees receive clear direction and can easily understand how they can contribute
• Develop customer service goals that help motivate employees and keep them focused on providing the highest level of service possible
• Win the moments of truth that define an organisation's true culture 

Avoiding Mutually Assured Dissatisfaction

The best customer service organisations make it incredibly easy, instead of impossibly hard, for their employees to provide outstanding service.

Below is a summary:

• Take action to identify and address operational issues that contribute to customer service failures and frustrate employees
• Include employees in your organisation's efforts to continually improve customer service
• Engage employees by sharing customer service goals, then enlisting employees' help toward achieving them
• Avoid becoming blind to reality by avidly searching for icebergs - the small signs that could be indicators of big problems
• Approach operational problems by asking questions and gaining a true understanding of what's going on before jumping to conclusions about the solution

Avoiding the Creation of Double Agents

The double agent problem comes from a conflict between the company and the customer, with the employee stuck in the middle. The ultimate solution for any company trying to provide outstanding customer service is to identify these harmful pressures and neutralise them as much as possible. It should be easy and natural for an employee to want to do the right thing for both the customer and the company.

Here is a short summary to help employees avoid becoming double agents:

• Avoid policies that are certain to anger customers and require your employees to face their displeasure
• Whenever possible, allow employees to use their discretion when carrying out corporate policies; give them the flexibility to meet the needs of the company and the customer
• Look beyond a single transaction to consider the lifetime value of a customer when setting restrictive policies or implementing new fees
• Trust that the vast majority of your employees and customers are not trying to take advantage of you
• Make sure employee are adequately monitored so that you can guide their performance
• Identify and eliminate incentives that may cause employees to act against the company's best interests
• Spend considerable time interacting with employees and customers, to avoid becoming insulated from reality when making policy decisions

Getting Employee Buy-in

Aligning employees' motivation with their company's interests can be a challenging task, but it's an essential part of building an organisation capable of delivering outstanding customer service. Companies should strive to put employees in a position where their intrinsic motivation leads them to the right action, rather than try to manipulate employees through incentives that may have negative side effects.

Summary of solutions:

• Hire people who will love their job and love your company, so they will naturally want to do what you ask them to do
• Involve frontline employees in decision making and problem solving so that they will take ownership of company goals
• Frequently monitor employee performance so that you can recognise positive achievements and correct mistakes
• If you must use financial incentive such as commissions or tips, be sure to align them with team goals rather than individual accomplishments
• Do not assume that commissioned or tipped employees need less supervision than employees who aren't paid by their performance. They require the same monitoring and coaching as anyone
• Make employee recognition an unexpected event and offer it only after good performance. This approach shows employees they are appreciated while keeping their focus on customer service rather than earning a prize. Use broad service guidelines rather than detailed standards to allow for more flexibility and personalisation

Overcoming Challenging Customers

Understanding the role that customers play in their service experience isn't an excuse for poor employee performance. As you can see, poor customer service can often be attributed to poor employee performance, poor leadership, poor policies and procedures, or all of the above.

However, customer service leaders must understand all the reasons it can be so challenging to make customers happy - including the fact that the customers isn't always right.

Some solutions:

• Create generous, customer-friendly policies that make it easier for customers to be right
• Train employees to avoid placing blame when a customer makes an error, and to focus on finding a solution instead
• Avoid arguing with customers in public forums such as Twitter, but publicly acknowledge their feelings and offer to address the issue in private
• Identify new customers and take a moment to let them know what they can expect so that they won't encounter any unpleasant surprises
• Remember that customers tend to hear what they want to hear, so be careful not to be overly optimistic when setting expectations
• Operate by the Platinum Rule: Treat customers the way they want to be treated
• Learn how to get better results with self-sabotaging customers by conducting a Circle of Influence exercise
• Invite abusive customers to take their business somewhere else to prevent them from draining resources, driving away other customers, and discouraging employees