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