Managers have asked us, “But how do I get my frontliners to really care about delivering customer service in the first place?” Obviously, it’s hard to train people who don’t care—and how do you teach caring? Unfortunately, appeals to empathy—“Think of your own experiences as a customer and try to deliver the level of service you prefer”—are not always effective, especially with young workers. Why? Different people have different expectations based on their experiences and tastes. So you can’t trust that employee preferences will match customer requirements.
To get your front-liners to really care about delivering great customer service, you have to sell the importance of customer service to them and then keep selling it on an ongoing basis. That means you need a compelling “sales message” that will drive your customer service intervention and convey the principles behind it. You also need to ensure that every member of your team puts the message into action.
We’ll take a close look at a model “sales message” and its related action steps.
The Sales Message and Action Steps
To be effective, your message to front-liners should be clear, concise, and workable. Here is precisely the kind of sales message that you want to communicate: “Customer service is non-negotiable. It makes work more enjoyable. It makes everyone’s job easier. It is one of the most valuable skills you can possibly master. Every customer is a potential contact worth impressing. So take care of our customers, and we’ll take care of you!”
1. “Customer service is non-negotiable.”
To convey this point to your team, you must trumpet the message at every opportunity: “Customer service is what this team is about. Customer service is what we do here. Customer service is the number one reason you are here. That’s what we’re paying you to do.”
Even more important, the message must be absolutely true. This means you must intervene immediately at any instance of poor service. Treat every customer service failure as a crisis, taking time with all the involved employees to debrief them, identify the learning opportunities at hand, and review the steps that should have been taken.
In terms of non-negotiability, you must be prepared to remove team members who repeatedly fail to deliver good customer service. And don’t keep it a secret. Make sure the rest of the team knows that the price for poor service is dismissal from your team.
2. “It makes work more enjoyable.”
You have to constantly remind team members that good customer service has a huge impact on their ability to enjoy work. When employees are engaged in a task or meeting responsibilities, their behavior is likely to support a positive attitude. A positive attitude increases the enjoyment of any task, but this is especially true when it comes to human interaction. People tend to feed on each other’s attitudes, feed back similar signals, and reproduce those attitudes.
Customers who feel ignored, under-served, or rebuffed by front-liners tend to get frustrated and annoyed. They often express those feelings and seek redress, thus creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for employees.
In contrast, 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 makes everyone’s job easier.”
You must keep reminding your team that investing effort in good service ultimately saves everyone a lot of time and energy, whereas bad service creates a downward spiral that makes everyone’s job harder. Unsatisfied customers are less respectful to employees and to the business; they disrupt store displays, move and spoil merchandise, and buy less; they bad-mouth 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. If every front-line employee is focused on great service, unnecessary waste is kept to a minimum and employees can use their valuable time and energy to build an upward spiral of success.
4. “It is one of the most valuable skills you can possibly master.”
The most ambitious young workers are hungry for training opportunities so they can build skills that will make them more valuable in the job market and in other aspects of their lives. Often they don’t realize that customer service, in and of itself, is an extremely valuable skill—one that does not become obsolete. Neither do they often realize that it is a broadly transferable skill— one that makes any employee more valuable in any role in any organization.
With your support, training, and coaching, young employees can become customer service experts. Don’t miss a chance to remind them that every customer service interaction is an opportunity to practice and fine-tune this vital skill. It’s a message that will appeal to the most ambitious among them.
5. “Every customer is a potential contact worth impressing.”
Also appealing to the most ambitious young employees will be the idea of networking with customers while delivering great service. You don’t want them handing out résumés to impressive-looking customers, of course; but you should remind them that every customer is a potential contact. Regardless of age, size, shape, and attire, every customer has his or her own sphere of influence and authority. Every customer has the potential to help you in one way or another. So what? Your customers are worth impressing. That’s what.
How do you impress customers? By doing a fantastic job in your current role. Impressive people are impressed by those who are themselves 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.
6. “Take care of our customers, and we’ll take care of you!”
Make sure that every team member knows they can earn financial and non-financial rewards by delivering great service to customers. On your part, that means offering “desirables” as rewards for customer service excellence. Desirables can include the best assignments, shifts, and learning opportunities; exposure to decision makers; days off; cash, gift certificates, and promotional giveaways; and anything else you have to offer.
To ensure this approach is fair, you’ll have to be a more hands-on manager, 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. Establish small bonus-style rewards and use them frequently, but be sure to tie every reward directly to specific instances of performance.
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