GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

Train, Coach, Reward and Remind

Even if they care, even if they know what to do and how to do it, sometimes front-line service personnel lose focus or simply forget to deliver good customer service.

That’s why you have to remind them of their obligations, and reinforce learning, at every opportunity every day.

When it comes to customer service, you simply cannot remind employees too often or too enthusiastically. This is a case where more is always better; so build brief reminders into every part of the workday.

The Ongoing Reminders

Keep your team focused on good customer service by basing your strategy on the following:

1. Team meetings

2. Manager as coach

3. Golden opportunities

4. The individual logbook

5. Peer leaders

6. Customer commendations

7. Signage

8. Games and rewards

1. Team Meetings

If you don’t hold regular team meetings, start doing so.

Even if you meet only once a week, every meeting should include customer service reminders. Try building a brief customer service lesson into each meeting. Offers a series of “half-hour courses” to help you do this.

2. Manager as Coach

In an ideal world, every manager would meet daily with every single direct report to discuss two key issues:

• “What do you need from me?”

• “Here’s what I need from you.”

Every day, managers should coach employees on concrete goals and deadlines, spell out guidelines, identify potential problems and resource needs, and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement.

If you are not meeting one-on-one with every direct report for at least 10 minutes at least twice a week, you should start. And when you do, you should devote at least 5 minutes of one of those meetings to remind each person of the customer service focal point of the week.

3. Golden Opportunities

Every time you observe an employee interacting with a customer, you have a golden opportunity to remind that employee (and any nearby) of customer service principles and tactics. If you see an interaction that could be improved, stop and take the time to privately coach the employee in question:

• Explain what you observed.

• Detail what the employee did right, should have done differently, and could improve the next time.

Be specific; for example, “The next time you interact with a customer, I want you to do [this exact thing].”

An equally important opportunity presents itself when you see an employee delivering great customer service.

Always take time to stop and commend the employee:

• Explain what you observed.

• Detail what the employee did right. Say “Thank you” and let the employee know how much you appreciate what you observed. Again, be specific; for example, “The next time you interact with a customer, I want you to do [exactly the same thing]!”

4. The Individual Logbook

Ask front-liners to keep a logbook of their customer service.

A plain notebook will do. Employees keep track of their service by logging their experiences in three areas:

• How did I dazzle a customer today?

• What was my biggest customer service challenge today?

• What was my biggest customer service mistake today, and what did I learn from it?

This strategy will be much more effective if you provide opportunities for employees to share their logbook entries with you, fellow team members, and others in the organization. It is also critical to provide employees with financial and non-financial rewards for their contributions.

5. Peer Leaders

Select peer leaders by identifying high-level performers who are willing to take on this responsibility and who are nominated by their peers.

What role should they play? That depends upon the supervisory manager. But remember: You’re offering ad hoc leadership opportunities to rising stars who can be quite valuable if managed properly. In themselves, they become further reminders of the customer service focus.

Here are some helpful guidelines to follow:

• Carefully select the leaders, using the criteria mentioned above.

• Provide support and training.

• Give them resources and time to learn, grow, and become innovative in their roles.

• Coach them and reward them for succeeding in their roles.

Encourage peer leaders to meet as a group to develop their own ideas, 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

Provide customers with information about the following:

• Your customer service initiatives as they are launched

• The standards you are asking service personnel to meet

Then give customers a wealth of easy opportunities to provide input on customer service, especially commendations for high-quality service. The latter are your success stories and act as positive reinforcements and reminders for front-liners.

Deal with commendations in this way:

• Create forms requesting the date, time, and details of the success story, including the name of the service employee involved.

• Encourage customers to share their stories by making the process as easy as possible. You might also offer incentives such as free samples and add-ons, or enter all commending customers into a contest.

7. Signage

Printed reminders of customer service principles and tactics can be very effective. What would they say?

Things like this:

• “Always under-promise and over-deliver!”

• “Take care of our customers, and we’ll take care of you!”

• “Listen carefully!”

• “Be on the lookout for problems!”

How do you make those printed reminders visible? By putting them on posters, mugs, buttons, tattoos, hats, shirts, pens—anything on which you can print a slogan.

How do you make those reminders especially effective?

Get the team involved in creating the slogans and choosing the specialty items on which the slogans will appear. Make it a contest. Provide a budget and let the team decide what reminders to create.

8. Games and Rewards

While customer service is a serious business, it doesn’t have to be presented seriously. 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.

Ask your team what “lights their fire” in terms of rewards.

You’ll find the answers as varied as the members themselves. They may want gift certificates to restaurants or music stores; bigger discounts from your own business; one-time cash bonuses; time off; or entry into a drawing for larger prizes such as TVs or DVD players.

Create a menu of rewards and use those rewards to drive performance. Let front-liners know they’ll have ample opportunity to “learn and earn” as they contribute to your customer service mission.