Prepare for Lift off
This section will help you identify the challenges and problems that you and your team presently face with customer service. There are two main parts:
1. Assessing your service team
2. Selecting the right players
1. Assessing Your Service Team
Find some quiet time to complete the evaluation tools on the next pages. Be brutally honest—anything less will dilute the power of your intervention. Record your responses in a notebook or computer file so that you
can easily examine major areas of concern.
After you have completed these tools, summarize your conclusions about the effectiveness of your service team as well as about your own management practices.
• What patterns emerge?
• What priorities for intervention are now apparent?
The answers to these questions will help you focus your customer service training program.
PART ONE: Customer Complaints
Directions: Listed below are 12 of the most common customer complaints about service people. Do customers ever make any of these complaints about your team? Circle your response. After each “Yes” response, ask yourself:
• How often does this happen? • Why does this happen?
• Which team members are involved? • What can we do about this?
Be sure to list any other customer complaints about your team.
Complaints About Service People Yes/No
1. They are nowhere to be found. Y / N
2. They are present but unavailable to serve customers. Y / N
3. They are available but rude, rushed, or indifferent. Y / N
4. They are engaged and polite, but unknowledgeable. Y / N
5. They provide customers with misinformation or conflicting information. Y / N
6. They are too slow. Y / N
7. They make mistakes. Y / N
8. They unnecessarily complicate transactions. Y / N
9. They are unable to solve small problems. Y / N
10. They are unable to deal effectively with customer complaints. Y / N
11. They embarrass customers for not doing something correctly. Y / N
12. They fail to meet, much less exceed, customer expectations. Y / N
Manager’s Assessment 1R LIFTOFF
Other complaints customers have about my team:
PART TWO: My Contributions
Directions: Answer the following questions as honestly as possible.
1. Do I contribute to any of the customer complaints that I have noted? If so ...
• Which ones?
• How do I contribute?
• What have I done to address them?
• Have those steps been effective?
• What more can I do?
2. Am I willing to make a commitment to eliminating these complaint
Directions: The following questions will help you assess your team on the seven underlying causes of customer complaints. Circle your yes/no responses and answer further questions as needed.
Ask Yourself ... Yes/No
1. Is my team overstaffed (leading to a lack of urgency)? Y / N
Is it understaffed (leading to a lack of coverage)? Y / N
• What is causing these staffing problems?
2. Is my team made up of the wrong people? Y / N
• Who are the low-level performers?
• Who are the mediocre performers?
• Who are the high-level performers?
• Who are potential peer leaders?
3. Does my team lack the tools and support it needs? Y / N
• What tools would help the team become more effective at delivering excellent service?
• What kind of support do I offer the team? How can I do this better?
4. Do team members care about service? Y / N
• Have I made customer service the focus of their daily activities?
• How do I reinforce the fact that their primary job is to serve customers?
• How can I do a better job engaging the team in caring about our customers?
5. Do team members have sufficient training in customer service fundamentals? Y / N
• What kind of customer service training have I offered them?
• Where are the gaps between the team’s current skills and knowledge and what they need in order to do an excellent job?
• Do I provide them with ongoing training in the fundamentals?
6. Do team members too often lose their focus on service and thus “drop the ball”? Y / N
• If so, why does this happen?
• What is happening in the business or on the team that makes members lose focus?
• How can I refocus them?
7. Are team members held accountable for delivering dazzling customer service? Y / N
• How do I send the message every day that every person has the accountability for delivering dazzling customer service?
• What methods can I use to reinforce this message?
• Am I willing to commit to playing a more hands-on role as a trainer, coach, and supervisor to make dramatic improvements in my team’s delivery of customer service? If so, how will I do this?
Manager’s Assessment 1B concludedFOR LIFTOFF
Please note that employees can also use these assessment tools; however, we recommend their using the tools that are tailored for employee and team self evaluation, built into Stage 2 of the program.
2. Selecting the Right Players
Now look more closely at each individual player—you want to get the right team on board. Refer to the information provided earlier in Chapter 2, and be sure to do the following:
1. For your close-up assessment, use the “ability, skill, will” formula. Identify low-level, mediocre, and highlevel performers, and look for potential peer leaders.
2. Review your list of performers and consider what initial actions you will take with each person. Here are some guidelines:
• Hopelessly low-level performers. If you have enough supportive documentation, you may simply want to let these go—make sure you’ve dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s beforehand.
Or you may prefer to have one final conversation with them that conveys “Improve or you’re out of here.” If they commit to improving immediately, you commit to the day-by-day coaching and
monitoring of their performance. The first time they backslide, you remove them from the team.
• Mediocre performers. Immediately create a performance improvement plan to get these on track.
• High-level performers. “Red flag” those who have the ability to become peer leaders. Prepare to engage them in ongoing training to help you implement your customer service program.
3. Plan to meet one-on-one with your low-level and mediocre performers to discuss their performance.
To prepare for the meetings, review your “ability, skill, will” assessments and draft a performance improvement analysis for each person—this will serve as the basis for the meeting. Using the analysis form that we have provided, be sure to do the following:
• Identify the tasks and responsibilities that need review.
• Analyze the source of the problem.
• Record your recommendations for improvement.
Be honest with yourself and prepare to be honest with your employees.
At each meeting, explain the ability, skill, will framework and get the employee’s input; then focus the discussion on concrete opportunities to improve performance. Detail a performance improvement
plan using the form we have provided. Treating the plan as a contract, ask the employee to commit to improving performance and set specific goals and deadlines. Be prepared to follow up on a regular basis. If someone is not willing to improve, immediately remove him or her from the team.
Performance Improvement Analysis
Employee’s Name: Date:
Tasks/Responsibilities Ability Skill Will
under review (Change) (Training) (Incentives)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Recommendations: Deadlines:
60
l PART 2. THE PROGRAM
Performance Improvement Plan
Employee’s Name: Date:
Tasks/Responsibilities/ Actions Deadlines
Goals
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Signatures:
_____________________ _____________________
(Manager) (Employee)
4. Once you have made a substantial effort to help employees, decide whether you need to remove any from the team. Base this round of decisions on your initial assessments, your one-on-one meetings, and your follow-up sessions. Anyone who is not meeting his or her specific performance improvement goals should be removed.
5. Eventually—but sooner rather than later—you will want to review and revise your hiring process and hiring-selection criteria based on what you’ve learned from the rigorous assessment of your team.
As a starting point, ask yourself:
• Am I testing prospective hires for customer service ability, skill, and will?
• Am I gearing interviews toward these priorities?
• Am I gathering concrete proof that the prospect has the personal characteristics and attitude required to interact effectively with customers?
• Am I making it clear to prospective hires that high performance in customer service is the only option on my team?
6. Prepare to recruit peer leaders. As mentioned, review your service evaluations and focus on members whom you identified as high-level performers. In Stage 2, add to your considerations those who receive nominations from a substantial number of their peers and who indicate a willingness to serve in a leadership capacity.
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