When looking to revolutionize the way your company approaches service, you might
think it?s best to slowly ease into things. Actually, the opposite is usually true.
You know you?ve got unhappy customers so you?ve decided it?s time to do a complete service overhaul. The idea is to roll out the new plan in one area of your company for example, your call center?and get things under control there before you move on to the next department. Over time, as you get your strategy perfected and everyone buys in, you?ll surely reap the benefits. Makes sense, right?
Sorry, but that?s no way to transform a company culture to be more service-focused and effective. You have to move more boldly and get the message out to everyone more quickly. You don?t have time to let culture change drip down to the masses or bubble up from the bottom in one or two departments. You must cascade your transformational effort in a much wider and deeper effort from the beginning.
Creating a superior service culture is like getting a new rocket into orbit. You need a focused effort at the beginning to overcome the gravity of old attitudes and behaviors. And soon after your first new service successes, you need another enormous booster to keep momentum going and get into a sustainable orbit.
The effort is well worth the results. When people at all levels and departments throughout an organization step up together, at the same time, to deliver better service, then full engagement occurs and the culture ?tips? into a new and better direction.
Of course, there will be obstacles along the way. It?s how you deal with those obstacles that counts.
Companies sometimes receive push back from employees and even high-level leaders. Without the right framework for building an uplifting service culture, a company?s transformation will slow to a halt and nothing much will change. Good customers will leave, and often high-performing employees will head for the door.
Here are a few tips to help you keep your efforts to uplift service on the right track.
Don?t start only with customer-facing teams. Because your people in customer-facing roles interact with customers daily, they already understand that service is important. What they don?t know is how to fix the behind-the-scenes issues that often affect the customers? perceptions.
When you provide service education, greater encouragement, and more recognition for customer-facing teams like sales, installation, repair, or customer service, they will be inspired to serve better, smile wider, and strive even harder to delight.
When launching an uplifting service program, include internal service providers: production and design, hardware and software, warehousing and logistics, facilities, finance, legal, IT, and HR. When these folks make things easier, faster, more responsive, or more flexible for your customer-facing employees, they?ll be better able to serve your external customers.
Launch at all levels. Starting from the top with an uplifting service initiative makes sense. When high-level leaders speak up and role model with commitment, it?s easier for everyone else to follow ? and take the lead at their own levels.
Don?t forget the middle. Companies often decide to launch from the top down and from the bottom up at the same time. But doing so puts a great deal of responsibility on the people in the middle. Middle managers must translate the messages into action, connect company objectives to frontline concerns, and make uplifting language appear practical and useful. Meanwhile, managers play three culture-building roles: praising team members who do a great job, raising good suggestions for higher-level review, and spotlighting roadblocks that require leadership action for removal.
Go for easy wins first. Some leaders push their teams to solve the most difficult and complex service problems right away. That?s a mistake to avoid. Warming up a machine before you go full throttle is good practice. Warming up your service team with a series of early wins is good practice,too.
When planning a sequence of service problems to tackle, take a gradual approach. Build momentum with early wins on easy issues. Let your team taste the pleasure of uplifting service success. Highlight achievements and celebrate the compliments you earn. Restrain the urge to work on your toughest problems first; their day to be conquered will come.
About Ron Kaufman
Ron Kaufman is a popular keynote speaker and is the author of the New York Times bestseller
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