Employee Engagement Strategies – Help Your People See Their Impact On Gaining / Retaining Customers

CONTINUING SERIES OF REAL LIFE PRACTICAL ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES:

Lesson #2 – Help Your People See The Impact They Have On Gaining or Retaining Customers

Culture and operations are a little different for every company, and because of that, finding ways to spur employee engagement takes a unique and fresh approach for each individual business.

To get a sense for what drives real engagement (at real companies), here is the second lesson that depend directly on “outside the box” thinking and a disruptive approach to typical engagement efforts.

You see the principles all over the place, but so many people ask me how they can actually use this stuff in their own businesses – here are the second of two real life examples:
  
A powerful method of improving engagement and driving employee passion is summed up in one simple concept: impact.
 
In a discussion with a senior accounting manager, she related some difficulty helping her employees with engagement.
 
She felt like her folks were really great – they were actually exceptional accountants, saving the company millions of dollars a year – but they felt like they could do the very same job anywhere, like it wouldn’t really make a difference where they worked. In many cases, they were just going through the motions. 
 
She told me the following story:
 
– So, the question I began to ponder was, what if it did make a difference? What if what we did in this accounting department made life better or easier for customers? What if we played a really large role in gaining and retaining customers?
 
At an employee meeting the following day, I asked them if they felt like what they did made a difference. After a long bit of silence, some responded that they certainly save the company money.
 
I agreed with them and asked, “How do we help gain and retain customers?”
 
There was silence in the room. I said, “We play a huge role in making sure the customers are well taken care of, ensuring that they get the very best service. I’d like you all think about the impact that we make. Come to our next meeting prepared to talk about how.
 
During the next meeting, two employees (who have been with the company the longest) seemed to be percolating with energy. It was as if they couldn’t wait to start talking. If you know any accountants, unless it has something to do with debits and credits, jumping to start a conversation just isn’t usually in their nature.
 
I asked who wanted to answer the question from our last meeting, and Bob just started talking!
 

“I came to realize that the process I’m in charge of – the process that helps find how and where we might overcharge customers – goes a long way in retaining them. I know that some of our operations and sales people don’t necessarily like the work that I do, but if I were a customer and received a check as a refund for charges, that would make me pretty happy about working with our company!”
 
What a great answer!
 
Then it was Sally’s turn to answer…
 
“I work with our vendors, and try to negotiate with them to reduce their fees. In turn, we pass those savings on to our customers in the form of lower rates, or sometimes just an overall reduced bill. Recognizing that helps me see that what I do really does help us retain our larger customers, which helps to make sure that I get a paycheck.”
 
I asked the team if they would consider how their jobs help the company gain and retain customers. I asked them to look at what they are doing now – if it’s not helping to gain or retain customers, we should discuss whether it can be altered to meet that goal – or removed from the process entirely.
 
In that moment, we shifted from “just” an accounting team to a team responsible for gaining and retaining customers. We supported the folks that sold to and dealt with our customers.
 
In that year, we:
 
• Eliminated over 15 different processes that had been in place for years, simply because they either hindered gaining customers or made it difficult to retain customers.
• Streamlined the reimbursement policy for travel and entertainment
• Made it easier for customers to dispute charges
• Maybe most importantly, we identified when sales people made improvements to our process, actually incorporating their workarounds into our standing processes. This not only helped to make their jobs easier, but also reduced the amount of time we spent on the phone trying to get unnecessary paperwork or approvals. We still had to make sure that we used proper expenditure documentation for tax reasons, of course, but when our partners in the business saw that we were interested in working with the sales team for efficiency, they were much more supportive of what we were trying to do.
 
The following year, our engagement scores went from the 35th percentile to the 75th percentile. But more importantly, our accounting team went from focusing on overhead to thinking about gaining and retaining customers. So, the biggest lesson I learned about employee engagement was to help our team (and myself) see our impact throughout the entire business.
 
Uncover the link between what your team does and gaining/retaining customers. Understanding that direct line of sight to the customer increases profit, productivity, AND engagement.
____________________
 
While these might not be an exact match to your organization or unique situation, you can see how some creative thinking (and a willingness to collaborate within an organization) led to BIG results. Hopefully, you can use this as a starting point for making engagement “real” for your team.

What engagement strategies have you seen work in the “real” world (and not just on paper)? Let me know, and I’d be glad to share your story!

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Frustrating Customer Service

Customer service is never one size fits all, so why do so many companies rely on pre-packaged solutions, canned responses, or rigid scripts to deal with customer problems?
 
Killing creativity one process or script at a time

Instead of giving employees the freedom to be creative when helping customers (the lifeblood of every business), far too many companies funnel all of their customers’ support needs into a rote system of predetermined fixes. Whether it’s getting the same unhelpful response from multiple people (who doesn’t love to be passed around from department to department without getting anywhere?), or the feeling that you’re just being brushed off without any real consideration, dealing with customer service can be frustrating.

You can’t find the answer where?

Recently, I was having trouble with a remote control. I spoke with customer service, and after offering one unsuccessful solution, they declared it was broken and would have to be replaced. I got this response from multiple people within the company: I would either have to bring it in or wait for a new one in the mail.

My wife spent a few minutes searching their website, and found a fix that worked. Am I really to believe that the customer service employees didn’t search their own company website for a solution to my problem? Is that even service?
 
I sometimes suspect that it just doesn’t matter to some of the corporate giants (who are often the worst offenders). Instead of taking the time to help you, they put every effort into getting you off the phone and moving on to the next caller, customer satisfaction (and retention) be damned.
 
To them, it just might be easier to snag a new customer than help an existing one.
 
Many organizations think operating this way, they can keep customer service expenses down – since the representatives don’t have to be knowledgeable about the products, or even interested in helping people in the first place.  Yet study after study shows that keeping customers is much more profitable than getting new ones.

How can organizations change the script?

With just a little training, and a healthy dose of creative freedom, companies could easily change this paradigm. If they actually valued their current customers (and front line employees), they would give their employees free rein to solve problems any way they could – and providing that kind of service is sure to increase customer retention, resulting in greater loyalty to the company, future purchases, and strong recommendations to friends and family. Why don’t companies see the value in this?
 
 
When will companies realize that keeping their customers happy is the best thing they can do for their bottom line? If they did, they’d do away with those service center scripts and ready-made phrases to appease upset customers.
 
At least I can dream…

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

What If You Thought Like The Customer?

LEAKING AND STICKING
We recently moved into a beautiful brand new apartment. Unfortunately we noticed two issues right away.
THE WASHING MACHINED LEAKED
The first time we used the washing machine it leaked. The maintenance person that came up looked at the leaking water and said,
“What should I do about that? I don’t know how to fix a washing machine. I’ll have to talk to my manager and will get back to you.”
That happened Tuesday.  We didn’t hear back AT ALL from them until the following week.  By the time everything was settled it took 4 weeks to repair.  The only time we heard from them was when I called. When they couldn’t tell by when it would be finished, I asked if what we should do about washing our clothes in the meantime.  The answer – “Bring your clothes to a laundry mat”
THE TOP DRAWER ON THE DISHWASHER STUCK SO MUCH YOU HAD TO FORCE IT CLOSED.
The dishwasher rack was something we pointed out the first day.  It took about 4 months for them to finally replace it.  When the technician came up to do it he told us – “We should have replaced this the day you pointed it out.  It is faulty”
 
Neither of these is life threatening, but they are annoying.  They are the kind of thing that will get a company a bad review on Yelp and can sink its reputation if it happens repeatedly.
 
But what if the maintenance folks actually thought about the issues they had to deal as if they were the renters.  What if they thought about the problem from the perspective of a customer?  What would they need to do differently?
 
BE EMPATHETIC

Think about how it would feel if the same issue was happening to you. You would want to be treated like an adult.  You would want to know that the person trying to help you wasn’t annoyed by your problems.
 
Most importantly, you would want your questions answered without attitude.   It may have been true that we had to take our clothes to a laundry mat.  But, it could have been said a little differently or alternatives could have been offered (maybe free usage of the building’s laundry service) or explored.
 

“No matter what procedures, processes, people or tools you put in place, empathy — the ability to identify with and understand somebody else’s feelings or difficulties — is a quality without which superior customer service simply can’t exist.” – Michael Hess
 
If you are uncaring in how you deal with a customer you can be sure that they will find other place to get their services.
 
FOLLOW UP

 Even if you don’t have the answer to a question or solution to an issue, make sure the customer knows you are working on it.  There is nothing more annoying than being the black hole of “what are they doing with my problem”
 
Imagine if it was your issue or question.  If you were paying someone to solve a problem, wouldn’t you want to know what the progress was?  Yes, yes you would.
 
Don’t wait for the customer to follow up with you.  Make it a point to be proactive and contact the customer to let them know the progress.  It will incentivize you to have something to tell them.
 

“Customer service starts the moment you have your first contact with a customer and theoretically never ends.” – Ken Mueller
 
If you don’t make sure that they customer knows what has developed/transpired on their issue they will assume nothing is happening.  Then instead of just dealing with a customer with an issue, you’ll be dealing with an irate customer with an issue.
 
ACT QUICKLY

Nothing is worse than long waits to solve problems or deal with issues.  Don’t make customers wait.    Recently there was a study done by UK Institute of Customer Service for software companies.  They proved that waiting a day doubles the cost of resolving a customer issue.
 

“research by the UK Institute of Customer Service shows that the approximate cost of resolving a customer issue within 24 hours is $4.70. But waiting just one more day causes that cost to skyrocket to approximately $7.80″. – Andrew Gori
 
Not in the computer software industry?  So what.  The longer you wait to solve issues the more likely that the issue will get worse and/or the customer will:
 
•  Will find additional things wrong
• Go somewhere else for their business
• Make sure everyone knows how rotten your company is
 
None of these are great alternatives.  The faster that an issue can be resolved the better.  If the problem was in your house or on your car, you would solve it as quickly as humanly possible.  Treat customers like you want to be treated!
 
Focus on solving customer issue quickly.  If you don’t, it is both a great way to lose customers and a great way to waste a lot of money.
 
What is your organization doing to think about issues and problems though the eyes of the customer?

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Line Of Sight – Meaningfulness Can Leaders Help Employees See Their Impact On Customers!

Organizations that take the time to make connections and meaning between their employees, their customers, and the business create benefits for all involved. One of the most important factors is getting employees engaged in their work. If they do not find any meaning in their work, they will not feel connected to the business or its customers.
 
1. LEARN AND EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE OF EACH PROJECT AND TASK AS IT RELATES TO THE CUSTOMER.
Link actions back to impact on the customer.  This may take a bit longer and may mean a little digging, but it is well worth it in the end.

2. UNDERSTAND THE LINK BETWEEN WHAT YOUR TEAM DOES AND THE CUSTOMER.
Present that to the team and discuss what it means.  How will that impact their actions?  Make it a visual that can be seen by everyone on the team.  Start to ask the question – “How will this action impact the customer?” or  “How will this assist in gaining and retaining customers”

3. STRESS OUTCOMES – EVALUATE PERFORMANCE ON OUTCOMES.
In the context of supporting, gaining and retaining customers, people will generally do the right thing.  Focus on what they accomplish, not on the steps taken to get there.  Allowing for autonomy and focusing on gaining mastery will enable teams to do what is best for the customer in the long run.

4. ENCOURAGE EMPLOYEES TO TALK ABOUT HOW THEY IMPACT THE CUSTOMER.
Employees need to understand the link between what they do and the customer.  Encouraging them to find out on their own increases the likelihood of it sticking with them and informing their future actions.

Companies that don’t focus on gaining and retaining customers are doomed to not have to worry about either sooner than they think.  How are you going to clarify the line of sight for your teams? What other actions can you take? Please let me know.

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

You’re Being Watched

The scary truth for businesses today? Customers are watching you..all the time!   
 
If you are a business owner, a business leader, or frontline employee at a factory, customers (or potential customers) are paying attention to your actions.
 
Because there is so much parity in design, service level, and quality of product one of the key differentiators is the customer’s relationship to the company or service provider. Customers more and more want to feel good about what they’re buying and from whom they’re buying it.
 
This should terrify organizations that don’t pay attention to how they treat their employees.
 
Every level of stakeholder –  shareholders, clients, investors –  is paying attention to every nuance of an organization.
 
Therefore, it matters more than ever how the  ”most important asset”, the people who work for you, are treated.
 
This is not an excuse for being lenient or lackadaisical with standards. It is about being consistent, fair, and ethical. Organizational stakeholders are interested in companies holding true to their statements or “beliefs” about employees.
 

In a recent incident at a large fast food establishment, an employee was berated by a manager in front of customers. Unfortunately for the manager, the incident happen right below a sign that read “Our employees are our most important asset”. This location and subsequently the entire chain was impacted by customer backlash. So much so, that the berating manager and the company’s president had to apologize.
 
For those organizations that exemplify the values they profess, this new scrutiny will be a welcome light on established good practices.
 
For those organizations that still believe employees are resources that are interchangeable and expendable, the thought of a watchful customer  should be very frightening.

How have you seen organizations leverage their employees to gain and retain customers?  Do you agree that customers are watching?  Let me know!

It’s Not All About The Money

It is time that all of us get into the 21st Century regarding motivation and driving high performance in the workplace.

Over 20 years of research regarding what motivates individuals and teams to perform at their highest levels have consistently shown that it is NOT money. Yes, it’s true.  Money is not a primary motivator for a highly engaged and high performance workplace.  There are many Organization Development, Human Resources and other professionals that understand this fact.  The research that leads us to this conclusion includes, but is not limited to:

  • Research from the Daniel Pink’s book Drive
  • 1. Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives.
    2. Mastery— the urge to get better and better at something that matters.
    3. Purpose — the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. NOT MONEY.

  • Research conducted by The Coffman Organization
  • 2011 Engagemetn study Towers Watson
  • Meta-data research study by Gallup
  • Forbes article by Katzenback & Khan
  • As a matter of fact, it is likely that the pursuit of money alone is a motivator that leads people and organizations down the wrong path (see Enron, Wall Street, Jimmy Hoffa, etc.). It could be why leaders layoff instead of innovate or employees skip safety for speed.  Is money important?  Yes, but it will not encourage those elements that turn into an organization’s strategic advantage(s).

    MO MONEY?

    Money plays a factor only in that people need to be paid a fair wage.  If employees are fairly compensated for the work they do and it is clear that this is the case, it generally is not a primary motivator.  The underlying issue regarding money and pay is that people really base what they believe about pay in relationship to those around them (or in their industry).  For example, if you are paying one engineer $10 and another $100 for doing the exact same job, then money is a demotivator.  However, if everyone is equally paid, relatively speaking, then pay alone is not going to make people work harder, smarter, or produce more results.

    SO NOW WHAT?

    The solution is not as simple as pointing out that money is not a motivator to an engaged and highly productive workforce.
    There are some awesome lists of actions to take created by some excellent organizations based on heaps of research.  Do some or all of the things they suggest.

    Here are three things to keep in mind:

    1. The money cop out – Do not let managers/leaders say that the reason people don’t perform is their pay.  That is a cop out.  It is a way to say its not their fault when in fact they are the people that can create a motivating environment

    2. Meaningfulness – Make sure that every single person understands what he or she does to gain and retain customers.  They must have a clear line of sight to the end customer to understand their impact.

    3. Make sure money is not a factor – Calibrate pay against your industry and ensure that you are paying employees fairly.  

    Make that known. Do NOT ask about it on employee engagement or opinion surveys.  NO ONE thinks they are getting paid enough.

    It is NOT a differentiator between low and high performance teams.

    Once money is off the table as “the reason teams aren’t productive” or “the reason morale is low” the real work of creating a highly engaged, productive and profitable organization can begin.

    How do you deal with the question about money as a motivator?  What have you seen as factors in highly productive workplaces?  Let me know!

    Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

    Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Leadership Follies – Avoiding The Customer At All Costs

“What does it matter? If I get it done by Monday, that’s not going to make or break us.”

In the hyper-competitive world of work, it does not seem logical that anyone would not feel a sense of panic or anxiety when it comes to customers.  Based on the recent economic downturn, people should see the costs of not paying attention to the customer.

And yet, the notion of understanding the impact that each employee has on gaining and/or retaining customers is foreign to many.

But why?

Although I am not a trained Harvard or University of Chicago economist, I feel it is same to assume that the key to business success is gaining more new customers and retaining more customers than your competition.

But in a recent studies, the evidence is:

  • 50% of professionals survey felt like retaining customers was not part of their job and;
  • over 75% of those same professionals indicated that gaining customers was not their job.

Everybody’s Job

So the question is, whose job is it?

Companies have dedicated sales and customer service departments, so that must be the answer, right?  Not so fast, if it is true that the most important aspects of business is to gain and keep customers, how can it not be everyone’s job?

Many highly successful companies know this to be true.  Every person in an organization must take the customer into account when completing tasks, developing projects, giving evaluations, etc.  Why?  If employees are clear about how they impact the customer, they will be inclined to drive towards high performance AND hold others within the organization to a higher standard.

How do you get people to see that?

That is the $64,000,000 question.  Over the years executives have stated concerns about getting employees into the conversation about how to gain/keep customers if they are not directly involved with them.  Hogwash.  It has been shown that employees that feel as if their work is meaningful are more productive and actively increase organizational profitability.  Employees want to make a difference, they want to work hard to produce results.  There are two tactics to unlocking this potential and make sure employees see their impact on the customer.

Line of Sight
Line of sight is the straight line that each employee has to gaining and retaining customers.  Regardless of the role, each employee needs to see that impact.  Understanding the impact their role has on the customer adds context to their actions and decisions.

Think about it like this:

Purpose

Great managers not only tell their team a task/project that needs to be done.  They tell them why it should be done at all. What is the greater overall impact, how will if affect other teams and ultimately the customer. Knowing the purpose ensure that employees don’t feel like just another cog in the machine, but an important part of the overall strategy.

Clarity

Great Leaders provide role clarity to the folks on their teams.  It is not enough to simply be clear about what a team provides to other teams, but how they impact the customer.  Whether a janitor, programmer or marketing executive each person plays a role in gaining and retaining customers.  Some roles are more direct than others, but all have an impact.  It may mean that leaders need to do some digging themselves and determine  that path.  But each person needs to see it.  Understanding the impact on the customer will add meaning and credibility to their role and the tasks associated with it.

Outcomes

Once teams (and employees) are clear about their path to the customer and the purpose of their roles it is time to turn them loose.  In Daniel Pink’s latest book Drive, he states shows how Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose enables huge positive impact on organizational outcomes.  Since purpose has already been discussed,  let’s spend just a moment on Autonomy and Mastery.

~Autonomy

Within reasonable boundaries, employees should be able to carry out their roles (tasks and projects) in the best way to support gaining and retaining customers.  Creativity stems from the autonomy to develop, think and sometimes fail.  When held to outcomes, specifically those related to gaining and retaining customers, employees will strive to do more.

Therefore, it is better to allow employees to try, experiment and possibly fail than do the same thing that has worked (or not) for the past number of years.  It s vital to get work done, but unless you are working on an assembly line, they is probably a number of different and valid ways to get things done.

~Mastery

Employees should be pushed to pursue mastery in their role.  Mastery is all about engagement. It is immersing oneself into a particular role, task or project.  Although mastery of anything is nearly impossible, the journey towards it is enlightening and enlivening.

Now what?

As a leader, there are three steps to providing line of sight for your teams and employees:

1. Learn and explain the purpose of each project and task as it relates to the customer.  Link actions back to impact on the customer.  This may take a bit longer and may mean a little digging, but it is well worth it in the end.

2. Understand the link between what your team does and the customer.  Present that to the team and discuss what that means.  How will that impact their actions?  Make it a visual that can be seen by everyone on the team.  Start to ask the question – “How will this action impact the customer?” or  “How will this help in gaining and retaining customers?”

3. Stress outcomes.  Evaluate performance on outcomes.  In the context of supporting gaining and retaining customers, people will generally do the right thing.  Focus on what they accomplish and not on the steps taken to get there.  Allowing for autonomy and focusing on gaining mastery will enable teams to do what is best for the customer in the long run.

4. Encourage employees to talk about how they impact the customer.  Employees need to understand the link between what they do and the customer.  Encouraging them to find out on their own increases the likelihood of it sticking with them and informing their future actions.

Companies that don’t focus on gaining and retaining customers are doomed to not have to worry about either sooner than they think.  How are you going to clarify the line of sight for your teams?  What other actions can you take?  Please let me know.

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The Recovery: Winning Customers Over After You Screw Up

Of course great customer service is key to gaining and retaining customers, but the real test is how you react when something goes wrong, when you screw something up so badly that it could make or break the relationship, that moment when you realize what happened was not a simple mistake but a monumental screw up…
 
That’s the truest test of your customer service.
 
The real magic is when you recover from it gracefully. If you can accomplish this, the customer is yours for life!
 
It’s called the service recovery paradox:

“The service recovery paradox is the result of a very positive service recovery, causing a level of customer satisfaction and/or customer loyalty even greater than that expected if no service failure had happened. The term was coined 1992 by Michael McCollough and Sundar Bharadwaj, who defined service recovery as, ‘…a situation in which a consumer has experienced a problem which has been satisfactory resolved, and where the consumer subsequently rates their satisfaction to be equal to or greater than that in which no problem had occurred.’” (Source: Wikipedia)

Real Life Example

There was a time when my wife and I were staying at the Palomar Hotel in Phoenix while in the process of looking for a new place to live. Our real estate agent had us on a tightly packed schedule to find a new place in a single weekend.
On our first full day of looking, we came downstairs to get our car from the valet (it’s the only way they’d let us park there), but when I handed the valet our ticket, he informed us that the overnight valet had locked the keys in our rental car!

My immediate reaction was, “HOLY $#!T? We have a busy day ahead of us! Now what do we do?”

And the moment of truth: the valet and the on duty hotel manager just handled it.

  • They sent us up to the restaurant for free breakfast
  • They called the rental company
  • They scheduled a driver to take us around all day
  • They made sure our rental car was ready for the next day
  • They apologized, and when we got back they told us how it was going to be fixed

Was it their fault that the keys were locked in the car? Yes!

But here’s the key: they handled the situation in a professional way and made us feel great throughout the process. Organizations are going to make mistakes, that’s just reality… It’s not about if, but when.

So maybe the message is not about preventing the screw up… but instead about allowing employees the room to correct errors and go above and beyond for the customer.
 
Here are some easy steps to turn these inevitable mistakes into opportunities:

1. Be proactive about telling the customer: Don’t wait for the customer to point an issue, let them know right away

2. Have a plan: Before you contact the customer, be clear about how the issue will be resolved

3. Go way above and beyond: Don’t just fix the issue, provide the customer with exceptional service and services – mistakes aren’t forgotten, but they’re forgiven if the solution makes us feel better

4. Apologize: You can never say sorry enough

5. Don’t throw anyone under the bus: This is not about covering any one person’s ass or finding a scapegoat, it’s about correcting mistakes – customers don’t care about whose fault it is, just that the problem gets solved

6. Follow up… a lot: Even when the solution is in place and the customer seems happy, make sure to follow up afterward – it’s important to make sure the solution sticks
 
What would customer experience be like if employees were empowered to fix mistakes? What if employees were rewarded for fixing screw ups and paving the way to correct them proactively?  
 
From my family’s perspective, we’ve decided this is our favorite hotel. We tell everyone about it because our experience shows how awesome the staff is. We’re a walking endorsement.

What would it mean for your business if you had more customers like that? 

Anil Saxena is the President of Cube 2.14, an organizational development consulting firm that works with clients to increase both customer and employee engagement while decreasing turnover, improving customer retention, and increasing profitability within organizations.

Saxena is a certified High Impact coach and trainer and a Joint Application Design facilitator. He is also certified by both Rush Systems and IBM as a focus group facilitator. He is an inaugural member of Northwestern University’s Learning and Organizational Change program, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

What If You Thought Like The Customer

what if you thought like the customerWe recently moved into a beautiful brand new apartment. Unfortunately we noticed two issues right away.

THE WASHING MACHINED LEAKED

The first time we used the washing machine it leaked. The maintenance person that came up looked at the leaking water and said,

“What should I do about that? I don’t know how to fix a washing machine. I’ll have to talk to my manager and will get back to you.”

That happened Tuesday. We didn’t hear back AT ALL from them until the following week. By the time everything was settled it took 4 weeks to repair. The only time we heard from them was when I called. When they couldn’t tell by when it would be finished, I asked if what we should do about washing our clothes in the meantime. The answer – “Bring your clothes to a laundry mat”

THE TOP DRAWER ON THE DISHWASHER STUCK SO MUCH YOU HAD TO FORCE IT CLOSED.

The dishwasher rack was something we pointed out the first day. It took about 4 months for them to finally replace it. When the technician came up to do it he told us – “We should have replaced this the day you pointed it out. It is faulty”

Neither of these is life threatening, but they are annoying. They are the kind of thing that will get a company a bad review on Yelp and can sink its reputation if it happens repeatedly.

But what if the maintenance folks actually thought about the issues they had to deal as if they were the renters. What if they thought about the problem from the perspective of a customer? What would they need to do differently?

BE EMPATHETIC

Think about how it would feel if the same issue was happening to you. You would want to be treated like an adult. You would want to know that the person trying to help you wasn’t annoyed by your problems.

Most importantly, you would want your questions answered without attitude. It may have been true that we had to take our clothes to a laundry mat. But, it could have been said a little differently or alternatives could have been offered (maybe free usage of the building’s laundry service) or explored.

“No matter what procedures, processes, people or tools you put in place, empathy — the ability to identify with and understand somebody else’s feelings or difficulties — is a quality without which superior customer service simply can’t exist.” – Michael Hess

If you are uncaring in how you deal with a customer you can be sure that they will find other place to get their services.

FOLLOW UP

Even if you don’t have the answer to a question or solution to an issue, make sure the customer knows you are working on it. There is nothing more annoying than being the black hole of “what are they doing with my problem”

Imagine if it was your issue or question. If you were paying someone to solve a problem, wouldn’t you want to know what the progress was? Yes, yes you would.

Don’t wait for the customer to follow up with you. Make it a point to be proactive and contact the customer to let them know the progress. It will incentivize you to have something to tell them.

“Customer service starts the moment you have your first contact with a customer and theoretically never ends.” – Ken Mueller

If you don’t make sure that they customer knows what has developed/transpired on their issue they will assume nothing is happening. Then instead of just dealing with a customer with an issue, you’ll be dealing with an irate customer with an issue.

ACT QUICKLY

Nothing is worse than long waits to solve problems or deal with issues. Don’t make customers wait. Recently there was a study done by UK Institute of Customer Service for software companies. They proved that waiting a day doubles the cost of resolving a customer issue.

“research by the UK Institute of Customer Service shows that the approximate cost of resolving a customer issue within 24 hours is $4.70. But waiting just one more day causes that cost to skyrocket to approximately $7.80″. – Andrew Gori

Not in the computer software industry? So what. The longer you wait to solve issues the more likely that the issue will get worse and/or the customer will:

  • Will find additional things wrong
  • Go somewhere else for their business
  • Make sure everyone knows how rotten your company is

None of these are great alternatives. The faster that an issue can be resolved the better. If the problem was in your house or on your car, you would solve it as quickly as humanly possible. Treat customers like you want to be treated!

Focus on solving customer issue quickly. If you don’t, it is both a great way to lose customers and a great way to waste a lot of money.

What is your organization doing to think about issues and problems though the eyes of the customer?

Picture thanks to http://www.8020.net/Don-isms.asp

Does Technology Really Make You More Productive?

count-coins-300x180Technological advancements just keep on coming, and all the while, we tout them as “more efficient” and “better.” In many ways, though, the technologies seem to only take care of “keep the lights on” tasks, mundane or routine undertakings that once “wasted” precious human time.

Are we really any more productive though? What do these technologies do to our ability to collaborate and innovate?

I recently took a trip to the grocery store with a year’s worth of change, and after about 30 seconds of dumping coins into a machine, I was given a total and a receipt for my 10 kilos worth of coinage. When I was younger, I would bring this same pile of change to the bank, and wait patiently while the teller spent 10 minutes counting it out. During this time, my parents would chat casually with one of the bank employees.

While this wasn’t a huge transaction, or even particularly important business for the bank, manually completing the task allowed time for relationships to be built between my parents (the customers) and various bank employees (the business).

Now the automatic coin-counting machine has replaced the teller for this task. Yes, that bit of technology frees up some time for the teller and allows him or her to “get more done,” but at the end of the day, is it really making any more money for the bank?

Getting More Done With Less

With all of these technological breakthroughs, most of us are able to be very self-sufficient in the workplace. We can accomplish dull tasks more quickly and more accurately than in years past. With that tech-based efficiency, however, we’ve adopted this idea that the same amount of work can be done by fewer people – and therein lies the problem. It’s true that technology allows us to be more “productive,” but what are the underlying costs to the organization?

A recent client of mine, an information technology group, reduced its team of database engineers from 55 to 45 employees. Because they are exceptional people with state-of-the-art technology, they were able to maintain the same level of customer and project support even with the reduction in staff. There was no noticeable drop off in performance or reliability. There were, however, some unintended consequences:

  • The team has little to no ability to take on new projects
  • Team member get over 400 emails every day, and that’s not including phone calls, instant messages, and texts
  • Career development is stagnant – not intentionally, but because there is no time to dedicate to it
  • Database interruptions, though rare, now take almost 30% longer to resolve

While the current workload wasn’t impacted, the reduced workforce left zero bandwidth available to take on anything outside of their narrowly defined roles. Customers were mildly disappointed in this lack of expandable service, and other IT teams found the group difficult to work with – because the level of stress (with no prospect of relief) has the team stretched tight like a drum.

Now What?

Instead of looking at how to get more done with fewer people, organizations need to start asking themselves, “what’s best for the company?”

In an emergency, sometimes layoffs can’t be avoided, but it’s worth considering that a team with adequate resources and enough members is far more capable of scaling to meet demand. When every member of a workforce is operating at maximum capacity, there is no room for additional polish on a task, no room for an expanded market share, and perhaps most importantly, no time to devote to solving problems and innovating within the company itself.

Instead of looking for ways to do more with less, companies should simply be look at how to do things better. The push to “increase productivity” is a false measure of success, because efficiency is not necessarily akin to quality. Productivity is not just accomplishing more with fewer resources, or in less time, but rather the collective result of taking on greater workloads, improving efficiency, and delivering a higher quality result at the end of the process.

There is an assumption that technology has made organizations more productive, but is this really the case?

They may be able to get the same amount of work done with fewer people, but what about taking on more work?

What about coming up with innovative solutions to customer issues? What about fostering relationships?

At what point does squeezing efficiency out of a company become strangulation? Does Technology Really Make You More Productive?

Picture thanks to http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/775996/Quick-change.aspx

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