We all like to indulge a bit from time to time. Why not indulge your teams and staff today? Give everyone a day off, an hour off, or buy them lunch when they don’t expect it. Take everyone out to the movies or an event. The point is to make everyone feel special.

Yes, it may cost you some money and productivity time, but my guess is that it will be well worth it. Your team will feel a sense of value that they are not merely machines that make your business run, but that they are an integral part of a team working toward a common goal.

If you are taking everyone out for a group event, the teamwork will increase exponentially because everyone will get to relate to each other outside of the office.

If you are giving everyone some time off, either a few hours or an entire day, they will most likely show up for work the next day feeling a bit more refreshed and motivated because they used the “free time” to relax, or to attack their personal “to do” list.

As a manager, I wanted everyone to feel special for a bit. We had just come through a really tough week and they deserved some recognition. I treated everyone in my office to chocolate covered strawberries one day. It was a small cost, but felt like a true indulgence to everyone in the office. We all took about 30 minutes to just enjoy a treat, not answer the phones, and to feel a little luxurious in the middle of the day. Once we got back to business, everyone was smiling a bit more and there was far less tension and stress than on a normal day.

Once, when we had gotten through a particularly busy season made worse by being short staffed, we gave everyone $75 gift cards to be used for dinner and a movie. These were presented to everyone my directors with sincere thanks for all of their hard work and effort. The staff decided to go out together to dinner and the movie, rather than go as individuals.

So, whether it be a small cost of chocolate covered strawberries, a larger cost of a concert, movie, meals, or the gift of time off, practice some charity in your office today. Make everyone feel special.

My bet is that you will find a more positive team, everyone will feel refreshed, and everyone will treat your external customers better than ever.

Dear Customer Service Leader:

It’s us, your staff.  You’ve been talking to us lately about how we should focus on improving customer service with our company.  So, in order to do that, we’ve compiled a list of things that we need from you to help us deliver excellent customer service.

OUR TOP 10 WISH LIST TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Tell us what is expected of us. We have no way of knowing what it is you want us to do or how to act if you don’t tell us what you expect.

Communicate with us. By opening the lines of communication as to how we are doing, what you like or what you don’t, we can tailor what we do to the expectations.

Empower us. The more power you relinquish to us, the better able we are to serve our customers needs.

Recognize and reward me. We don’t need a party thrown for us every time we do something well, but it is certainly nice to know that you notice when we do things right.“I noticed how you took the extra time to really help that customer.  I like the way you handled that.”  Those words will carry me for a long time.

Treat us the way you want us to treat the customer. When you give us the service you’d like us to deliver to our customers, we’ll know exactly what to do.

Hold me accountable. When I know that my compensation will reflect my efforts to develop positive customer relationships, I’ll do everything I can to deliver quality customer service.

Help me manage customer expectations. Please work with us to let customers know when they can reasonably expect products to be delivered, to see results, or know what to expect.  When we say, “You should receive this soon.” Soon can mean tomorrow or next week, depending upon the customer’s perception.

Support my decisions that we make using good judgment. Know that we make the best decisions we can at the time with the information available to us.  It increases our confidence when you support us.  Yes, we will make mistakes sometimes. We promise we will learn from those and not repeat them if at all possible.

Walk a Day In Our Shoes. Could you take an hour a week and do our jobs?  If you answered the phones once in a while, made  the deliveries, scheduled shipments, prepped the procedure, you would know the challenges and needs that we have.  We would also know that you truly appreciate the work that we are doing.

Set Customer Service Minimums. Help us set some Customer Service Minimum standards that we all know are the very least  we will do for our customers. This will encourage us to revisit our service and continually increase the level of service that we provide.

These requests are really customer retention strategies that will help us to develop profitable customer relationships.  We know that without our customers, there is no business.  Without the business, we don’t have jobs.  In today’s economy, good jobs are hard to come by and we sincerely appreciate having our jobs.  We would love to work with you to build customer loyalty and improve the customer’s experience when they do business with us.

Sincerely,

Your Staff

Dear Employer,

It’s us… your staff.  You’ve been talking a lot about serving our customers well and doing everything we can to retain their business based on service. You’ve told us that we can differentiate ourselves from our competitors through service.  Our customer service skills can certainly be fine tuned to make our customers fall in love with us.  In fact, we all want to make our customers go out of their way to do business with us because they love the way we treat them.  It’s the relationships that we have with our customers that make our jobs as enjoyable as they are.

We understand that by serving our customers well, they will come back to us year after year anytime they have a need for our product or service.  We also know that once we have the loyalty of our customers, they will also begin referring their associates and friends to us.  That means we will have even more customers to serve. And, when it comes right down to it, when we have customers, we have jobs.  No customers = No business, No jobs.

In order to deliver the best customer service possible, we need something from you.  Over the next few days, we’ll be sending you specific items that we need help with in order to better serve our customers.

This means that as our employer, we need you to provide us the skill set and training that we ask for.  Communication goes both ways, so we will do our part and tell you what we need.

Thanks for listening,

Your Staff (Your internal customers)

This is a tongue-in-cheek letter from staff telling their employer that they need some help in delivering excellent customer service.  Many times, employers require their staff to deliver good customer service and expect them to have the customer service skills necessary, but the staff is left to figure out how to do it on their own.  The next series of blog posts will list some of the requests that staff frequently make and the way that employers can fulfill those requests.

Please take the time to comment on this post and let me know more about you…

I’d like to know your name, the type of business you are in, the number of staff in your company, and what some of their biggest challenges are in delivering excellent customer service.  This way, I can be sure that these posts are relevant to you. I’m interested in developing relationships with the readers of this blog and to be sure to write about the topics you find most interesting.

Looking forward to the first request from staff…..

Everyone knows the buzzword and implications of being “Customer Centric.”  It means to focus on your customers and keep your customers in mind when evaluating processes and products within your organization.  And, everyone knows that without our customers, we would not be in business at all.

However, what many companies fail to remember is that they have the most important customers within their very own walls – their own teams and associates.

Before we can even hope to meet the needs of our external customers, it is essential that we exceed the needs of our own internal customers.

Be certain that you are providing the environment necessary for your staff to learn about your company and product, receive the training that they need, and can grow and learn in the areas of interest to them.  Ask your associates frequently what types of training or education they would like to receive – be it about products, services, or internal functioning of your organization.  The more information you are willing to share and provide, the higher ownership they will feel and relay that feeling onto your customers.

As I have been trying to convey in previous posts, the deeper the relationships with your customers, the higher satisfaction levels you will find. This same principle applies to your internal customers on a much deeper level.  By taking care of your own teams, they will gladly take care of your external customers.