Successful customer service and football.  What do they have in common?  They both rely heavily on huddles.  Think about it.  In football, the huddle is when the play and strategy is discussed.  It’s when they make sure that everyone has what they need to make the play and score the touchdown.

Customer Service Huddles Increase Customer Satisfaction

The exact same thing goes down in a huddle at the office. The manager, supervisor, or team leader gathers everyone for just a short time and makes sure that everyone knows what is needed to make that day go well for both the customers and the company.

The leader needs to make sure that everyone knows what is expected of them.  All team members must understand their role in the big picture and needs to speak up if they need help or assistance.

It’s during the huddle that the day is mapped out and challenges are prepared for.

I strongly advise you to have 5-7 minute huddles DAILY with your teams. This should be part of the DNA of your business, team, or office.  The huddles need to happen daily and consistently.  As a leader, you need to ensure that they be short in duration and full of relevant information.   They should cover what is being worked on, appointments for the day, any current customer issues, anything that is required or needed for a project to be completed, and requests for information and assistance.

Remember, prepare your team for success by giving them a game plan for the day.  Find out what is needed, what should happen, what to do in case the unexpected happens, offer assistance to those who may need it, keep those working on projects  accountable.  Find out about the challenges facing your team.  Be brought up to speed on customer issues and internal department issues.  With huddles, these should essentially act as a game plan for the day.

Using huddles in the workplace makes everyone a winner.

Walking the Walk

Here’s an excerpt from the action guide Creating a Customer Centric Culture that is soon to be launched.  I’m posting this not only to get your feedback, but also because it is the crux of several conversations I’ve had with clients this week.  We’ve been improving customer service training and focusing on customer satisfaction.  It all comes back to the way that you want customers to feel when doing business with your company.  The experience is what will keep them coming back or life, or what will lose them forever to your competition.

The focus of my conversation with clients this past week was to have the Core Values of the company transparent to everyone – staff and customers alike.  It is essential that everyone understand them in order to live by them and to best serve the customer and the company.  Leadership must be committed to this process and serve as the example in all areas.  Staff watch and learn at all times.  Yes, they even judge when we make mistakes.  The point is to lead by example because teams will do exactly what they see their leaders do.

Now that you have your Core Values, broadcast them to your teams.  Share these values with your staff.  Tell them that you value their efforts to uphold these values while interacting with customers and with each other.

Your staff will appreciate the fact that they know what is important to the organization.  They need to know this in order to know what is expected of them and how to best serve the customer and fulfill their own responsibilities.

During meetings and events, hang posters or banners with these core values on them. Some companies even go so far as to have cards with their ideal culture and core values printed and laminated for staff to carry with them at all times while at work.  If you are able to have these printed on your payroll, that is an excellent way to reinforce to your team that they are being compensated for their role in providing a customer centric culture and demonstrating the core values of the company.

While it may seem that they are being flooded with these core values, that is exactly the point.  They need to be the DNA of your company.  Staff needs to be able to recite these in their sleep, practice them, live them, teach them, and demonstrate them with customers.

Again, all of this is for naught without the commitment of the leadership team to exemplify, reinforce, and practice these core values.  You must talk the talk, and walk the walk.  It’s all about accountability and leadership by example.

How many times have you encountered leadership that has said one thing, but they themselves have done another or have not promoted the very ideals that the company has promoted?

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

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are most likely more than aware of the trials that Toyota has had recently in regard to their gas pedals.  It has gotten so bad that they have stopped production of affected vehicles, had dealers in a “Stop Sell” mode, and have suffered financial losses as a result in the decrease in sales.

We all know that no company is perfect. All of us in one way or another has had an issue with a product or service that we either deliver or have purchased.  My word of advice is this – the problem or challenge does not define you or your company, but the way you handle it does.  If you do nothing to correct the situation and continue on the same path, your reputation will follow the same path.  However, if you take ownership of the situation, make a public acknowledgement of the issues, and take steps to correct it as quickly as possible, you will survive the short term losses.

Toyota has recently aired the following commercial.  I think that they nail service recovery right on the mark.  They acknowledge that they have “not been living up to the standards” that we’ve come to expect from them.  “That’s why 172,000 Toyota employees are dedicated to making things right.”  “We are working around the clock to ensure we build vehicles of the highest quality to restore your faith in our company.”

All of these statements are exactly what the public wants to hear.  Sure, there are some Toyota customers that will leave, but most will return.  Certainly, there will be some potential customers that will be romanced by the offers that some of the American car manufacturers are making to gain previous Toyota customers.

My feeling is that the majority of Toyota customers and many new potential customers will take notice of the way that Toyota has handled themselves.  Was there information available previously that could have corrected the issue? I don’t know, but I am glad to see that  this company is not pushing it under the rug and hoping it would go away.

I’ve included the commercial here for you to see the message that they are working to fix the problem and gain back the trust of the customers.

As I was discussing this with a friend the other day, he made the correlation between a similar circumstance in recent pop-culture.  He was speaking of Tiger Woods and David Letterman.  Both have been caught in less than ideal circumstances with women other than their wives.  David Letterman owned up to it on his show.  Yes, most likely he did so only because he was being blackmailed, but the point is that he made a public acknowledgement of it, apologized to his family, those involved, and his fans.  As a result, his ratings have actually increased since then. 

Tiger Woods on the other hand has not been seen or heard from publicly since the scandal.  As a result, many of his sponsors have dropped him and many friends of his have publicly expressed their disappointment.  True, he will always be one of the best golfers in history and, over time, the public will forget and move on to the next scandal.  But he never owned up to or accepted responsibility for his actions.

Maybe Tiger Woods’ camp should contact Toyota’s public relations firm.   Just a thought………..

Dear Manager,

In order for us to better understand how to improve the customer service that we are delivering, we do need you to tell us and show us exactly what you would like us to do.

How do you want us to act?  Is there a specific way that we should greet our customers?  What are the key phrases that you feel are important to developing the kind of customer relationship you desire?

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.  We all think of ourselves as pretty nice people and think that overall we deliver good service.

However, if we are going to be evaluated on the level of customer service that we are delivering, we are really taking a shot in the dark unless you’ve clearly shown and told us what the standards are.  We will follow the example of how you treat us.  When you treat us well, we know that the customers should be treated equally as well.  If you treat us poorly, we will know that you are focusing mainly on the product or service we provide, not developing a relationship geared toward customer loyalty.

Really, without specific customer service standards clearly explained to us, it will be purely luck if we are able to have customers like us.  The customer may not consistently receive the same level of service from one employee to the next if we aren’t all given the same expectations.

Best regards,

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…..

Guest Blogger – Jennifer V. Miller

Many companies aspire to customer service greatness, but few achieve it. Why? One reason is that it’s not part of the company’s culture. Oh, sure, it’s on banners in the break room and the company hired that fun inspirational speaker for “Customer Service Week.”   But it’s not really part of the culture—not ingrained in the company DNA. Why? Well, one reason is that it can be difficult for the company’s leadership to really, truly get behind a customer service culture. It takes hard work on the leadership team’s part to bring life to and sustain an organizational culture that’s customer-centric. Leaders have many other items competing for their attention and “customer service” often gets left to the front-line employees. That’s a big mistake on any leader’s part.

Here are three ways leaders can help shape and promote the customer experience:

Model it. You have to be a good role model. If you don’t return calls, are abrupt when someone questions you or don’t deliver on promises, would you really expect otherwise of your customer-facing employees? There’s just no way around it. The “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” mentality won’t cut it. Creating a customer-centric culture starts with leaders who model it. All other things flow from that.

Talk about it. Already have a set service motto or value statement? Great—talk it up! Saying it once or twice has very little effect. You’d be surprised how often you need to discuss providing quality service. Caution: no pontificating about how the customer is always right or any other windbag speech with platitudes. It’s about conversation. Engage employees about what they see as key customer service issues in your department. What’s working? What’s not? Be truly open to what your employees have to say about the customer experience. After all, who has the majority of the data? They do and they’ll share it if you actively listen.

Celebrate it. Your overall corporate culture will dictate what’s appropriate for “celebrating”. Regrettably, most efforts come across as cheesy events, with front-line employees secretly rolling their eyes. Even so, don’t let the naysayers stop you from genuinely saying “thanks” to employees who serve the customer well. Above all, employees want to know that their efforts matter. Sometimes a small token of thanks goes a lot further than the grand gesture.

Leaders who keep these three actions foremost in their daily to-do list will be far ahead in the game for creating a strong service culture in their organization.

Jennifer V. Miller is the Managing Partner of SkillSource, a firm that provides consulting, online courseware, train-the-trainer programs and workshop facilitation in the areas of communications, management, supervisory skills and team development. She can be reached at: jmiller@people-equation.com.