Fabled Service - Ordinary Acts, Extraordinary Outcomes
- Betsy Sanders
This is what we are here for: to serve and to be kind.
Service is fabled when it is quite simply the way things are done at your company.
The key is the employees’ freedom to focus on the vision: excellent customer service under all circumstances.
Commitment: to make service everything your company is and does.
Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.
The challenge to be of service or to be extraordinarily kind brings out the best in everybody.
Fabulous service is quire simply ordinary people doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Because you have been part of an occurrence that has been lifted beyond the ordinary, you begin to tell others about it. In the telling, you are celebrating both the extraordinary attitude of the caregiver and your own importance in being the object of such attention.
Don’t all companies have reputations? Truly no. Only the best and the worst.
Customers talk if you give them something to talk about.
Studies show that an upset customer tells an average of ten other people about an unhappy experience.
No advertising is as trusted as the spontaneous testimony of delighted customers.
Service only becomes significant when it is so meaningful to your customers that they articulate and proclaim it.
Fabled service goes way beyond the norm. because the service is extraordinary, customers talk about it. As customers talk about the service, it sets a standard for the associates of the company, including its leadership, to live up to. It also establishes a benchmark for the industry and eventually for business in general.
The average company loses about 20% of its customers annually because of poor service.
A company that believes it exists to serve the customer develops its unique resources in partnership with its employees – to take very particular care of its customers.
The customer is the reason for our business.
Observed techniques are not the process of services, the customer, they are the outcome of a process that has its origin in the commitment of the leader.
There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest religion.
POWER OF RIGHT VISION
Attracts commitment and energizes people
Creates meaning in workers lives
Establishes a standard of excellence
Bridges the present and future.
-Burt Nanus.
Do not regulate your consideration of service to the quality of interaction that takes place at the point and time of sale…you have to start to think about your service as your customer does; service is everything your company is and does.
Commit to leading fabled service that is so meaningful that your customers proclaim it.
Commitment : To be of service is all that you do.
Make a habit of service.
Learn form service legends
Set expectations and model behavior.
Excellence is an act won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit
-Aristotle
What habits do service legends practice?
Process and live out their vision
Take action
Teach and learn, throughout life
Set high expectations for themselves/others
Live what they want their company to become
Develop authentic commitments.
Your best people will respond to what you actually do, what you evidently measure, and what you openly reward – every single time.
The most effective leadership I could exercise was not in what I said, no matter how compellingly, but in how I acted.
The major challenge in taking care of the customer is you never become so good at it that you can quit working on it.
Commitment: to act on the belief that you are in business to serve customers.
Perhaps the cardinal rule of customer service is : know the customer.
Half life of a complaint
Prescription for fabled service
There isn’t one standard set of service expectations that applies across the board.
It is only when you exceed customers’ expectations that they will give you credit for providing exceptional service.
A moment of truth is any interaction a customer has with our business.
Every part of the facility, every employee, and every product or process that bears the company’s name reflect the level of respect you have for your customer.
The folks on the front lines – the ones who actually talk to the customer – are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there.
Benchmarking guidelines.
Treasure the goodwill of your customers as if it were a valuable account. Your goal is to always make deposits into that account, adding more than you ever take out and paying unexpected dividends.
Develop a simple system to elicit constant feedback.
Involve front line employees in information gathering.
Ask open ended questions; accept responses seriously – and gratefully.
Incorporate what you learn from customers into strategies
Respond personally to all suggestions and criticisms
Under-promise and over deliver.
Keep decision making as close to the customer as possible.
Analyze business from customers’ perspective: use your products and services; visit your locations.
Commit to continuous improvement. Always surpass your best performance, as each experience sets a new benchmark for the customer.
Commitment: to serve those who serve the customer.
When transforms slave – like labor into exalted service are the amount of skills required to provide it; the importance of the need or desire served; the relationship between the server and the served; and prevailing religious, moral and social opinion.
Your lowest - paid, shortest-tenured, entry-level employee generally has more interactions with the customer than you do.
To lead your people to fabled service, you must serve them well by hiring the right people, providing meaningful work, preparing them well for their jobs, giving them on-going support, and then finally, by getting out of their way.
Expect each job to be well defined.
WANTED: PEOPLE POWER
We are looking for people to work with us on our new venture
People to sell, and people to take care of salespeople
People to lead and people to follow
People to work hard and to take pride in their work.
People who respect themselves and enjoy others
People who are honest, industrious, caring and dedicated
People who want to succeed and want others to succeed too.
People with vision and the determination to live their vision.
Expect every employee to work well with people.
Expect every employee to work with your customers.
Provide meaningful work:
Before you ask people to do something, you have to help them to be something.
To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business and your business in your heart.
Good enough never is, and better is only acceptable if there is commitment to make it best. When dealing with the customer, you are only as good as your last encounter.
Maintain High standards
Leaders of successful companies involve everyone in understanding why they are in business and then in planning how to move that business forward. Thus, if everyone is responsible for service, everyone has to be held to high standards. Never apologize for demanding the best from your people.
Standards have to be absolute. The execution of those standards can be as personal and varied as the people involved, but customers and employees alike must always know what to expect.
People are self-motivated and only need from management:
Ask yourself how you can better serve the needs of your direct customers, so that they can do the same for their customers.
Make certain that there are no jobs labeled "customer service". Service is everyone’s.
Get to know the people at all levels of your company and allow them to get to know you.
Be alert to what makes you a happy customer, then apply what you learn to your company.
Equip your people to deliver fabled service: share the vision, train them in the basics, provide them with all of the necessary tools, give them feedback, and get out of their way.
Commitment: To design every part of your business with service as desired outcome.
Develop all systems with service in mind.
Make it simple for customers to do business with you.
Think through all processes deploying resources: human, material, financial.
Instill the thrill of service.
At the core of every great customer service organization is a package of systems and a training program to inculcate those programs into the soul of that company.
Managing interactions is not the same as managing things. Since the outcome of a customer interaction is totally in the hands of each service provider, the system should be designed to support and enhance these individual interactions.
The difference lies not so much in the people, but in the management.
Major customer turnoffs:
Customers value some combination of the following:
Service has to be forethought, not an afterthought. Build service into all parts of your operations from the beginning, rather than frustrating yourself, your people, and your customers by trying to engineer it along the way.
The hallmarks of systems that scale the highest peaks of service are simplicity and relevance.
You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world.. but it requires people to make the dream a reality.
To be energized, everyone in the company needs to know where it has been, where it is going, and how they can help it get there.
Spirited competition can make small achievements worthwhile and seemingly impossible dreams the standard.
The key is not the size of the prize, but the passion it evokes.
Providing an environment in which employees can focus on serving the customer is often a major step toward improving performance.
The work environment should be a pleasant, safe, attractive place for employees and customers alike.
If fabled companies have a single ‘secret’ weapon, it is this: leadership at all levels that champions quality service at every opportunity.
People’s performance from company to company has more to do with the quality of the management than the innate quality of the people themselves.
The front line can’t lie: the superstructure reveals the infrastructure.
To thrill to the care of your customers means to have what they want when they want it.
Design service into the system from the start.
The hallmarks of systems that support service are simplicity and relevance.
Service becomes systematic when designed into the organization’s structure, processes, goals and expectations, and work environment.
Redesign your organizational structure to reflect your commitment to the customer. Involve all constituents in the process.
Collaborate on the vision and mission of the company. Strategies and goals should be consistent with the reason you are in business.
Test strategies, products and processes against customer perceptions and before implementing.
Always ask: "How can we do this better?" then listen to the answers.
Establish an ongoing forum for your employees to communicate what works and what does not.
Eradicate red tape – with a vengeance.
Commitment: To be in business to serve society
Demonstrate personal integrity
Act in accordance with your principles
Serve society
To give real service, you must add something, which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.
The key to your impact as a leader is your own sincerity. Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.
You make impassioned speeches to your employees about their importance, but you do not know them by name, not even the old-timers.
Integrity is authenticity
Integrity is consistency
Integrity is ethics
Experience and history show that you can lead service excellence and every other blessing, both to the individual and the state – Socrates
We are not in business to make maximum profit for our shareholders. We are in business for only one reason – to serve society. If business does not serve society, society will not long tolerate our profits, not even our existence.
Where there is dissonance between your company’s principles and your personal principles, align with the higher value.
Communicate your standards clearly, both in word and deed
Insist on adherence to standards; it is imperative for success at your company.
Trust your instincts. You will feel balanced when you operate with integrity.
Have your heart in your work and your work in your heart.
Commitment: to create and sustain the vision
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality, the last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.
Get a good idea, and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until its done and done right. – Walt Disney
In the final resolve, enjoy true success in your life: the success that comes through supporting the success of others.
Work with people to set and achieve high goals and exceed personal expectations.
Delegate authority and responsibility
Clear hurdles to success
Encourage risk taking
Provide all tools necessary for success
Motivate through inspiring vision
See the best in and expect the best from everyone
Recognize accomplishments
Show appreciation