I was in Baltimore, Maryland last month working with a client, when he asked me why he couldn't get at least 90 percent performance from his people. I asked him why he would allow only 90 percent to be good enough to take care of his customers, his most valuable asset. The look on his face was like I had just told him he had cancer. He asked me to explain my "rude" remark.
If 99.9 percent was good enough, 12 newborns would be given to the wrong parents daily. At least 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes would be shipped each year. On average, two planes loaded with passengers would attempt an unsafe landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport every day. Over 300 entries in the Webster's Dictionary would be misspelled, and 291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly during the year. That is what 99.9 percent looks like. Think of how many customers would leave your business with the wrong information about your standards of excellence if 90 percent is all you want. Not the best way to become a multi-billion dollar business.
There are businesses and people who perform at 100 percent every day. For example, last year my wife had heart surgery at the Stanford Medical Center. (You can read about the Ulimate Customer Srvice here ) Our experience at the Stanford Medical Center was positive and successful thanks to the staff and medical personnel - their skill, medical care, and personal attention far exceeded our expectations. I also just recently had the privilege of playing golf at the famous Pebble Beach. This is not an easy place to get on to play; in fact, you must stay in their lodge and make your reservations far in advance. The cost is $495 per person to play one of the top courses in the world. By the way, I was the guest of my good friend Kevin Rude who is great example of customer service leadership for Brothers Power Sports was celebrating his 50th
birthday. The service in the lodge and on the entire property was extraordinary. But, more than that, it seemed to be normal behavior for them. They always addressed me as "Mr. Jackson" and each time they said my name, it was as though they were honored to have the privilege. Everyone working - from the gift shops to the club house, from the grounds-keepers on the pristine courses to the waitresses in the café - conducted themselves at the 100 percent standard.
As I was playing golf, I was thinking about my Baltimore client. What was he missing? What did Stanford Medical Center and Pebble Beach have that he didn't? While walking around the most beautiful 18 holes of golf in the world that I have ever played, I was finally able to sum it up in one word: Confidence. Pebble Beach is known to be the best and each staff member there takes pride in his or her ability and to handle their responsibilities at the highest (100 percent) level. They are confident they are the best in the world at what they do. They are confident that their teammates will uphold the 100 percent standard 100 percent of the time - not 99.9 percent of the time. They are confident that when you leave Pebble Beach, you will remark with enthusiasm and confidence that your expectations were exceeded that day; and you most certainly will come back to experience their confidence in customer service again. Confidence comes from expecting and being the best.
Back to my Baltimore client's question: How to get 100 percent out of your team?
There are three keys to cultivating and maintaining confidence in your team:
1. As a leader, you must hire the best people available and you must treat them as though they are the best in the world. When leaders treat their people the way they want their customers treated, you get confidence and confidence spreads. If you have people who are not best in class, then you have three choices. First, you can do nothing. If you choose this option read no further, just shut up and accept that you are mediocre. Oh, and pray you are not on one of those planes landing unsafely at O'Hare. Second is to communicate your expectation to your people and then train, train and train some more until your expectation becomes the norm. The third option is to terminate and find a better replacement and, in this economy, that should be easy. No excuses.
2. Treat each customer as if he or she were a Head of State. If the Queen of England or the President of the United States walked into you business, wouldn't you roll out the red carpet? If you argue that you can't be expected to do that every time, then I guess you will not be in the same winner's league as Pebble Beach.
3. Model an excellent example that deserves to be imitated. As the leader, you model the way to find the positives in your business, market, products, locations and even the weather. Leaders who believe that now is the best time to succeed will ultimately be called the exception to the rule. Pebble Beach was sold out on a cold and rainy Monday in December with the wind blowing 20-30 miles an hour. You, as a leader, expect and demonstrate a 100-percent success rate no matter what the conditions.
Now I ask you, how is your confidence? Are you waiting for the government to fix things? Are you looking for the magic dust that makes everything a 100 percent success? Or, will you be confident when go to sleep tonight, that this day you gave 100 percent in all that you did. Confidence is knowing that your team is the best, your product is the best, and on this day that the Lord has given you, you gave it 100 percent.
Many who read this article ponder what they might do differently to give 100 percent and ultimately justify all the reasons why it can't happen. Then there are those who will read this and know they are a leader of, or a part of, an elite group who are confident and live their life at 100 percent. The biggest tragedy is to have missed your goal by one tenth of one percent because you only gave 99.9 percent of yourself. Which are you? Tell me please.
Discover the secrets to leadership confidence with Jim Jackson's Leadership program.
Customer Service Equals Revenue
All work is part of a process. In businesses the intent to generate revenue is the process of delivering a product or service that a customer is willing to trade real dollars to acquire. Your customer service processes and the people who deliver them are the only real differentiator that you have with your competition. The most important aspect of any job is to create and keep loyal customers. Regardless of how distant ones' work is from the end customer, that specific work impacts the overall experience the customer has with your business. Every step in the process of serving an ultimate external customer has an internal "up-stream" supplier (i.e. sales, service finance) and an internal "down-stream" (parts, operations, or collections) customer. This process works in either direction between leadership, departments or personnel each having the opportunity to be the supplier or the customer.
Internal customers and suppliers are entitled to the same level of respect and service as external customers. The critical moment of quality customer service for internal customers is the hand-off between an internal supplier (service) and internal customer (sales). If we are going to respect and serve an external customer to the extent we create customer loyalty, all workers must be dedicated to serving the internal customers.
In the retail culture each interaction with a customer, internal or external, is a "moment of truth", it cannot be repeated and it will have a lasting impact in the mind of the customer. Every behavior that impacts a customer has consequences regarding their view of the level of and focus on customer service. The future behavior of the customer depends on the consequences of their past and present experiences with your company.
The lack of effective, efficient customer service is expensive, in terms of real dollars, to an organization and impacts the bottom-line. The average business spends six times more to attract new customers then it does to keep old ones. Customer loyalty is worth 10 times the price of the average purchase. Businesses having low service quality average only a 1% return on sales and lose market share at an average rate of 2% per year. Business with high service quality average a 12% return on sales, gain market share at the rate of 6% per year, on average, with significantly higher prices.
The lack of effective, efficient customer service has a negative impact on the customer base and acquiring new customers. 4% of unhappy customers complain, 96% of unhappy customers go away angry without complaining. For every customer complaint, there are an average of 26 more people with problems, 6 of these problems are severe. Of those who complain, 56-70% will do business with the company again, if, the complaint is resolved. 96% will do business again if the complaint is resolved quickly, at the moment. The average person who has a complaint tells 9-10 people. 13% tell 20 or more people. Customers whose complaint has been resolved tell 5-6 people. Only 4% of business less-than-satisfied customer complaints reach a person who can do something about it.
Why Excellent or "top-box" customer service is rare? Employees do not know the basics of customer service. The "moments of truth" are not properly identified or managed well. The measurement and reward system does not compensate for customer care. The organizational culture does not value and support customer service. The procedures and policies do not support customer service. Leadership does not value the customer and the intent behind customer service. In other words it means that leadership does not practice customer service internally between departments and as a result their actions become the norm or model.
It is a challenge when customers and personnel often lack candor and the willingness to tell the truth about their dissatisfaction. Business environments don't make it easy or a feeling of being safe to complain both for the external and internal customer. They do not know how to register a complaint and they believe it will not do any good because they fear the service provider will retaliate.
A customer complaint has two components - the task problem and the personal or relationship problem. Fix the customer relationship problem and then the customer problem task problem. The reasons behind customer complaints are well known and easily observed.
-Lies - Blatant dishonesty or unfairness by the supplier employees
-Disrespected - Customers are seen as "stupid" or dishonest and dealt with accordingly by the suppliers people
-Broken promises - Careless or mistake-prone service, not showing up as scheduled.
-No commitment - Employees who lack the desire, power or authority to solve basic issues.
-Waiting - Making people wait in line - too few lines or staff to serve the customers
-Rote service - Going through the motions with no heart or soul, emotionless, impersonal service.
-Silence - Do not bother to communicate in full with customer
-Bare minimum - Not taking the extra step, doing the least amount of work, absolute minimum of energy to meet the customers wants
-Disconnected employees - clueless employees who do not know the importance of customers to the organization, do not have the business acumen. Do not have the important answers to questions and appear not willing to learn.
-Other priorities - "not my job", ignore customer, excuses, personal issues a priority over serving a customer.
You ask yourself what I should do now. First, within the business you must create a culture of high expectations internally as to the value of excellent customer service. If you don't treat each other respect internally how do you expect them to treat the external customer. You must have a culture built on trust from leadership and where it is safe for people to express their concerns without being perceived as whining. People will express their concerns when they know it is safe and leadership will take positive action to resolve. The critical elements in caring for the customers are when all individuals of your company have an appropriate customer caring attitude for each other it will then reflect to the external customers because it is the standard for your operation. Individuals need to have the tools and time to deliver high quality customer service. Individuals need to be supported by procedures and policies that encourage caring for the customer.
There is a culture that values the customer and the attitudes and actions by workers that leads to high quality customer service. The leadership sees the customer base as a business asset and therefore supports what ever it takes to deliver high quality customer care to create customer loyalty both internally and externally. You take care of your customers you then create a retail environment where people want to work and where people want to buy. Customer service equals increased revenue.
Jim Jackson works with business leaders and teams to develop customer service culture for their organizations. Learn more about top Las Vegas motivational speaker & coach, Jim Jackson.