Creating a service culture

A great many business owners talk about the importance of customer service. But few have actually succeeded in building a business that’s truly service oriented.
Some businesses have tried for years to improve customer service. They’ve launched initiatives and trained employees, but an exceptional service mentality just doesn’t seem to stick.
The problem is that most business owners haven’t succeeded at making service part of their culture. It’s not about following a list of rules or steps that employees have been taught. According to customer-service guru Ron Kaufman, it’s about changing hearts, minds and attitudes – infusing a genuine (not feigned) desire to put service at the core of everything your business does.
But how do you do that? Here are steps suggested by Kaufman, author of the New York Times bestseller “Uplifting Service”:
1. Declare that service is king. The first step is to clearly state – and often repeat – that service is a top priority. This by itself can be powerful and is the beginning of change (but only the beginning). Declare service as a top priority in your speaking, writing, meetings, ads, website, newsletter, tweets and daily actions.
2. Settle on your service language. It helps to develop a certain way of talking about service within your particular business. Some large service-oriented companies do this. For example, Disney refers to its employees as “cast members.” At FedEx, they say “our blood runs purple.”
3. Set a good example. Employees look to the business owner and other managers for guidance. That’s not just spoken guidance, but role-model guidance as well. If you display the utmost regard for customer service in your actions, others will follow. This will be more powerful that simply telling employees what to do.
4. Measure what matters. Businesses often try to measure customer service by counting complaints, compliments, engagement (on social media, for example) and via customer-satisfaction surveys. But these are backward-looking measures, focused on the past. Something needed to happen for a customer to offer a complaint or compliment.
5. Give employees what they need. The much overused buzzword for this is empowerment. Employees need to be “empowered” in order to offer exceptional service. But what does that really mean? Basically this: Employees must feel confident in their ability to take actions that improve customer service. •


Daniel Kehrer can be reached at editor@bizbest.com.

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