Along with insisting that their people are their most important asset, organizations of all stripes tell us they offer the best, or an otherwise exceptional, level of customer service. While people are indeed the linchpin of success for most – if not all – organizations, the ability organizations have to select and support the right people doing the right things in the right way at the right time to provide a positively memorable customer experience is all too rare.
My now young adult children have been embarrassed many times by my service experience preferences, which developed through a combination of having worked a variety of retail and service jobs, my education, my consulting expertise, and my perspective as a business owner. I also value my time and money. When dining out, I like to know the names of our wait staff and to be greeted by them within moments of being seated. Similarly, I prefer that sales people know more about the product they sell, or the service they provide, than I do. I’ve noticed my children find preferences like these less curmudgeonly as they increasingly earn and spend their own money. My kids now value their time much more. It’s a pretty good bet that the service shortcomings (or failures all of us undoubtedly experience from time to time) occur most often as a result of one or a combination of two factors:
1. Customer-facing employees are not adequately trained or supported to inform customers and act to resolve their issues, and/or
2. Organizations have selected the wrong people to fill customer-facing roles
As an organizational leader, and someone who works everyday to support other leaders, I’m acutely interested in what we can do to better ensure that the people who represent us do so in a way that leads to the holy grail of customers. We want customers who buy from us, refer us business, and will buy from us again. There are any number of things we can, and should, do. To help get us started, and create momentum, I’ve focused on three things that I think are relatively easy or accessible.
• Selection – this is a big area and one I highly recommend you look at critically and consider enhancing through adding candidate assessments, making sure your interview criteria map with the factors that determine success in the job/organization, and that your interview teams receive training and support to gather the information they need, and apply that information appropriately to their decision-making:
An easy enhancement to better align the interview process with effectively vetting candidates’ customer service or customer focus capabilities is making sure that your interview includes a service-oriented experiential question. This should be an open-ended question about a specific time when the person delivered a high-level of service and/or was challenged to do so. The elements of a complete answer include an address of the following components:
Situation – set up/context
Hindrance – challenge/obstacles
Action – what THEY did
Result – what happened
Evaluation – lessons learned
The number one thing to avoid is asking this question as a hypothetical – “what would you do if…?” The reason is simple - ask a hypothetical question and you get a hypothetical answer. Most people know what they SHOULD do; we need to know what they’ve actually done.
As a bonus, this same approach can be applied to incumbents – through conversation or observation – to inform your skills needs analysis and development process.
• Preparation – the old saying that, “to assume, makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me,'” applies to any of us who send out people to represent us without ensuring they are adequately informed, educated, or trained to do so. My least favorite selection cliché is from employers who say they want someone who can “hit the ground running.” If we assume that even experienced folks can come into a new organization and know everything they need to know about how WE do things, we’re ensuring a tough road for all involved – including the customer.
Every incoming employee should have the benefit of a start-up process that includes learning, seeing, and doing. Any materials (written, online, etc.) that can be packaged and reviewed should be ready for them no later than their first day on the job. Ideally, everyone who sells a service or product has experienced it or used it before. Shadowing/observing is an invaluable way to quickly acclimate to HOW we do things. Try practicing with a colleague before meeting with clients and then taking the lead with an experienced colleague for support. By doing this you will round out a thoughtful, efficient, and effective start-up process.
• Support – Picking and developing the right people can still fall short of what’s needed to deliver great client experiences if we fail to fully support our people. Any number of things can fall under the support heading, so let’s pick two components that are most within our control:
• Offer only fully-baked products or solutions. Too often, businesses are so eager to start something new that we ask our people to spend their relationship capital on things that may fall short of our promises. You can always Beta a service or product and enter into an explicitly honest relationship with a client about the status of your product or solution.
• Do everything you can to deliver on a promise already made by a team member. High levels of service often depend on high levels of autonomy. We should do everything we can to educate our team members about the parameters of their authority, but in some instances there’s a moment where a decision is required…sometimes taking all of us into a gray area. It’s much better in the nearer, and longer-term, to seek to execute on whatever promise is made, and learn from that moving forward, than it is to undercut the credibility (and confidence) of your colleague. Their insight may lead all of us to a better overall approach.
I believe – sometimes with greater effort than others – that most people I interact with in a sales or service environment mean well. The question is really about how well they DO, and the impact their ability has on their organization’s reputation and success. A little more intentional effort on the part of leaders in the areas of “selection,” “preparation,” and “support” results in a much greater likelihood that all of our customers experience what we want them to. Increased intentional effort leads customers to buy, refer us, and buy again. When we support the success of our team members, our customers succeed and so do our businesses.
Jeff Lesher, Principal at entreQuest, blends his deep knowledge of organization design, human capital, and leadership with a pragmatic approach drawn from his own business experience and eQ's philosophy to help eQ's clients focus on their core purpose and move people effectively to action.
