Service as a Business Strategy · service delivery information and service delivery should be a...

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Service as a

Business Strategy 10 steps to being customer driven

By Rowdy (Ron) McLean J.P, M.B.A, F.A.I.M , C.C.M



The purpose of a business is to

create and keep customers. If

you look after your customers

the profits will look after

themselves.

Customer service is a unique

business strategy.

Most companies talk about it and

their employees pretend to

deliver it. Yet, very few

organisations actually deliver it!

Think about it for a second, if I

asked you to name 5 businesses

that provided you with

outstanding service in the last

few months, you would probably

struggle to come up with 5, a lot

of people struggle to come up

with just 1!

However if I asked you to come

up with 5 businesses that had

provided you with poor service

you would struggle to stop at 5.

There is a huge gap in the

market in terms of service

delivery.

Customer Service

is a unique

business strategy.

These broken

promises are the

‘gap’ in the

market.

Very few businesses connect

their promises in terms of the

type of product, facility or service

they market themselves as

providing and the actual delivery

of their products, facilities and

services.

These broken promises are the

‘gap’ in the market.

96% of customers don’t

complain, they just don’t come

back.

The reason for it is because

businesses don’t deliver on their

promise.

As a result they are constantly

trying to attract new customers

to replace those they have lost.

It costs between 6 and 10 times

more to get a new customer as it

does to keep an existing one!

Become customer driven and

customer focused and you will

be surprised by the benefits.

Creating Excellence in Business, Service & People

Service as a Business Strategy




Delivering what you promised

in the way you promised at

the time you promised it will

result in:

• Fewer complaints

• Higher profits

• Greater market share

• Less marketing costs

• Less employee turnover

• Less absenteeism

• Improved productivity

To become customer driven

you must integrate service

standards and benchmarks

into every level of the

organisation.

1. Vision

The organisation must decide

what its service vision is.

A statement that describes it’s

commitment to providing

service to its customers, a

promise to the customer that

can be backed up by every

employee.

These statements should be

developed in conjunction with

every employee in the

organisation, so that everyone

has an opportunity to buy into

the vision and statement and

take some ownership of it.

The worst

vision or

mission

statements are

those

developed by

management,

printed on a

plaque and

hung inside

the front door.

The worst vision or mission

statements are those

developed by management,

printed on a plaque and hung

inside the front door.

Employees don’t support

these statements because

they have not had the

opportunity for input.

Some examples of the best

service vision statements are

Disneyland and Virgin.





When Disneyland opened in

1955, the Disney mission

statement was summed up in

three simple words: “We create

happiness.”

Just over 50 years later, that

basic idea has only been

altered slightly.

Today, the Disney mission

statement reads: “We create

happiness by providing the

finest in entertainment for

people of all ages,

everywhere.”

Richard Branson’s Virgin

Company states its vision is to

be “the consumer champion”

and they do this by delivering

to their “brand values, which

are: Value for Money, Good

Quality, Brilliant Customer

Service, Innovative,

Competitively Challenging and

Fun.”

The vision or promise needs to

be communicated both to the

staff and to your customers.

It should be in your advertising,

on your website, part of your

staff newsletter and part of

every management meeting.

The vision or

promise needs

to be

communicated

both to the staff and to your

customers.

2. Measure

In order to create something, in

this case Service Culture, we

must first know what exists.

There are four levels to this

measurement, firstly, How do

your customers perceive your

service delivery?

Knowing what your customers

think of you and what they want

from you is a key driver of

business success.

Most organisations could not

be bothered and that is why

there is a huge gap in the

market.

Measuring the customers view

can be done in several ways.





• You can conduct a customer

satisfaction survey.

• You can have survey cards in

with orders and purchases.

• You can conduct focus groups.

• You can call customers that

have brought from you.

• You can talk to customers in

your store.

Whatever method you use, it

should be done regularly and

it should be communicated to

everyone in the organisation.

How do your employees see

the organisations service

delivery?

Conducting an organisation

wide survey about how

employees see service

delivery in the organisation

allows you to see the depth of

cultural change required to

become truly customer

focused.

The survey should measure

such things as service

leadership, complaint

handling and empowerment.

Most

organisations

believe

employees

were born with

the ability to

deliver good

service, wrong!

The next measurement is a

survey to discover your

employees knowledge of the

skills required to deliver

service excellence.

Most organisations believe

employees were born with the

ability to deliver good service,

wrong!

In the surveys we have

conducted I am surprised by

how little employees know

about they key skills required

to deliver good service.

In order to develop a

comprehensive training

program we must know what

skill levels exist so that we

can develop a training

program designed to bridge

‘the gap’.





Lastly you need to enlist the

services of a mystery shopper.

We provide what is probably the

most comprehensive mystery

shopper service available, visit

www.creatingsynergy.com

to find out about our Business

Excellence Reports.

The purpose of a mystery

shopper program is to provide

feedback on a typical customers

experience with your

organisation.

This allows you to understand

what you are doing well (and

reward those involved) and

discover what is not meeting

your service benchmarks so that

you can change the policy,

behaviour or person involved.

These reports should be done

on a regular basis and the

results conveyed to all

employees.

“The only way to know

how your customers see

your business is to look

at it through their eyes” Daniel Scroggin

3. Plan

A comprehensive training and

rewards and recognition

program should be developed to

ensure that there is a continuing

program of development.

Most organisations have no

service training programs or


program, many of those that do

treat it as ad hoc, with no

scheduling or consistency.

The service training and rewards

recognition program needs to be

part of the strategic plan. This is

to ensure that all levels and all

employees of the organisation

understand the importance of

the key strategies for service

delivery and standards and

benchmarks for delivery.

4. Communicate

Communicating the vision,

standards, benchmarks

performance and rewards is the

key to an integrated delivery.

Every meeting should have

these items on their agenda.

Regular staff meetings should be

held to discuss the progress of

your service culture initiatives.





Your staff newsletter should

convey stories, tips and

information.

Your website should carry

service delivery information and

service delivery should be a part

of your annual report.

Communicate your service

delivery in every way and in

every medium you can. Also,

make sure that it is done by

someone with a passion for

service delivery to ensure the

message comes across with

some emphasis rather than

another empty statement or

promise.

5. Recruit

It is important that you recruit the

right people for the right roles.

It is no good having someone

cranky and irritable deal with

complaints, or someone who

cannot smile greet your

customers, or someone with an

abrupt nature answer the phone.

Some people

were just not

meant to have

service roles.

“Worry about being

better; bigger will take

care of itself. Think one

customer at a time.

Take care of each one

the best way you can” Gary Corner

Some people were just not

meant to have service roles.

You need to be extremely

rigorous with your recruiting

practices.

Remember these people will be

dealing with your most important

asset, your customers! And you

want them to be ambassadors

for your business.

We have organisations who will

reject a complete group of

applications (hundreds) for a

position and re-advertise until

they get the right person, and

the results are evident in their

service delivery and their high

levels of customer satisfaction

and word of mouth

recommendations.

Also make sure you assess

them regularly during their

probation and ‘let them go’ if

they don’t measure up.





“Without great

employees you can never

have great customer

service” Richard Gerson

This is probably the biggest

problem I see in organisations,

stuck with under delivering

employees because they were

not diligent during the probation

period.

6. Induction

Every new employee needs to

be thoroughly inducted in service

delivery.

Before you let them deal with

your valuable customers you

must ensure they have the skills

to deliver excellent service and

understand the service

standards and benchmarks.

Too often organisations allow

new employees to start dealing

with customers straight away.

Customers are far too valuable

to risk a new employee upsetting

them or delivering a level of

service that does not match your

standards or benchmarks.

Most organisations induct their

new recruits in Occupation

Health and Safety, Industrial

Relations and Conditions of

Employment.

They either include service as

part of this exercise (meaning it

gets lost in the information

overload) or don’t include it at

all.

I suggest you carry out a

separate service induction

program for your employees

ensuring they have the skills,

know the benchmarks and have

the product knowledge to deliver

great service.

Then buddy them up with one of

your customer service stars so

that they discover good

standards and develop good

service habits.

7. Train

Train, train, train and continue to

train!

Customer service

is a lot like golf.

You do not

become a great

golfer with just

one lesson.





Customer service is a lot like

golf. You do not become a great

golfer with just one lesson.

The same is true of customer

service. All staff should be

required to complete a series of

customer service training

programs in their first twelve

months on the job.

At the completion of each

session there should be an

assessment done by a

supervisor.

Every staff member should also

be required to complete ongoing

refresher programs to ensure

they remain proficient on service

delivery.

8. Rewards and

Recognition

Your organisation should

develop a comprehensive


program to support and enhance

the service culture.

Behaviour that

you want

repeated must

be rewarded.

Behaviour that you want

repeated must be rewarded.

The reward program should be

integrated over many levels with

clear benchmarks and

requirements.

I suggest the following as a

guide:

a) Organisational. This

reward should be shared

by the whole organisation

for achieving a goal or

benchmark in relation to

service.

For example a certain

level of customer

satisfaction or number of

new customers.

b) Departmental. Each

department should have

its own target to achieve

and be rewarded for

achieving.

This encourages

departments to work

together as a team and

focus on service

outcomes, a good

benchmark would be the

number of complaints

received.





c) Individual. There should

be a system in place to

provide instant rewards

for employees that go

above and beyond your

service benchmarks.

These are the shining

stars, the example for

everyone to follow.

Remember behaviour you

want repeated must be

rewarded.

Give them some movie

tickets, block of

chocolate, vouchers and

change it around each

month.

Your stars will love it and

your other staff will

replicate the behaviour so

they also get rewarded.

Lastly, always thank your staff

for their commitment to service

at every opportunity.

Acknowledge the positive impact

staff delivering service

excellence has on the business.

Do this at meetings, in

newsletters, articles and annual

reports. What you talk about,

comes about.

9. Empowerment

How often do hear these

statements:

“No, we can’t”

“No, we don’t do that”

“No, its company policy

“No, you will have to wait for a

supervisor”

“No, that’s not my department”

“No, I don’t know”

These statements are delivered

by employees who have not

been empowered to make

decisions, to solve problems, to

look after the customer.

To really become customer

focused you need to build some

flexibility into your organisation.

To really become

customer focused you

need to build some

flexibility into your

organisation.





Allow your employees to make

decisions to satisfy your

customers. Learning to find

ways to say ‘yes’ will create a

much different environment for

both your employees and your

customers. Imagine the same

statement above delivered with a

yes!

“Yes, we can”

“Yes, we will do that for you”

“Yes, its company policy, but

may I suggest”

“Yes, I will take care of that”

“Yes, I will take you to that

department”

“Yes, I will find out for you”

10. Manage

Once you have started to build a

serve culture you need to

manage it on an ongoing basis.

Measure what is happening

through customer satisfaction

surveys and mystery shopper

reports.

Assess and review your staff on

a regular basis.

Continue to train and review

standards and benchmarks.

Review policies and procedures

to ensure they are customer

focused.

Form focus groups to meet

regularly and discuss what is

working well and what could

work better from a service

perspective.

Provide regular feedback and

communication in relation to

service delivery, targets and

initiatives.

Celebrate outcomes. Have a

staff awards night or regular staff

breakfasts, take everyone to the

movies or have a party.

Because if you become truly

customer focused your business

will grow and prosper, you will

make more money and have fun

in the process.

Celebrate

outcomes. Have

a staff awards

night or regular

staff breakfasts,

take everyone to

the movies or

have a party.





I Know! Now you would like to

create a service culture in your

business.

So here is a special offer to

readers of this e-book.

Receive a free consultation on

how to create awesome service

in your business valued at

$500, simply email:

[email protected]

with the word ‘e-book’ in the

subject line.

Rowdy (Ron) McLean

is a leading expert on

Customer Service.

He is a fellow of the

Customer Service

Institute of Australia,

the Australian Institute

of Management and has a

masters degree in business

administration.

Rowdy speaks on the topic of

service at conferences, seminars

and would be happy to speak to

your team or organisation.

His company Creating Synergy

conducts customer service

training programs and service

culture development strategies.


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