Customer Service Reader

Ultimate notes

Notes on The Ultimate Question, by Fred Reichheld

• The average Net-Promoter Score (NPS) for U.S. companies is less than 10%
• Senior managers are delusional. 96% of senior managers said they were “focused” on the customer. 80% believed they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But when their customers were surveyed, only 8% of their companies were given a superior rating.
• Measurement is not enough. Pointless to set up an NPS measurement system if you don’t understand that delighting customers is the only path to true growth.
• If you do get it, three things you must do: (1) design value propositions that focus on the right customers, then create a complete customer experience capable of delighting each targeted segment, (2) deliver those propositions end-to-end, with all employees pulling in the same direction, (3) do all this over and over again.
• Good design is not enough. What counts is a company’s ability to deliver those propositions consistently.
• Delivery depends primarily on the spirit, enthusiasm, and cooperation of frontline employees - the people who actually produce the goods, or deliver the services and deal with the customers.
• And there's the problem. Bain surveyed North American employees who had worked ten years or more for the same company. Only 39% trust their leaders to communicate openly and honestly. Only 33% believe that employee loyalty at their company is valued and rewarded. Only 28% say that their company values people and relationships above short-term profits. Only 19% provide enthusiastic referrals for the company that employs them.
• To build an organization that creates promoters: (1) send the right messages to your people, (2) hire and fire to inspire, (3) pay well and invest in training, (4) keep teams small to enhance accountability and service, (5) link measures and rewards to company values.
• Don't tread on Fred. On Claes Fornell (principal author of the American Customer Satisfaction Index): "the Journal reported that Fornell had been buying or short-selling shares of companies surveyed by the ACSI prior to releasing the data for publication". On JD Power: "There are J.D. Power winners for flights over five hundred miles and flights under five hundred miles. Perhaps we'll soon see awards for the highest customer satisfaction among bankrupt airlines."

See also:
Excerpts from Chapter 1 (inc a link to a downloadable pdf version)
Reichheld on Loyalty, the war on customers, wrong yardsticks, keeping it simple
Fred Reichheld's net promoter slide show. A 3-minute presentation.
A Survey of Surveys
The Net Promoter Forum

The Solution

An organization’s success at the consistent delivery of outstanding service is merely the cumulative result of the contribution of each of its members. Outstanding service is just the consequence of each individual’s choice to be great at service. That’s our decision, as individual providers, to make. It’s our responsibility. And it’s our gain.

Notes from Chapter 3, The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey

Most of the great cultural shifts started with the choice of one person. Sometimes it was the formal leader; most of the time, it was not.

These agents of change first changed themselves, then inspired and lifted others. They possessed an anchored sense of identity, discovered their strengths and talents, and used them to produce results.

• People like this don’t get sucked in or pulled down by all the negative, demoralizing, insulting forces in the organization
• Their organizations are no better than most organizations
• All organizations are, to some degree, a mess
• Don’t wait for your boss or organization to change
• Be an island of excellence in a sea of mediocrity
• Be contagious
• Learn your true nature and gifts
• Use them to develop a vision of great things you want to accomplish
• Understand the needs and opportunities around you, and meet them
• Make a difference
• Find and use your voice
• Serve and inspire others
• Inspire others to find their voice
• All of us can decide to leave behind a life of mediocrity, and to live a life of greatness
• We all have the power to decide to live a great life
• No matter how long we’ve walked life’s pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths

Good people make good service. Good service makes good people.

Listed below are competencies extracted from the Emotional Competence Framework of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. They are the competencies that matter most to the success of customer service providers. Conversely, when we practice service - whether on customers, family members, colleagues, or communities - we become better at these competencies. We become better people.

Outstanding customer service providers:

• Realize the links between their feelings and what they think, do, and say
• Have a guiding awareness of their values and goals
• Are reflective, learning from experience
• Are open to candid feedback, new perspectives, continuous learning, and self-development
• Are able to show a sense of humor and perspective about themselves
• Can voice views that are unpopular and go out on a limb for what is right
• Are decisive, able to make sound decisions despite uncertainties and pressures
• Manage their impulsive feelings and distressing emotions well
• Stay composed, positive, and unflappable even in trying moments
• Think clearly and stay focused under pressure
• Act ethically and are above reproach
• Build trust through their reliability and authenticity
• Admit their own mistakes
• Meet commitments and keep promises
• Hold themselves accountable for meeting their objectives
• Are organized and careful in their work
• Smoothly handle multiple demands, shifting priorities, and rapid change
• Adapt their responses and tactics to fit fluid circumstances
• Seek out fresh ideas from a wide variety of sources
• Entertain original solutions to problems
• Generate new ideas
• Are results-oriented, with a high drive to meet their objectives and standards
• Set challenging goals and take calculated risks
• Pursue information to reduce uncertainty and find ways to do better
• Learn how to improve their performance
• Readily make personal or group sacrifices to meet a larger organizational goal
• Find a sense of purpose in the larger mission
• Pursue goals beyond what’s required or expected of them
• Cut through red tape and bend the rules when necessary to get the job done
• Persist in seeking goals despite obstacles and setbacks
• Are attentive to emotional cues and listen well
• Show sensitivity and understand others’ perspectives
• Help out based on understanding other people’s needs and feelings
• Understand customers’ needs and match them to services or products
• Seek ways to increase customers’ satisfaction and loyalty
• Gladly offer appropriate assistance
• Grasp a customer’s perspective, acting as a trusted advisor
• Are skilled at persuasion
• Fine-tune presentations to appeal to the listener
• Are effective in give-and-take, registering emotional cues in attuning their message
• Deal with difficult issues straightforwardly
• Handle difficult people and tense situations with diplomacy and tact
• Orchestrate win-win solutions

In addition, outstanding customer service leaders:

• Acknowledge and reward people’s strengths, accomplishments, and development
• Offer useful feedback and identify people’s needs for development
• Mentor, give timely coaching, and offer assignments that challenge and grow a person’s skill.
• Understand the forces that shape views and actions of clients, customers, or competitors
• Accurately read situations and organizational and external realities
• Use complex strategies like indirect influence to build consensus and support
• Listen well and seek mutual understanding
• Welcome sharing of information fully
• Foster open communication and stay receptive to bad news as well as good
• Articulate and arouse enthusiasm for a shared vision and mission
• Step forward to lead as needed, regardless of position
• Guide the performance of others while holding them accountable
• Lead by example
• Recognize the need for change and remove barriers
• Challenge the status quo to acknowledge the need for change
• Champion the change and enlist others in its pursuit
• Model the change expected of others
• Spot potential conflict, bring disagreements into the open, and help deescalate
• Encourage debate and open discussion
• Build rapport and keep others in the loop
• Make and maintain personal friendships among work associates
• Balance a focus on task with attention to relationships
• Collaborate, sharing plans, information, and resources
• Promote a friendly, cooperative climate
• Model team qualities like respect, helpfulness, and cooperation
• Draw all members into active and enthusiastic participation
• Build team identity, esprit de corps, and commitment
• Protect the group and its reputation
• Share credit

See also this article which codes the whole EC Framework according to customer service requirements: basic competencies, higher-level competencies, and competencies for customer service leaders.

Empowerment prerequisite

Notes from Built to Last, Chapter 6, pages 138-139, Jim Collins, Jerry Porras

Companies seeking an "empowered" or decentralized work environment should first and foremost impose a tight ideology, screen and indoctrinate people into that ideology, eject the viruses, and give those who remain the tremendous sense of responsibility that comes with membership in an elite organization.

It means getting the right people on the stage, putting them in the right frame of mind, and then giving them the freedom to ad lib as they see fit.

It is tightness around an ideology that enables a company to turn people loose to experiment, change, adapt, and - above all - to act.

                                                      . . .

Nordstrom has a one-page employee handbook - a single 5"x8" card. It says: Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1 : Use you good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

While visiting a class at the Stanford Business School, Jim Nordstrom was asked how a Nordstrom clerk would handle a customer attempting to return a dress that had obviously been worn. His reply:

I don't know. That's the honest answer. But I do have a high level of confidence that it would be handled in such a way that the customer would feel well treated and served. Whether that would involve taking the dress back would depend on the specific situation, and we want to give each clerk a lot of latitude in figuring out what to do. We view our people as sales professionals. They don't need rules. They need basic guideposts, but not rules. You can do anything at Nordstrom to get the job done, just so long as you live up to our basic values and standards.

Remembering World-Class Courtesy

In February 1998, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government released its report on Best Practices in "World-class courtesy". Long since consigned to the dustbins of bureaucracy, the report (prepared with the cooperation of USAA, Nordstrom, and Ritz-Carlton, among others) deserves to be exhumed. We paid for it, we may as well use it.

Some key findings:

Each of the organizations studied exhibited these characteristics

• The organization's cultural climate reflects a commitment to meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
• Senior leaders demonstrate by example the organization's commitment to exceptional courtesy.
• Employees are empowered to fully meet the needs of their customers.
• Courtesy is practiced by everyone throughout the entire organization.
• Specific and ongoing training in courtesy is provided.
• Formal and informal screening techniques are used to hire employees with exceptional skills in courtesy.
• The organization establishes systems to measure the value of its services to customers.
• Services are provided seamlessly from the customer's perspective.
• There is zero tolerance for discourteous service.
• All the organizations found that courtesy improves customer loyalty.

Courtesy & Behavior

Courtesy is expressed as a wide range of respectful behaviors and positive attitudes. Personal characteristics and behaviors that were repeatedly expressed by our partners as essential elements of courteous behavior are:

• a willingness to discover opportunities to exceed the customer's expectations,
• sincerity,
• a friendly smile (even over the phone),
• using the person's last name (unless the customer indicates otherwise),
• a neat appearance,
• proper use of the language,
• exceptional listening skills (attentiveness),
• a relaxed and natural tone of voice,
• appropriate eye contact,
• clear communication at the customer's comprehension level, and
• knowledge about the product or service.

Quick tips for improving courtesy

• Be flexible. People's expectations regarding courtesy vary. Learn to take your lead from your customer. Quiet, reserved people tend to appreciate a more reserved and dignified sort of service. Loud, spirited people often like to know that the person they are talking to is "getting it." Use good judgment always, but be ready to stretch a little to make your style better match your customer's expectations.
• Take some risks to delight and surprise the customer. Consider the chef who, upon realizing he sent a dinner to a table with the meat slightly overcooked, immediately went out to the table, sat down, took a bite from the overcooked meat and said, as the surprised couple looked on, "Hmm...I thought so, a bit overcooked. Please forgive me. The next one will be perfect and on me!"
• Practice servant-leadership. Develop a passion for service and then put that passion to work in whatever position you now hold. If you are already a recognized leader in your organization, then serve as a mentor for others who wish to become servant-leaders.
• Smile your best smile. Customers appreciate a pleasant atmosphere. A smile always helps. Use your smile frequently when dealing with the public. You will come to enjoy the many benefits it will bring you and your customers.
• Listen as if you mean it. The greatest compliment to another person is listening to them. Really listening. You have to listen as if you mean it. Sit up, take a few notes, ask clarifying questions, show some reaction to what is being said.
• Call people back. If you must use voice mail, update your message daily, check it at least twice a day, and get back to people within one day at the latest. Returning calls has a direct relationship to dependability and dependability is the cornerstone of good customer service.
• Demonstrate phone courtesy. The tone and pitch of your voice can assure the caller that you are sincere, friendly­and that you are listening. Create a vision for your caller that you are responsible and dedicated to resolving his or her issue.
• Develop a team focus. Team work is definitely needed when it comes to improving courtesy. Demonstrate your team commitment on a daily basis.

Developing Strategies For Implementing World-Class Courtesy

The following strategies are a composite of the ideas worked out by the team members for implementing world-class courtesy in their own agencies. Depending on your individual circumstances, these suggestions will hopefully serve to stimulate interesting and practical ideas.

Remember: Your journey toward world-class courtesy begins from where you are, not from where you wish you were. The important thing is to get started.

1. Establish credibility. Unless you are the CEO in your organization, you may want to first establish some credibility on this topic. Develop a good knowledge base of what world-class courtesy is, or could be, in your organization. You can start by reading this study thoroughly, marking those sections that look interesting , and taking some notes as you go along. You may also want to read several of the articles listed in the selected bibliography.
2. Determine your organization's attitude toward courtesy. Determine what your organization's current mission, vision, strategic plan, or value statements say about courtesy. With the issuance of the President's Executive Order 12862 on setting customer service standards, the enactment of the Government Performance Results Act of the 1995, and the National Performance Review's publication of customer service standards, you probably have a good basis for assessing your organization's current level of and attitudes toward customer service.
3. Take a "snapshot". Determine where in your organization might be the best place to take a "snapshot" of how courtesy is currently being practiced. Choose an office or section that already has an interest in knowing more about its customer service capabilities. If its not obvious at first where to start, arrange a meeting with an appropriate official or committee to which you can provide a short briefing on the benefits of looking at organizational behaviors leading to world-class courtesy.
4. Publicize, promote, and popularize. Through information, actions, and tools, help your organization journey toward world-class courtesy.

The report also includes an extensive bibliography.

The living brand

Excerpts from Creating the Living Brand 
Neeli Bendapudi and Venkat Bendapudi, in Harvard Business Review

Any company can deliver outstanding customer service - even convenience stores, where low pay and high turnover supposedly make service a problem.

• Even companies that position themselves for the mass market can provide outstanding customer–employee interactions and profit from them. Their secret? They consider employees their living brand and devote a great deal of time and energy to hiring and developing them so that they reflect the brand’s core values
• We studied the convenience store industry in depth for two years, in conjunction with the National Association of Convenience Stores, and conducted detailed case studies of two companies: QuikTrip (QT), a $4 billion privately held firm based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that operates 462 stores in nine central, western, and southern states, and the $2.8 billion Wawa, a privately held company based in Wawa, Pennsylvania, that operates more than 500 stores in five eastern states. QT has been listed as one of Fortune’s 100 best places to work three years in a row; in 2005 it was ranked number 19. Turnover rates at QT and Wawa are 14% and 22% respectively, a small fraction of the triple-digit average turnover in the retail sector.
• Both companies routinely outperform the market. From 1977 through 2003, Wawa stock has grown at an average annual compounded rate of 17%, nearly twice that of the S&P 500. QT’s stock value has risen 19.2% in the past three-year period, more than four times the S&P’s rate.
• We uncovered six principles that both companies embrace to instill the brand and its meaning in their employees - and to create a strong culture of customer service. Both Wawa and QT demonstrate the power, even in minimum-wage businesses, of investment in employees to create a positive customer experience.

Six Lessons of the Living Brand

1. Know what you’re looking for

• Every organization must have a clear vision of the skills and characteristics it wants in its workforce, and have a plan for getting them. But few companies that hire in the mass market have the discipline to go about doing that rationally and systematically.
• A company must decide which skills and qualities can be taught and which must be hired. QT insists on hiring “nice” people who like people, because that’s a tough quality to teach; it’s either present or not. At Wawa, the must-have is passion, for work and life.
• QT puts applicants through a rigorous, structured process that includes a personality assessment based on the qualities of QT’s most successful performers. Interviewers probe for stories to complete the picture.
• Hiring decisions at QT aren’t left to store managers. Instead, managers in each of the company’s eight geographic divisions do all the recruiting and hiring for their regions.

2. Make the most of talent

• In mass-market retail environments, talent is generally viewed as a commodity, and employees are basically interchangeable. But that outlook becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Studies have repeatedly shown that people rise or stoop to the expectations set for them.
• Wawa and QT get more from their people because they expect more. One way they communicate expectations is through training. At QT, each new full-time employee is partnered with a personal trainer who has previously held the same position.
  
• Such investment in people continues well beyond the initial hire. Wawa encourages its people to pursue degrees in any field of study, and reimburses tuition at three colleges with which it has relationships. The emphasis on learning helps Wawa to be an employer of choice, even though its pay is on a par with other companies in its labor market.
• People perform at their best if they see a future for themselves at a company. Employees know they can have a career at QT, due to its strong culture of promoting from within.
  
• These companies ensure that employees have the support they need, both externally and internally, to do their jobs well. Wawa involves store managers, who have the best information on store operations, in improving the performance of vendors. The company takes the same hard-nosed approach to analyzing the quality of internal support processes such as marketing and human resources.

3. Create pride in the brand

• In retail, service is the manifestation of the brand, and service quality depends directly on employees’ attachment to the brand. QT and Wawa constantly and consciously invest in maintaining brands that employees can take pride in.
• Such is the attachment to Wawa brands that the company’s 1994 move to put Taco Bell and Pizza Hut outlets in more than 100 stores was met with opposition from customers and employees alike. In 1996, Wawa began to phase out the brands to make more room for Wawa products. The company openly discussed with associates the error of the earlier decision and acknowledged the value of employee input.

4. Build community

• While many convenience store chains have focused on speed of transactions and sales volume per store, Wawa and QT have made concerted efforts to build customer loyalty through a sense of community. Almost all the customers we interviewed mentioned employee friendliness as one of the reasons they come back to the stores.
  
• At both stores, customers remarked upon two things they believed were unique: The people who worked at the stores seemed to be glad to be there, and they seemed to like one another. The perceived sense of community among store associates appears to spill over into a sense of community with customers.
• At QT, the community feeling extends to the customer-service appraisal system and the reward structure. The emphasis is on the team’s performance in satisfying and delighting customers. If a mystery shopper is especially impressed with a particular employee, everyone on staff at the store during that shift receives a bonus.

5. Share the business context

• Employees need a clear understanding of how their company operates - particularly, how it defines success. Because they understand the company’s values, employees don’t have to follow a rigid set of rules - they just have to behave in ways that meet customer needs.
• Employees also need to know how their work affects companywide financial performance and how the company arrives at its targets. Armed with this information, workers can better understand the decisions of upper management and improve job performance. At QT, every full-time associate is trained to read the store’s monthly financial statements and earns a bonus that is based on the store’s operating profit.
• QT executives are quick to dissect their mistakes. One of the purposes of this policy of openness is to encourage innovation by conveying the company’s tolerance for well-meant mistakes. Chet Cadieux, the CEO, tells employees that as long as the company hires smart and caring people, no employee can make an error that the company cannot recover from.
• Wawa coffee, which has a devoted following, was introduced because a lone employee decided to offer brewed coffee in a store.

6. Satisfy the soul

• Researchers suggest that to truly harness an individual’s creativity, to get her full passion and engagement, a company must meet her needs for security, esteem, and justice.
• Security. QT’s employees know that their safety and well-being are of paramount importance to top management, which deploys technology and staffing models to create a sense of security.
  
• Esteem. The emotional and physical demands of a service job can be wearing, so Wawa provides rejuvenation by celebrating successes and milestones. Every month, mystery shoppers evaluate Wawa stores along the company’s brand standards, which detail expectations for every element of the store experience, from waiting time to the freshness of the food to the cleanliness of the restrooms. Highscoring teams are visited by the “prize patrol,” which brings rewards and a party.
• Justice. So that workers will feel they are being treated fairly, Wawa gives eligible employees a share in about 10% of the company’s base profits. It has expanded its employee stock-ownership plan and is offering associates an opportunity to purchase additional shares. A mark of employee confidence in the company: Some 29% of company shares are held by associates.

At first glance, the investments that Wawa and QT make in their living brands may seem excessive. Executives are quick to agree that both organizations spend more than their competitors, though as private companies they keep the numbers close to the vest. “How can they afford to do that?” is a question we have heard as we have shared these stories of uncommon service quality in a commonplace industry. The leaders of Wawa and QT reply: “How can you afford not to?”

The Golden Mean

Who love too much, hate in the like extreme,
And both the golden mean alike condemn.
- Alexander Pope, in The Odyssey of Homer

Although I am a customer service radical, I do not believe in such platitudes as the “customer is always right”. The customer can be wrong, or worse, insane. So I do not believe that you should always give them what they want. A revolution based on such unrealistic claptrap sows the seeds of its own destruction. You will not be able to stay in business if you give away the store.

Many companies that are renowned for customer service - such as Disney, Nordstrom, and Ritz-Carlton - can afford to do almost anything to appease their customers, even when they’re wrong. That’s because their margins are so high. You cannot afford to be so liberal when you’re competing in a low-margin industry.

And a lot also depends on the cost of the accommodation. It’s easy enough to give away a free day pass, or a free pair of shoes, or a free night’s stay. Not so easy to give a plasma TV away.

Too often I have seen companies swing from one extreme to the other. For example, they’ll start with a liberal “Satisfaction Guaranteed” return policy. They eventually notice that returns are hurting their sales, and that mountains of rejects are piling up on their floors. They panic and swing the other way. No returns past 14 days. 15% restock on open-box product. Eventually they notice that their customers abandoned them for the store next door, and that their employee turnover went through the roof because people just couldn’t take getting screamed at anymore. And back they swing again.

The right thing to do is, of course, somewhere in the middle. If you’re a low-margin business, you must have policies that are competitive – not much better or worse than your competition. Then you must give your people the power and the training to bend the rules. Here’s the principle: The policies are there to protect the company from bad customers. Your people are there to protect good customers from the policies.

Such a balanced approach requires that you hire people with experience and judgment. If you can’t afford to hire such people into front-line positions, you must define specific guidelines within which your people can play. If you think that hiring the right people and training them is just too much trouble and expense, enjoy the swing.

Training at Disney

Excerpts from Be Our Guest, Chapter 3: The Magic of Cast
Disney Institute

You might think that Walt Disney World pays a premium for extra-courteous and friendly employees. In fact, cast members are hired from the same labor pool as every other organization uses and are paid the going rates. The not-so-secret method by which ordinary people are transformed into Walt Disney World cast members can be found in the way they are trained.

• The first thing that new cast members do is begin learning how to deliver Walt Disney World’s brand of Quality Service. Walt Disney World uses a two-tiered approach to preparing the cast for service delivery.
• The first tier is conducted at Disney University and teaches concepts and behaviors that are common to every cast member throughout the organization.
• The second tier occurs on the job and encompasses the location-specific information that is needed to perform in the different business units of the resort.
• All newly hired cast members start their tenure at Disney with Traditions, a one-day orientation program taught by Disney University, the internal training arm of the company. The average class size is 45 people and there are about nine classes each week, with as many as 14 classes per week in peak hiring seasons.
• Traditions offers plenty of relevant and practical knowledge, and existing cast members serve in the role of training facilitators. Each year, a voluntary casting call is made for about 40 Traditions Assistants. It is considered an honor to perform in Traditions. Each year, those cast members who are chosen leave their daily jobs at regular intervals to teach the course. The extra depth of knowledge and refresher training acquired by the Traditions Assistants in the course of facilitating the program is an added benefit of using veteran employees to deliver training.
• The goal of Traditions is well stated by a veteran Disney Institute facilitator who says, “We don’t put people in Disney. We put Disney in people’’.
• Toward that end, the program utilizes a variety of training techniques, including lecture, storytelling, video, exercises, large and small group discussion, and field experiences.

Traditions is designed to accomplish four major purposes:

1. To acclimate new cast members to the foundations of the resort’s culture.
2. To perpetuate the language and symbols, heritage and traditions, quality standards, values, and traits and behaviors of Walt Disney World.
3. To create a sense of excitement about working at the resort.
4. To introduce new cast members to the core safety regulations.

Nordstrom’s #1 Customer Strategy

Excerpts from The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
Chapter 5, Nordstrom’s #1 Customer Strategy – Hire the Smile
Robert Spector

• The qualities that Nordstrom looks for in its employees couldn’t be more basic. First of all, the company wants its salespeople to be nice.
• “We can hire nice people and teach them to sell,” Bruce Nordstrom likes to say, “but we can’t hire salespeople and teach them to be nice.”
• The Nordstrom corollary to that philosophy is “hire the smile, train the skill.”
• Learning that Nordstrom provides little in the way of a formalized training program, Robert Spector once asked: “Then who trains your salespeople?” Bruce's simple answer: “Their parents.”
• On being asked by competitors where Nordstrom finds its gung-ho people, former VP Betsy Sanders said: “We got our people from the same employee pool they did. The difference between Nordstrom and its competitors was that the Nordstroms didn’t go around talking about how wretched their people were. The Nordstroms thought they had great people. And look at the result.”
• To this day, the company has very high expectations “and if you don’t make it, you’re out of there”.

People come to work for the company for four reasons:

1. Opportunity for growth.
2. Freedom.
3. Feeling that you are part of something meaningful. (“Selling clothes isn’t what we do. It’s filling people’s needs and making them feel better emotionally.”)
4. Feeling valued. (“The more people are valued, the more connected they become. It perpetuates itself.”)

Keys to Success

• Previous industry experience should not be the determining factor.
• Hire people who enjoy people and who are excited about the job.
• Hire the smile, train the skill.
• Hire the personality and the confidence.
• Hire people who share your values.
• Involve potential coworkers or team mcmbers in the interview and hiring process.
• Treat employees with dignity and respect.
• Invest in the people who are cut out for service.

Customer service training - guidelines

Guidelines for customer service training, adapted from the Emotional Intelligence Consortium’s Technical Report on Training & Development. A summary report is also available from the EIC.

The EIC guidelines, developed by Daniel Goleman and Cary Cherniss, are based on an exhaustive review of the research literature in training & development, counseling & psychotherapy, and behavior change. They are divided into the four phases of the development process: preparation, training, transfer & maintenance, and evaluation.

The guidelines are adapted below for specific application in customer service organizations. This is a summary document, with links to more detailed entries in this blog.

Preparation

Assess the organization’s needs. Determine the competencies that are most critical for the effective performance of customer service jobs in the organization.

Assess the individual, based on the key competencies needed for the customer service job.

Deliver assessments with care. Give the individual information on her strengths and weaknesses. Be specific and clear. Provide the feedback in a supportive environment in order to minimize resistance and defensiveness, but also counter excuses, and stress the seriousness of deficiencies.

Maximize learner choice. Where possible, allow people to decide whether or not they will participate in the training. People are more motivated to change when they freely choose to do so. Start with voluntary attendance. This practice will also help you identify promoters and detractors.

Gauge readiness. Assess whether the individual is ready for training. If the person is not ready because of insufficient motivation or other reasons, make readiness the focus of intervention efforts.

Sell the program. Explain how your customer service training is worthwhile and effective. Support from supervisors will motivate participation, provided that the supervisors are credible practitioners of customer service.

Link training to personal values. Help people understand how the customer service training will benefit their personal lives. People are most motivated to pursue change that fits their values and hopes.

Give hope. Let people know that that the social and emotional competences required in customer service can be improved, and that this improvement will lead to valuable outcomes. But ensure that they have a realistic expectation of what the training process will involve.

Training

Foster a positive relationship between the trainers and learners. Trainers who are warm, genuine, and empathic are best able to engage the learners in the change process. Select trainers who have these qualities.

Make change self-directed. Allow people to set their own learning goals, let them continue to be in charge of their learning throughout the program. Learning is more effective when people direct their own learning program, tailoring it to their unique needs and circumstances.

Set clear goals. Spell out the specific behaviors and skills that make up the target competencies. Be clear about what the competence is, how to acquire it, and how to show it on the job.

Break goals into manageable steps. Classify customer service competencies and behaviors by level of difficulty. Dedicate training modules to each level.

Use experiential methods. Develop training activities that engage all the senses, and that are dramatic. Active, concrete, experiential methods tend to work best for learning social and emotional competencies.

Use models. Use live or videotaped models that clearly show how the competency can be used in realistic customer service situations. Encourage learners to study, analyze, and emulate the models.

Enhance self-awareness. Help learners acquire greater understanding about how their thoughts, feelings, and behavior affect themselves and others. Self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional and social competence.

Transfer & Maintenance

Provide opportunities to practice. Encourage the trainees to try the new behaviors repeatedly over a period of months. Lasting change requires sustained practice on the job and elsewhere in life. An automatic habit is being unlearned and different responses are replacing it.

Encourage use of skills on the job. Reinforce and reward learners for using their customer service skills on the job.

Give performance feedback. Provide focused and sustained feedback as the learners practice new customer service behaviors. Ongoing feedback encourages people and directs change. Ensure that supervisors and peers give periodic feedback on progress. Structure the feedback process.

Build in support. Encourage the formation of groups where people give each other support throughout the change effort.

Prevent relapse. Use relapse prevention, which helps people use lapses and mistakes as lessons to prepare themselves for further efforts.

Lead by example. Change is more likely to endure when supervisors and upper-level management consistently display the competencies themselves.

Develop an organizational culture that supports learning. Change will be more enduring if the organization’s culture and tone support the change and offer a safe atmosphere for experimentation.

Evaluation

Find unobtrusive measures of the competencies before and after training, and at least two months later. One-year follow-ups also are highly desirable. In addition to charting progress on the acquisition of competencies, also assess the impact on important job-related outcomes.