By 
Ever wonder why so many customer service strategies are short-lived or fail before they get started? I mean, think about it: how many businesses do you patronize where you consistently (the operative word here is “consistently”) receive a positive and memorable shopping experience?
The type of shopping experience that you will remember and influence you to return to that company. So how many companies did you come up with?
Two points I would like to make here:
1) I bet it took you a while before a particular company came to mind. I doubt very much that an avalanche of companies bombarded your mind when you thought of that question, and
2) I bet the number of companies you came up with can be counted on one hand… and I bet you’ll have a few fingers to spare. The sad reality is that consistently receiving excellent customer service is the exception, not the norm. So why is that? I can cite many fundamental causes, but without a doubt the most important is the lack of an organizational infrastructure.
Customer Service Infrastructure:
A customer service infrastructure is an organizational structure, including: systems, processes, policies and procedures that facilitate and support a continuous focus on the customer.
It all starts with building your organization from the customer back – not the other way around. An organizational structure that guarantees a continuous, relentless and accurate focus on the client. An infrastructure is necessary because when it comes to a customer service strategy there is a clear and marked difference between implementation and execution.
Implementation is about “getting ready” to launch a strategy, while execution is about consistently performing to the desired standard. Take, for example, a soda promotion at your local store. The implementation phase would include activities such as: ordering the appropriate levels of product, placing promotional signs, advertising, perhaps creating a store incentive program, and communicating and training store staff. Once the soft drink promotion begins, the execution phase begins.
Execution involves: making sure signage stays fresh (and loud!) for the duration of the promotion, product displays stay full and attractive, inventory levels stay up, and most importantly, employees from the store constantly (there’s that word again) promote and suggest selling the product. product to each customer every time he enters the store, not sometimes, always!
Just imagine how much more soft drink convenience stores would sell if they excelled in the strategy execution phase. Good companies implement well, but great companies excel at both implementation and particular execution. The ability to execute consistently is what separates great companies from good companies.
Unfortunately, most companies fail miserably at execution. Why? Because a customer service strategy, unlike a product strategy, is process driven vs. program, and a process requires a support system to be successful.
Paradigm shift:
To launch and sustain a successful customer service strategy, the first step in the process requires an organization to undertake a drastic paradigm shift. Most organizations are program oriented vs. process. Programs have a start and end date.
Metrics are developed and results are easily tracked. And at the end of the program period you know if it was a success or not because you can clearly see the results. A customer service strategy, on the other hand, takes time before you can easily see results.
Customer service is a process, not a program. And a process requires patience and discipline. Due to this program mentality among many companies, patience and discipline are unfortunately not exactly part of their DNA.
I want to present 10 key infrastructure components that are required to facilitate, support, and sustain a customer service strategy over the long term. I noticed that I used the words: long term and sustain, not short term and program.
If you really want your company to excel in excellent customer service, you need to think in terms of process, not program.
Components of the customer service infrastructure:
1. Commitment:
You have to make a conscious decision: either you will commit and stand up for customer service or you won’t. You can’t be half pregnant with a customer service strategy.
Companies that champion customer service have every fiber of their organization focused on the customer; it’s part of their corporate DNA.
Customer service is your lodestar providing direction, guidance and dictating behavior within the organization.
2. Boost to Champion:
You need to drive customer service ownership throughout your organization – every person at every level.
Ultimately everyone needs to own the customer, not just your frontline team that interacts with your customers, everyone! But as you can well imagine, it will take time for ownership to permeate your entire organization, and in most cases it can take years. That’s why in the meantime, until you reach customer service nirvana, you need to assign a champion within your organization to carry the flag, lead the charge, and drive the process forward.
The person you assign should be in a high-level position who has the respect and influence within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth, or “touch points,” are touch points a customer has with your company.
Clients are constantly making value judgments, both conscious and unconscious, about every moment of truth they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded on a mental report card about your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truth—stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc.—then develop a strategy around each one to ensure a consistent, world-class customer service experience.
4. Evaluate: Policies and Procedures – Systems and Processes:
External thinking vs. Inward: Start with the client and work backward.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or the bureaucracy of your organization? Are your policies and procedures customer friendly? Are your systems designed to make it easier for you to do business or for your customers to do business with you? Do your processes put your frontline employees in a position to make or break in the eyes of your customers?
5. Develop meaningful metrics:
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it! Meaningful, that is, those metrics over which your frontline employees have direct control or influence.
Things like: store sales, appearance and retail, mystery shopper scores, and customer feedback are significant front-line metrics that drive customer service behavior.
6. Rate your metrics:
Whatever metrics you decide on, communicate them throughout the organization via a visible marker. If your business includes retail stores, buy one of those large white construction paper, the kind kids use for school projects. These white boards can be purchased at any office supply store.
A scoreboard is essential because it communicates to employees what is important and how to achieve it. We tell our employees to go out and win, but we tend to keep the rules of how to win and scoring a secret. Bosses know what the score is: their marker is management reports, or P&Ls. Just like in sports, keeping score makes it more: interesting, engaging, challenging, and fun. Who plays golf or tennis and doesn’t keep score?
7. Training and skills development:
You have to prepare for victory, otherwise you are just practicing. And in today’s unforgiving marketplace, practice isn’t going to cut it. The phrase: “The customer is always right” doesn’t motivate employees because he doesn’t tell them what to do for the customer. This phrase is more of a bumper sticker than an operating principle.
Training and skills development ensure that your employees are set up to succeed.
8. Communications:
Communication is the soul of any strategy. You just can’t over communicate. Similar to infrastructure component #2: Designate a Champion, assign someone to take charge of communication strategy across your organization, from headquarters to the store level. You need to drive communication in every corner of your organization. This will provide focus and align activities. Communicate things like:
* Sales results * Mystery shopper score
* What works/doesn’t work * Customer feedback: good and bad
* Performance expectations * Areas for improvement
* Lessons Learned * Customer Service Stories
9. Recognize and reward:
Recognize and reward the behaviors you want to see more of. Why? Because what is recognized and rewarded is repeated.
But be sure to recognize and reward only the right performance and behavior. And remember, recognize and reward the results, not the efforts. At the end of the day, what matters is the results.
10. Celebrate success:
Consistently delivering a great customer shopping experience is hard. If it were easy, excellent customer service would be the norm, not the exception. And if you think being a frontline employee is easy, take control of your job for a day.
I’m sure you will leave with a much greater appreciation of what our frontline employees go through on a daily basis. When goals are achieved and good things happen, take time to enjoy and celebrate the moment with your employees that made it happen. After all, life is too short not to, right?
Keys to Success: In addition to the 10 infrastructure components I’ve outlined, you’ll need to possess: patience, discipline, and a laser-like focus to succeed. A customer service strategy takes time to see results. So have patience and the discipline of staying power not to abandon your customer service strategy halfway.* For a free report: “Motivating Underperformers: 20 Dos and Cons of Employee Motivation ” visit: http://www.eps-i.com