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Will You Add? - Building Your Infrastructure to Sustain Your Service Strategy
With in the past few months more and more people have tempted their fate with hopes to win big at gambling. It seems as though everyone has jumped on the band wagon to capitalize on those that seek fame and fortune through gambling. Everywhere you go from your local department stores, radio advertisement, television commercials and highway billboards you have now been exposed. This effective advertisement has enticed people to take a chance to win big.For the novice gambler, playing around a card table for minimal bets is exciting and rewarding. As time goes on these same people advance in their gambling addiction to scratch offs and lottery. These are convenient to buy, there seems to be one vendor per block. Even the local malls have set up booths to sell scratch off tickets and lottery. Its big business nowadays and people want to cash in one way or another. There seems to be just as much coverage on gambling compared to all the other forms of entertainment put together.Now that people have been exposed and tempted fate they may be one of the unfortunate ones who realized they have a problem and can not stop gambling. What do they do now? Where do they go? Why did this happen to them? And so on. This is the point they begin their search for a solution to their p
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your
You don't have to be running your own business for very long to find out that customers are different when it comes to what they expect out of a cleaning service. There are those customers who want the best, no matter what the cost. On the other end of the spectrum are price conscious customers who are more concerned with how their cleaning expenses fit into their overall budget than anything else. Marketing to these two distinctly different groups can indeed be a challenge.What are the differences between the "budget conscious" and the "quality minded" customers? There are always individuals who will make their final decision based on price. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that these are not good customers for your cleaning business. With the budget minded there are special issues to consider:1. For the budget minded, regular carpet maintenance will not be high on their list of priorities.2. They will probably only become concerned about the "soiled" look of their carpet and ask for cleaning before a special event or occasion.3. When they finally decide the carpets need cleaning, they will want the "biggest bang for the buck".4. The budget minded are also not likely to ask for special services, such as carpet spotting, floor stripping and waxing
The type of buying experience that you’ll remember and influences you to return to that company. So how many companies did you come up with?
Two points I’d like to make here:
1) I bet it took you awhile before a particular company came to mind. I doubt very much that a flood of companies blitzed your mind when you thought about that question, and
2) I bet the number of companies that you came up with can be counted on one hand…and I’ll bet you’ll have a few fingers left over. The sad reality is, consistently receiving great customer service is the exception, not the norm. So why is that? I can cite many root causes, but without question the biggest one is a lack of an organizational infrastructure.
Customer Service Infrastructure:
A customer service infrastructure is an organizational structure, which includes: systems, processes, policies and procedures that facilitate and support a continuous focus on the customer.
It all starts by building your organization from the customer backwards: not the other way around. An organizational structure that ensures a continuous, relentless and laser-like focus on the customer. An infrastructure is necessary because when it comes to a customer service strategy there is a distinct and marked difference between implementation and execution.
Implementation is all about “getting ready" to launch a strategy, whereby execution is about consistently performing to a desired standard. Take for example a soda promotion at your local convenience store. The implementation phase would include activities such as: ordering the appropriate levels of product, getting promotional signage in place, advertising, perhaps creating a store incentive program, and communicating and training store personnel. Once the soda promotion kicks off, the execution phase kicks in.
Execution involves: ensuring the signage stays fresh (and up!) throughout the duration of the promotion, product displays remain full and attractive, inventory levels are maintained, and most importantly, store employees consistently (there’s that word again) promote and suggest sell the product to every customer every time they come into the store - not sometimes, every time! (*)
Just imagine how much more soda convenience stores would sell if they excelled at the execution phase of the strategy? Good companies implement well, but great companies excel at both implementation and in particular execution. The ability to consistently execute is what separates the great companies from the 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 succeed.
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 readily see results.
Customer service is a process not a program. And a process requires patience and discipline. Because of this program mentality among many companies, patience and discipline unfortunately is not exactly part of their DNA.
I want to introduce 10-key infrastructure components that are required in order to facilitate, support and sustain a long-term customer service strategy. Noticed I used the words: long term and sustain, not short-term and program.
If you really want your company to stand for great customer service then you must think in terms of process not program.
Customer Service Infrastructure Components:
1. Commitment:
You need to make a conscious decision - you’re either going to be committed and stand for customer service or you’re not. You can’t be half pregnant with a customer service strategy.
Companies who stand for customer service have every fiber of their organization focused on the customer; it’s part of their corporate DNA.
Customer service is their north star providing direction, guidance and dictating behavior within the organization.
2. Appoint a Champion:
You must drive customer service ownership throughout your entire organization: every person at every level.
Ultimately, everyone must own the customer, not just your frontline team who interacts with your customers - everyone! But as you can well imagine, ownership will take time to permeate throughout your organization, and in most cases it can take years. That’s why in the interim, until you achieve customer service nirvana, you need to assign a Champion within your organization to carry the flag, lead the charge, and drive the process.
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your
When you get a purchase order and don't have the money to get the inventory or parts to fill the order, what do you do? You factor your receivables, right? Not if you don’t have enough receivables right now. You would get a loan or line of credit, wouldn’t you?What if you don't have enough business history or enough credit or enough assets to get the loan? The next solution might be to use your credit cards.What if this order is too big for your credit cards or you don't have credit cards? Even though this order would help your business grow substantially and put you on the road to success, you might have to refuse it, right?Wrong! If your customer who sent you the purchase order is credit worthy and your supplier who will produce your order has a history of producing quality goods on time, you can probably get purchase order financing. This is sometimes called purchase order factoring.The purchase order funder advances money to pay for the inventory or issues a Letter of Credit and the supplier sends you the goods. You deliver the order to your customer, generate an invoice and then a factoring company pays you an advance on the invoice. The first thing that gets paid is the purchase order funding company.You get the rest of thi
Implementation is all about “getting ready" to launch a strategy, whereby execution is about consistently performing to a desired standard. Take for example a soda promotion at your local convenience store. The implementation phase would include activities such as: ordering the appropriate levels of product, getting promotional signage in place, advertising, perhaps creating a store incentive program, and communicating and training store personnel. Once the soda promotion kicks off, the execution phase kicks in.
Execution involves: ensuring the signage stays fresh (and up!) throughout the duration of the promotion, product displays remain full and attractive, inventory levels are maintained, and most importantly, store employees consistently (there’s that word again) promote and suggest sell the product to every customer every time they come into the store - not sometimes, every time! (*)
Just imagine how much more soda convenience stores would sell if they excelled at the execution phase of the strategy? Good companies implement well, but great companies excel at both implementation and in particular execution. The ability to consistently execute is what separates the great companies from the 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 succeed.
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 readily see results.
Customer service is a process not a program. And a process requires patience and discipline. Because of this program mentality among many companies, patience and discipline unfortunately is not exactly part of their DNA.
I want to introduce 10-key infrastructure components that are required in order to facilitate, support and sustain a long-term customer service strategy. Noticed I used the words: long term and sustain, not short-term and program.
If you really want your company to stand for great customer service then you must think in terms of process not program.
Customer Service Infrastructure Components:
1. Commitment:
You need to make a conscious decision - you’re either going to be committed and stand for customer service or you’re not. You can’t be half pregnant with a customer service strategy.
Companies who stand for customer service have every fiber of their organization focused on the customer; it’s part of their corporate DNA.
Customer service is their north star providing direction, guidance and dictating behavior within the organization.
2. Appoint a Champion:
You must drive customer service ownership throughout your entire organization: every person at every level.
Ultimately, everyone must own the customer, not just your frontline team who interacts with your customers - everyone! But as you can well imagine, ownership will take time to permeate throughout your organization, and in most cases it can take years. That’s why in the interim, until you achieve customer service nirvana, you need to assign a Champion within your organization to carry the flag, lead the charge, and drive the process.
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your
Why? Because most of the other people online want to sign you up for some consulting service or sell you their book. I just want to spread good, important information that the average business might use to save money and create a more effective ad.The fact that I did write a book about that very subject is not relevant right now. You came here to learn something and darn it, that’s what I’m going to do. Teach you some straight facts. But, first let me explain why you should listen to me at all. I was a YP rep and consultant for nearly 25 years and, prior to that, had my own advertising agency. I also have a degree in marketing. I’ve been designing Yellow Page ads for the past three decades. So I have expertise in YP creation and have advised almost 7000 companies on how to put together YP ads that work hard.Now, with that out of the way, let’s continue on to the lesson. Here are the basics you should be aware of, in no particular order:Don’t always trust your YP rep to do what’s best for you. They work and get paid by the publisher. Get another opinion. It’s in your best interest to do so.The largest ads don’t always get the most business. It has to do with content; what you say and how you say it, the layout, and illustrations.If you can
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 succeed.
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 readily see results.
Customer service is a process not a program. And a process requires patience and discipline. Because of this program mentality among many companies, patience and discipline unfortunately is not exactly part of their DNA.
I want to introduce 10-key infrastructure components that are required in order to facilitate, support and sustain a long-term customer service strategy. Noticed I used the words: long term and sustain, not short-term and program.
If you really want your company to stand for great customer service then you must think in terms of process not program.
Customer Service Infrastructure Components:
1. Commitment:
You need to make a conscious decision - you’re either going to be committed and stand for customer service or you’re not. You can’t be half pregnant with a customer service strategy.
Companies who stand for customer service have every fiber of their organization focused on the customer; it’s part of their corporate DNA.
Customer service is their north star providing direction, guidance and dictating behavior within the organization.
2. Appoint a Champion:
You must drive customer service ownership throughout your entire organization: every person at every level.
Ultimately, everyone must own the customer, not just your frontline team who interacts with your customers - everyone! But as you can well imagine, ownership will take time to permeate throughout your organization, and in most cases it can take years. That’s why in the interim, until you achieve customer service nirvana, you need to assign a Champion within your organization to carry the flag, lead the charge, and drive the process.
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your
The ProblemBurn and scald injuries lead the way in workplace injuries that result in lost time from work (average of 5 days per year per burn or scald according the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Publication No. 2004 -146). The economic impact to employers and employees alike as a result of these injuries can be overwhelming. A recent study conducted in Oregon State suggested the average cost in that state for burn injuries is $5,400 USD per incidence!The HazardsA major burn hazard source is found in industrial plants that utilize steam process lines. In many typical applications hot steam lines are initially covered with a permanent fixture of hard lagging and mineral wool insulation. As plant processes evolve or if system problems occur, sections of insulation are often removed for troubleshooting, pipe replacement or line reconfiguration. The removed sections of insulation are usually irreparably damaged. Replacement costs for these small sections can be cost prohibitive utilizing traditional insulation techniques. The result is that the insulation is often never replaced thereby creating a potential burn hazard.A second major burn hazard source occurs at high temperature flexible (steam/oil/heat traced) hoses that are co
I want to introduce 10-key infrastructure components that are required in order to facilitate, support and sustain a long-term customer service strategy. Noticed I used the words: long term and sustain, not short-term and program.
If you really want your company to stand for great customer service then you must think in terms of process not program.
Customer Service Infrastructure Components:
1. Commitment:
You need to make a conscious decision - you’re either going to be committed and stand for customer service or you’re not. You can’t be half pregnant with a customer service strategy.
Companies who stand for customer service have every fiber of their organization focused on the customer; it’s part of their corporate DNA.
Customer service is their north star providing direction, guidance and dictating behavior within the organization.
2. Appoint a Champion:
You must drive customer service ownership throughout your entire organization: every person at every level.
Ultimately, everyone must own the customer, not just your frontline team who interacts with your customers - everyone! But as you can well imagine, ownership will take time to permeate throughout your organization, and in most cases it can take years. That’s why in the interim, until you achieve customer service nirvana, you need to assign a Champion within your organization to carry the flag, lead the charge, and drive the process.
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your
Convenience stores by nature have a singular brand promise: convenience. But in a fast-paced retail environment, the busiest of stores struggle to live up to that commitment. Some retailers are taking a step back and discovering opportunities to improve on convenience by rethinking their supply and fixture layout.They’re recognizing opportunities to improve flow and better address their customers’ needs quickly and efficiently. If a store is properly staffed for its typical daily traffic, there should be no reason for lines and congestion. Convenience store managers need to realize the importance of efficient design in delivering on the promise of the industry.Store layout plays a big role in improving efficiency and convenience. It demands a customer-centric approach that allows managers to view the store as a customer would. By seeing the company the same way customers do, retailers have the necessary perspective to identify opportunities and make changes. Convenience store retailers should consider the most popular products, and then determine how easy or how difficult they are to get to.Also, consider products that are often purchased together and how closely they are positioned within the store. If the store’s premade sandwiches are popular with regular customer
The individual you assign should have a high-level position that has the respect and clout within your organization to make things happen. The higher the level, the easier the road, because it sends out a strong message to your organization that customer service is important.
3. Identify your Moments of Truth:
Moments of truth or “touch points," are contact points that a customer has with your company.
Customers are constantly making both conscious and unconscious value judgments about each of the moments of truths they encounter. These value judgments are then recorded into a mental report card on your company.
Identify each of your company’s moments of truths: stores, employees, answering the phone, delivery trucks, etc., then develop a strategy around each one that will ensure a consistent world-class customer service experience.
4. Assess: Policies & Procedures – Systems & Processes:
Outward thinking vs. inward: start with the customer and work backwards.
Do your policies and procedures serve the customer or your organizational bureaucracy? 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 succeed or fail in the eyes of your customers? (*)
5. Develop Meaningful Metrics:
If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it! Meaningful, meaning those metrics that your frontline employees have direct control or influence over.
Things like: store sales, appearance and retailing, mystery shopper scores, and customer comments are meaningful frontline metrics that drive customer service behavior.
6. Scoreboard your Metrics:
Whatever metrics you decide on, communicate them throughout the entire organization via a visible scoreboard. If your business includes retail stores, purchase one of those large white poster-boards, the kind that kids use for school projects. These white-boards can be purchased at any office supply store.
A scoreboard is critical because it communicates to the 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 the score a secret. The bosses know what the score is - their scoreboard is the P&L or management reports. Just like in sports, keeping score makes it more: interesting, engaging, challenging and enjoyable. Who plays golf or tennis and doesn’t keep score?
7. Training & Skill Development:
You have to prepare for victory otherwise you’re just practicing. And in today’s unforgiving marketplace practice isn’t going to cut it. The phrase: “The customer is always right” is not motivating to employees because it doesn’t tell them what to do for the customer. This phrase is more a bumper sticker than an operating principle.
Training and skill development ensures your employees are prepared to succeed. (*)
8. Communication:
Communication is the lifeblood to any strategy. You simply cannot over communicate. Just like infrastructure component #2: Appoint a Champion, assign someone to own the communication strategy throughout your organization, from headquarters to store-level. You must drive communication throughout every corner of your organization. This will provide focus and align activities. Communicate things like:
* Sales results * Mystery shopper score * What’s working/not working * Customer comments: good & bad * Performance expectations * Areas for improvements * Lessons learned * Customer service stories
9. Recognize & Reward:
Recognize and reward the behaviors you want to see more of. Why? Because what gets recognized and rewarded gets repeated.
But be sure to only recognize and reward the right performance and behavior. And remember, recognize and reward results, not efforts. At the end of the day it’s results that matter.
10. Celebrate Success:
Consistently delivering a great customer buying experience is hard. If it were easy, great customer service would be the norm not the exception. And if you think being a frontline employee is easy, then takeover their job for a day.
I’m confident you’ll walk away with a much greater appreciation of what our frontline employees go through on a daily basis. When goals are achieved and good things happen, make the time to enjoy and celebrate the moment with your employees that made it happen. After all, life’s 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 to not abandon your customer service strategy midstream.
* For a free report: “Motivating Non-Performers: 20 Do’s & Don’ts of Employee Motivation” go to: www.eps-i.com
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