In all of our seminars we refer to everyone who isn't one of a Company's Officers as "Angels." Why? Because from "Angels" come all blessings - especially the blessing of increased revenue for your company.
If you have people working for you and you're honest, your employees do more work in the aggregate than you do on your own to make your company successful. Without your Angels, you're just one person trying to do everything, and no matter how good you are, your limited time and productivity would severely limit revenues.
That being said, even you and your Angels may need some guidance.
Here are six, simple rules that can radically improve the quality of your customer service, decrease customer loss, increase customer referrals, lessen employee turnover and ultimately, make you more money.
Angel Rule #1. When It Comes to Customers, It IS Your Job.
Your business will succeed or fail based on how well your team serves your clients. For example, we can all probably agree that there is little more annoying to a customer than waiting a long time in a line to get served and seeing an employee sitting nearby who doesn't immediately leap to their feet to help. My guess is that helping you at that moment is not in their job description. "Officially" they don't have to help. Wrong! When a customer needs help and isn't getting any, it becomes your job. Everyone's job is to help the customer. Now! You know what else? If someone pitches in to help and there is follow-up, then it's still their job to make sure that what they started gets done till it's done. So, make sure everyone on your team cooperates and supports each other in serving your clients.
Drill: Bring your team together. Have each one explain what they do for the company. Then, have each of them identify three duties where they occasionally find themselves overwhelmed and needing help. Once identified ask everyone to be on the lookout for such instances and pitch in to help their teammates!
Angel Rule #2. Quickly Acknowledge Every Customer.
This is so simple and obvious, but it stuns me how few employees actually do it. Again, who hasn't been in a situation where you enter a business, see an employee who is busy with something else, and they completely ignore you! You stand around for what seems like hours before they finish and finally decide to deal with you. Amazingly, in their book "Managing Your Socks Off Service", authors Bell and Zemke report that 68% of the customers you lose leave because they feel you are "indifferent" about the "gift" of their business and don't appreciate it. Does anything make you feel more unappreciated than becoming seemingly invisible while standing near or next to an employee and them not responding?
To prevent that from happening we suggest using the never-fail "10/5 Rule"- when a customer is within 10 feet of you, regardless of what you're doing, acknowledge their presence with at least a glance, a nod, or a smile (anything to make them feel noticed). And, if they're within 5 feet of you, speak up and greet them verbally and warmly. If you want to keep customers forever, you must start the relationship off on the right foot.
Drill: Many people aren't comfortable making eye contact with others in their work life because they find it embarrassing. This drill helps them overcome that. Suggest that people go out, walk down the street and make eye contact with complete strangers. Make just a glance with eye contact, a nod of the head, or say a simple "Hello". Acknowledging and greeting people on the street will make it easier to do the same at work!
Angel Rule #3. Slow Down, Keep Quiet and Just LISTEN!
This one is tough. Especially if you think you know what the customer is going to say or ask for, or if you are in a hurry. But this is critical.
Legendary customer service is about doing what the customer expects for their money and making darn sure that they walk out feeling appreciated. Ever been in a conversation when someone keeps interrupting or keeps trying to "guess" what you're going to say next. They probably get things wrong and you end up having to repeat yourself over and over, and by the end of it you're exhausted and want to get away. Slow down, concentrate, and really listen. You'll truly hear your customers, and they'll feel it. Plus, this actually saves you and your team time, as you will remember what they need and how to give it to them. You'll start hearing them the first time.
Drill: Practice Paraphrasing: It is critical when listening to make sure that the listener has heard the problem correctly before proceeding to the solution. Ensure everyone's on the same page with this drill. Pair up two people. Have one pretend to be upset with some interaction common to your business. Have that person tell, in detail, why they are angry. Have the other person paraphrase what they think they heard. Have the "customer" confirm whether it was correct or not and if not, why.
Angel Rule #4. Fix It On The Spot
Statistics tell us that if you solve an irate customer's problem immediately, you stand a 95% chance of keeping their business. 95%! That's pretty much everyone. If you merely solve their problem "promptly" that percentage drops all the way down to between 55% and 77%. Solving the problem immediately increases the likelihood that you'll keep them as a customer by 18%-45%. So, be speedy. Do it now! The longer you wait, the less likely you are to keep that customer. (From John Goodman's TARP customer service survey)
One final and critical thought. You must solve a client's problem to their satisfaction. Too often you will be tempted to solve their problem in a way that suits your processes and procedures. And you'll probably fix the problem, but still lose the customer. So ask yourself, what's more important, your rules or keeping the customer? I hope you said customer! If not, call me and let me remind you of the right answer!
Drill: Ask your team to remember times when they had to take a day or two to solve a customer's problem. Make a list. For most companies that shouldn't be too hard. When you have the list, sit down and go over each instance trying to see if there are policies or procedures in place that made it hard to solve those problems immediately. If there are, see if there is another way to do things that will allow you to fix a similar problem the same day. Make these changes so you won't lose another customer the same way.
Angel Rule #5. Find A Way to Say, "Yes".
Want to lose a customer as fast as you can? Just tell a customer "No," or something like: "We don't do that here," or "It's against our regulations," or "Sorry, you missed the sale by a day, we can't give you that price today," or "Sorry we can't serve you now, we just closed."
Fundamental to any business giving great customer service is that everyone's job is to figure out how to say, "Yes" to anything reasonable that a customer asks for. I understand that you have rules and regulations and you think you need them to survive, but I promise you, if you say "No" to your customers often enough, they will say "No" to your company. You'll be left with efficient processes and procedures and no customers.
If you really want to give customers what they want, when they want it, and to sometimes thrill them to the bone, give your employees the trust to "selectively break the rules" in order to make customers happy by giving them what they want. Your people will feel great that you trusted them, thereby eliciting more loyalty and even better service and your customers will feel special and appreciated that you did something they think is "just for them". Try it. They'll both love it.
Drill: Sit down with your employees who deal with customers and ask them what are the most common "rules" that your customers complain about. Take a look at those rules and consider whether or not some of them can be modified to be more in line with customers' desires or even eliminated. Get rid of the ones you can and of the ones you can't, decide which ones you can allow employees to selectively "fudge" and under what circumstances. Make it clear to everyone which rules can be broken (and to what degree) and trust him or her to do it appropriately.
Angel Rule #6. Support Your Teammates
When a business is successful, everyone wins. If a business fails, everyone loses. As we said in "Rule #1" you're a team. But this is only true if your corporate culture is employee-centric. You have to serve your employees first. Then your people will be willing to hear sincere, well-communicated suggestions from anyone on the team about how to better serve customers.
We teach that if your employees are dedicated to a clear, well-defined mission statement that outlines desirable behavior, and if they've been well-trained on a continuing basis to remind and reinforce those values, they'll be delighted to hear anything from anyone of their teammates that shows them what they might have done differently to better serve a customer. If you think this is naïve or impossible, then you have some work ahead of you to redefine your culture to build a team mentality. Do it. I guarantee it'll serve you and your customers well. And, both your customers and employees will thank you.
Drill: Supporting teammates who are strangers aside from work is difficult. Only when employees begin to view each other as unique human beings with real thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears, will they even consider helping each other to grow. To make that empathetic connection, try to find group activities at work, or preferably, outside of work, where people can show who they are aside from their job description. The more of these opportunities you facilitate, the better you'll all work together as a team.
Allowing even one negative presence on a team can upset the delicate dynamic and confuse other employees as to what is "really" expected of them.
So, get rid of the bad apples before they ruin the whole barrel.
That's a lot of critical information to be sure. So, let's take a moment and review it once more.
World-class customer service requires a culture that has very clearly defined mission, vision and values. This culture is headed by "servant leaders" who put employees first and customers second. In such a culture people are clear about the company's mission, vision and goals and adopt them as their own. They have fun at work, are regularly acknowledged in private and public ways, are held to high, consistently measured standards, and work with a highly positive workforce of like-mined individuals.
Nobody said it would be easy, but it is doable and the results will be nothing short of spectacular. I encourage you to go for it!
To learn more about great customer service, visit http://www.fixmycustomerservice.com
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