Think about the last team you were on where you really felt like everybody was on the same page headed towards a common goal…Whether it be a sports related team, group project at school, or your everyday work environment there’s a reason why you felt like it was a team.  Most likely there was a leader of the group; a manager, coach, team lead; that identified what the expectations or goals were of the particular task at hand.  Although it sounds like a no brainer, many employees come to work day in and day out without a clear sense of direction.

So why do people follow their leaders?

Direction

If I’m going to follow anyone, I’m going to make certain that the person I am following knows where he/she is going. The easiest rule of management should be to know where you are going and to ensure your team members are aware of it as well. The most successful leaders have a vision and they are an inspiration to their team members. If your team doesn’t believe you know where you are headed can you blame them for not following?

Lead by Example/Walking the Walk

Most managers have gotten to where they are by having the ability to do the job or jobs they are managing.  The best coach doesn’t have to be the best player but they do need to lead by example when they are called upon. There’s nothing worse than having a manager tell you one thing then lose all credibility by doing something completely different. 

Trust/Support

Plain and simple, if I don’t trust the person I am supposed to be following I’ll be sure to be 10 steps behind the leader so I can proceed with caution. Managers/Leaders need to build a sense of trust and confidence with their team members over time. It’s not given…it’s earned…so prove it.  Being transparent and relying on your team member’s strengths will get you one step closer to earning it.

Think about your team…who’s on the roster? If you turn around is anyone there? If you don’t see your people following it’s not too late to change. Identify the reasons why and start over-communicating expectations and performance standards.  Remember that the 1^st step in serving your customers is serving your employees.

If you are leading others and you’re lonely, then you’re not doing it right.  Think about it. If you’re all alone, that means nobody is following you.  And if nobody is following you, then you’re not really leading. ~John Maxwell

Daniel Park – Director of Consulting Services, Frontline Performance Group

Most every frontline sales manager will agree that keeping staff encouraged when they have very price sensitive customers can be challenging. It becomes quite easy to fall into the trap of believing that by in large, customers are cheap. But here is the reality; customers are not cheap. They are value driven and want to know that they are receiving the best price and service available for their hard earned money.  Understanding and focusing on their need for value will allow for the message to be heard and more sales to be made. 

Here are a few of the many successful techniques to help your team command the attention of value driven customers:

-  When presenting a product or service, always focus first on the benefits of what the customer is getting, prior to quoting the price.  All too often the price is presented first and then the customer shuts down their listening skills.

-  Focus on the value of what they are getting vs. the price they are paying.  People remember most, whatever they hear last so when presenting a sale price, highlight the “savings”. For example: “It can sell for as much as $99, today it’s only $69, that’s a savings of $30!”

-  DO NOT PREJUDGE!!!!  Only assume every customer deserves the very best product or service you have to offer.

-  People buy from those they like. Focus on connecting with the customer and delivering a presentation centered on enhancing their experience – with you, the company and the products/services you represent. 

Most importantly, bear in mind that a salesperson’s perception of their customers will affect the presentation and ultimately, influence buying decisions.  It is critical that frontline managers do not “buy into” the same perceptions that can distract and dissuade their sales team.  How a salesperson feels about their customers and the sales opportunities determines how well those customers will receive their message.  Encouraging your frontline to focus their energies on ways to vary their presentation for the value driven customers instead of dismissing the opportunity will increase sales opportunities and generate more revenue.

Ken Stellon – Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group

Some of the best customer service comes from one word, awareness.

Too often new employees are told to provide excellent customer service and only given the old catchphrases when they come aboard.  They are given philosophies like “the customer is always right” or “treat customers how you would like to be treated”. While these are good philosophies, if this is all an employee is given it does not mean they will be able to provide excellent customer service.  As a matter a fact, many opportunities to deliver great customer service will be missed if an employee is solely focused on these philosophies. 

In a service and sales environment, awareness is your action plan; it is a level of discernment that best positions your staff to make win-win decisions for themselves and their customers. Employees that keep awareness top-of-mind will stay sharp and always have a better feel for the pulse of the environment they are in. Having a great sense of awareness may be the single most important factor in their ability to deliver great customer service and optimizing their performance potential. Awareness can reach beyond those old philosophies and in many cases it is awareness that allows them to deliver on those philosophies. 

So, how do you train awareness? It all starts by analyzing your environment and giving your employees examples of awareness. When you are sharing examples try replacing the words “great customer service” with awareness. Why? Ultimately, it is not your employee that will decide if they delivered great customer service; it is the perceptions of your customers that will determine whether the service they received was poor, mediocre or great!

Great customer service is the destination, awareness is the map. When you take a long road trip, do you focus on your destination or do you focus on how to get there? Awareness, being focused on the journey to great customer service, can create an efficient environment that feels seamless to customers even though every action has a purpose. 

Think about a busy hair salon with customers waiting and two stylists finish with their customers at the same time. Since they have only one cash register, one stylist allows the other to go first, utilizes that time to double check their work and finds a few spots to touch up. The touch up lasts a few minutes and the customer appreciates the extra attention to detail. Once completed, the customer proceeds to pay their bill, the register is free and the transaction feels very fluid. This quick awareness action created a positive final moment of experience for that customer. Without awareness, perhaps that additional wait time and the lost opportunity for that added sense of appreciation for detail would have resulted in that customer’s overall experience to change from a 10 to an 8.5.

Challenge yourself to look for how people use awareness at every customer touch point in their place of business and how it works for them. Even look for opportunities where better awareness would have created a better experience. Think outside the box … challenge your team to do the same and discuss them in your weekly meetings. Make it fun because after all, you are creating awareness to look for awareness.

Matthew Pietzak – Area Performance Manager, Frontline Performance Group

Fortune Magazine recently released their annual list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For. Here are some of the well-known names that earned their way on to the list:

• Wegman’s Food Markets - #3
• Zappos - #6
• Mercedes Benz USA - #15
• Stew Leonard’s - #18
• Whole Foods Market - #24
• Four Seasons Hotels - #53
• Publix Super Markets - #67
• Nordstrom’s - #74
• Men’s Warehouse - #87
• Starbucks - #98

Do you see what I see?  Not only are these ten companies on the list of Best 100 Companies To Work For, but each of these organizations have a strong reputation for providing outstanding customer service as well as sustained financial success. Coincidence?   I don’t think so.

In the book “The Customer Comes Second“, authors Hal Rosenbluth and Diane Peters discuss the philosophy of putting your people first.

“This is a formula that has worked for more than two decades, and has transformed his company from a small family business into a global industry leader, grossing over $6  billion.  In this classic on counterintuitive management practice, the entrepreneurial genius and visionary leader of Rosenbluth International shows you how to use exceptional service to win in any industry.” - Tom Peters

As I wrote in an earlier post, companies that say they’re “focused” on customer service are a dime-a-dozen.  Sadly, some companies “focus” on customer service at the expense of their own associates.  These organizations beat the drum of customer service while reducing staffing levels, cutting commissions and benefits and piling on extra workload all the while telling their people “you count” – as the associates add, under their breath, “for nothing”.

Does “The Customer Comes Second” philosophy mean companies need to give their employees heaps of perks and benefits? Definitely not.  You can hold off on constructing the new gym with the indoor swimming pool and free daycare for your associate’s kids.  That’s not how you create a “customers come second” working environment.   The true foundation of an outstanding work environment is high employee engagement.

The folks at Gallup have done extensive research on employee engagement.

“The world’s top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives business outcomes. Research shows that engaged employees are more productive employees. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave the organization. In the best organizations, employee engagement transcends a human resources initiative — it is the way they do business.”

Through their research, Gallup has identified 12 key statements that best predict employee and workgroup engagement:

1. I know what’s expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work that encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates, or fellow employees, are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

What?  No game rooms or smoothy bars?  Nope!  Do some of the companies on the top 100 list have some of those perks?  Yes, they do, but that is in addition to creating a work environment with very high employee engagement.  So what is the “moral” to this story? It’s simple; create an environment with high employee engagement and you will be well on your way to a place on the Top 100 list.  The moral is simple.  Making it happen?  Not so much.

Lee Silverstein – Managing Partner, Frontline Performance Group 

Studies continue to show – customers who have a problem that is resolved quickly and properly are likely to develop more loyalty to a business as opposed to a customer who never had a problem. Yet often still, many businesses operate with a complaint/problem resolution system that is so complex, not even the staff is able to quickly (let alone amicably) bring a complaint to satisfactory resolve for the customer and the company. In effect, some complaint processes are so convoluted, they seem to say to the customer, “Prove us wrong and perhaps we’ll talk about it.” … I think most of us have had that experience as a customer. You know – the one where it was less painful to just remain silent, suck it up and cut your losses rather than deal with the frustration of trying to get someone (anyone) to even listen. And dare you hope, perhaps get them to see things from your point-of-view. Even worse, some companies still operate under the premise that if no one’s complaining, business is good! - Hmmm, did you hear that?

Silence is not a good sign … If they don’t speak up, you lose! In most every industry competition is stiff, so when companies make it difficult for a customer to “tell them how they are doing”, it can impact sales and ultimately kill their business. When a customer experiences problems you never hear about, that means you never have an opportunity to make it better.  When this happens be assured, the customer never forgets the problem and most likely, they will not do business with your company again – Can you hear it now?

If you want to know what people are saying about your business you have to speak their language! Recent research has revealed that almost 75% of the “consumer population” is using social networks to help them make informed buying decisions and influence the decisions of others. In a recent Frontline Sales Forum post from the article How to Succeed With Today’s Empowered Customers, the author suggests, “…empowered customers have to be met by your empowered employees, using the same Internet technologies to keep up.”  - Go on, get beyond the brush!  

So, how should you handle a complaint? Whether your business has invested in a state-of-the-art complaint management system is less relevant to the cause than adhering to the fundamentals; here are a few tips:

1. Show appreciation!  Let the customer know that you strive to improve every day.
2. Listen Well!  You can help a lot more if you know the whole story. 
3. Be empathetic!  Make the customer feel comfortable about telling you the problem. Never take it personally.
4. Ask the customer what can be done to make them happy – their answer may surprise you! Many times they only want to be heard – which is less than you would have given.
5. Do whatever it takes! Perhaps price or some catchy marketing campaign will continue to drive that “first-time” customer to your door; but your primary goal should be to make sure that every customer will happily continue to business with you again. Almost any discount costs the company less than losing a customer for life.

Bottom-line, keep your ear to the ground – customers are falling. And if you pay close attention, you’ll save more than a few.

Lynda Fleming – Director of Learning & Development, Frontline Performance Group