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 

Have you ever seen kids playing a game of American football on a playground? It’s pretty interesting because what they do could actually teach senior management at many companies a core secret to creating “inspired performance”. Of course inspired performance is when employees are totally committed to their company, their team and their customers. It’s when an organization has a team of players that doesn’t just do what they are told but that does what needs to be done – on a consistent basis, all the time, because they actually WANT to do it, not because they HAVE to do things. This is the exact opposite of a team that is only “compliant” – defined by a burning desire to “do their eight and hit the gate” without expending any more effort than they absolutely have to in order to keep their job.

SO…

What is it that kids do on a playground when they are getting ready to play a game of football? Well, they define the boundaries of the game first and they make sure that all the players on the field know exactly what it takes to succeed and move the ball down the field. Everyone knows what is “out of bounds”, what it takes to get a “first down” so they can continue playing and everyone also knows where the goal line is and how they can score a “touchdown” to be successful.

Even young kids know the importance of making sure that all the players on the field are on the same page and know what they need to do to succeed. Yet, astonishingly, many organizations never clearly define their organizational “playing field” to the team and they don’t even know what high performance looks like. Employees are sometimes running in the dark, not knowing where the goal line is and not really understanding what they are expected to do to score a touchdown. In some cases, accountability standards are set up and recognition programs are put in place when employees don’t even understand the definition of high performance. In essence, people are expected to “take the hill” with no clear long-term goal in mind even if they reach the summit. This is a too common scenario where people have no idea of how to be excellent and no standard to aspire to in order to be their best. It is hard to consistently exceed past, best performance when nothing is defined and the only constant within the organization is ambiguity.  

Next week I will provide five tips to take your organization to a new level of success. For this week, I would like you to think about being “explicit” instead of “implicit”. Many managers typically say things like, “Oh my people know how I think. They know what I want”. When, in actuality, since they are not mind readers, they really don’t know what you are thinking and they don’t know what is expected of them. The only way people can truly know what they need to do to succeed in the organization is to have that message clearly and explicitly communicated by the leadership.

“Implied” communication will never mazimize the performance potential of an organization. Although many managers tend to think an “unspoken request” will get results from their people, that only serves to create confusion and frustration. Go to a drive through window at a fast food restaurant and see how successful you’ll be with your order while executing a strong “unspoken request”. While that may seem like a ludicrous analogy, the way some managers expect to communicate with their people, through only vague implications, is just as outrageous.

This week, work on being totally explicit instead of just implicit with your communication. Next week we’ll delve into five specific and explicit tips to maximize your organization’s results.

Michael Stahl - Senior Performance Manager, Frontline Performance Group 

Roger Bannister, an English track star, shocked the world by running a sub-4-minute mile in 1954. Prior to this great accomplishment, athletes, physicians, coaches and the media deemed the sub-4-minute mile an impossible feat. On May 6, 1954, Bannister shocked the world and posted a 3:59.4 minute mile. Yet an Australian runner by the name of John Landy allowed the record to stand for only 46 days. During a race in Finland, Landy ran a 3:57.9 minute mile. Within 3 years of the initial Bannister “threshold buster” 16 runners broke the 4-minute mark.

Moral of the Story:

#1 – Half the battle of reaching a goal or breaking a new level of performance is simply believing there is a new level of performance to be reached.

#2- No matter how high your performance goal is it will always become someone else’s target.

Ken Stellon - Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group

Ted Williams, the Hall of Fame left fielder of the Boston Red Sox, was the last Major League Baseball player to hit .400 throughout the course of an entire season. On the final day of the 1941 season he had an opportunity to sit out a double header and ride his .3996 batting average into the record books. Completely understanding the risks associated with going to the plate, he threw caution to the wind and suited up. After an amazing 6 for 8 performance on that final day his average for the season ended at .406! Williams was the last player to break the .400 mark.

Moral of the Story: A true top performer will always risk sacrificing their individual statistics for the betterment of the team.

Ken Stellon - Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group