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What typically happens at the start of a meeting in your company?
Meetings probably begin with a leader recapping a few key performance indicators that you could have easily read yourself. Then people go around the room and give updates. Not exactly inspiring.
Leaders at Schneider Electric North America start meetings differently. Meetings begin by talking about customers, whether it's sharing a story, or discussing customer feedback.
It's one of several rituals the organization uses to maintain its customer focus.
I interviewed Kyle Hamm, Schneider Electric's Vice President of Customer Transformation. He explained how his company uses rituals like this to keep employees obsessed with customer experience.
Keep reading to watch the interview and discover how you can use rituals to reinforce your own service culture.
Kyle Hamm
Vice President of Customer Transformation at Schneider Electric North America
What is a service culture ritual?
The term ritual sometimes has a spiritual or religious connotation, but that's not the context here.
A service culture ritual is a habit that reinforces the customer-focused culture. It can be something done by a group, such as the way you start a meeting. Rituals can also be individual, such as the way you start your day.
In their book, Rituals for Work, authors Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan offer this definition:
Actions that a person or group does repeatedly, following a similar pattern or script in which they've imbued symbolism and meaning.
I researched a lot of customer-focused companies when I wrote The Service Culture Handbook. Here are just a few examples of rituals I uncovered:
JetBlue executives travel to each location once per quarter to talk about culture.
Zendesk employees do "ride-alongs" with customer support.
Cars.com employees review and discuss customer surveys comments daily.
How Schneider Electric Uses Rituals to Reinforce Culture
My conversation with Hamm covered a wide range of topics around creating and leveraging service culture rituals.
Why customer-centric rituals are important
How to start a meeting with customer focus
Why stories are helpful ways to communicate culture
How senior leaders can legitimize and promote rituals
When to use rituals to reinforce the culture
How to create personal rituals to improve your own customer focus
Check out the interview here.
Additional Resources
Here are some additional resources to help you learn more about using rituals to reinforce your service culture.
Brand leadership expert, Denise Lee Yohn, recently wrote this helpful post about using rituals and artifacts to reinforce your culture.
The book, Rituals for Work, walks you through creating your own rituals.
Finally, how would you like to improve those meetings? Team Effectiveness Expert, Melanie Proshchenko, has a great course on LinkedIn Learning called Working in Harmony as a Senior Team. It's full of ideas for getting senior leaders to work more closely together, including ways to make those meetings more effective.