Why Customers Don't Care About Channels

Chances are, you’ve spent a lot of time worrying about customer service channels.

Multi-channel was the big buzzword for awhile. Now, it’s omni-channel. The questions remain the same:

  • Which channels should your company use to serve customers?
  • How should you manage, staff, and train for various channels?
  • Which department owns each channel? (Marketing? PR? Customer service?)

Unfortunately, your customers don’t care.

Customers care about something much simpler, yet much more difficult to achieve. They want a seamless experience.

How Omni-channel Fails

Omni-channel experiences end up in service failures when there isn’t a seamless handoff from one channel to the next. 

You may have heard agitated customers ask:

  • Why do I have to DM my information when I Tweet a complaint?
  • Why do I have to remember my confirmation number?
  • Why don’t you already know what the last employee told me?
  • Why can I do some transactions online, but not others?
  • Why do I have to give you the same information I just entered into the IVR?

The list goes on.

Behind the scenes, these questions arise for a variety of reasons. 

  • Technology used to manage different channels might not be integrated.
  • Different departments might manage different channels.
  • Companies might be blind to their customers’ journey. 

 

How Customers Think

Customers don’t think in terms of channels. They think in terms of convenience.

A great example is to look at how you communicate with your own friends. Chances are, you seamlessly communicate over multiple channels without ever losing the narrative.

I took this exercise a step further and asked some of my omni-channel friends how they communicate with me. Their responses were illuminating.

My friend Amber responded quickly to my email. She said:

My decision on how to contact people depends on my relationship with them and what the communication is regarding. If it’s personal, and just something to share, I’ll use social media. If it’s personal and I want a response, I’ll text. If it is business and I want a response but it’s not urgent, I send an e-mail. I’m not a phone person -  as a Gen X-er I use phone calls as a last resort – when it’s business related and I need a quick answer.

My friend Jeremy is my most omni-channel friend. I counted ten different channels we’ve used to communicate over the past several months:

  • Office phone
  • Cell phone
  • Text
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Disqus (comments on my blog)
  • WordPress (comments on his blog)
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Face to Face

Here’s what Jeremy said:

My initial thought is that I communicate over the channel that requires the least time and emotional investment. That means email or text because I can very quickly send it and forget it. There’s no substitute for phone and face to face for cultivating a more dynamic relationship with another person though. The most profound thing for me when I see this list is the relationship. Regardless of the channel, that is the underlying theme. The channel is secondary and determined based on the circumstance.

My friend Larry is most likely to initiate a multi-channel conversation. He might ping me on Facebook and then send a Direct Message on Twitter when I respond. Here’s what he said:

With so many channels available to connect with each other it is important to be aware of what works best for the person in which you are trying to communicate. I have found that the best way to reach you Jeff, is to use e-mail. I know if it is not important or an FYI that you are on Twitter, I know you are active on certain tweet chats, I follow you on Facebook as well. But when I know I want to share something with you that I expect feedback, e-mail is the way to go.

Unscientific? Absolutely.

But, there are some consistent themes that guide how my friends communicate. I suspect you’ll see similar themes if you do this exercise too:

  • What works best for the message?
  • What works best for the audience?
  • Can the conversation continue seamlessly across channels?

How Experience Turns Us Into Poor Listeners

We’ve all been frustrated when someone wasn’t listening. 

Perhaps it was your boss, a co-worker, or even a friend. The really aggravating times are when a customer service rep doesn’t listen. After all, isn’t that their job?

In customer service, experience is one of the surprising culprits.

A natural instinct designed to make us more efficient actually hurts our listening skills. The problem is made even worse the more experience we acquire. 

 

The Pattern Recognition Instinct

Our brains are wired to look for familiar patterns. Here’s an explanation from my book, Service Failure:

This capability allows us to make quick sense of large amounts of data without getting bogged down in the details. It’s an ability that comes in handy in many ways, such as determining if something is safe or dangerous, recognizing people we know, or even when reading.

You may have seen this example:

People can easliy raed misspleled wrods as long as all the lettres are there and the fisrt and lsat letters are in the corerct position.

Crazy, right?

The challenge is the pattern recognition instinct can kick in at inopportune times. It’s like when you type an unusual word on your phone and autocorrect keeps changing it. You’re thinking, “No! I know what I’m typing! Stop!” 

A customer who asks a question that sounds like one you’ve heard before can instinctively trigger the same response. 

Your brain automatically stops listening and says, “I know the answer!”

In a perfect world, this makes you a mind reader. The problem is that mind reading isn’t usually what happens. What usually happens is bad:

  • You interrupt the customer.
  • You misunderstand the customer.
  • You become convinced you understand even when you don’t.

 

Experience Makes It Worse

Weak patterns are easier to overcome than strong ones.

Maybe you’ve heard a story once. It's easy to listen intently the next time you hear a story that starts out sounding the same.

But try listening to the same story one hundred times. A thousand times. Maybe more. 

That’s a pretty tough pattern to break. The pattern is reinforced when you stop listening and get it right anyway. 

Your brain says, “Ah ha! I really am a mind reader.” 

The most experienced customer service employees really do develop skills that seem like mind reading. It’s pretty fantastic. That is, until is backfires and they miss a key piece of the customer’s story.

Some experienced employees still dig in their heels. There’s pride that comes with that experience. A little voice inside their brain tells them they can’t be wrong (even though they are).

The result? Less listening.

 

Building New Instincts

Overcoming this natural instinct takes effort.

Start by being intentional. Make a concerted effort to give customers your full attention. 

It’s also helpful to employ specific listening techniques:

  • Deliberately suspend judgement
  • Ask clarifying questions
  • Paraphrase to confirm understanding

You can learn more by watching this video on overcoming listening barriers. There’s even a scene at 1:22 in the video that shows what happens when the pattern recognition instinct gets it wrong.

Six Ways to Supercharge Your Customer Service Training

Let’s confront the truth about customer service training.

The latest ATD State of the Industry report lists customer service training as the fifth most common training topic for U.S. companies. Despite widespread popularity, it often fails to help teams significantly improve their performance.

Many customer service managers describe a temporary bump:

  1. Employees attend training.

  2. They get motivated for a week or two.

  3. Gradually, they settle back into their old patterns.

You can avoid this problem and supercharge your customer service training by applying these six tips.

Tip #1: Target your needs

Skip the generic training. Send your team to a customer service program that targets their specific needs.

The best way to do this is to create a customized program in-house or hire a professional customer service trainer to assist you. 

However, you can still customize your training even if you’re using an off-the-shelf product like my Customer Service Fundamentals course on Lynda.com. 

  1. Determine your team’s specific training needs.

  2. Select the modules that are most appropriate.

  3. Hold follow-up discussions to help your team make the modules relevant to them.

 

Tip #2: Prepare your team

Make sure your employees are fully committed to the training. One way to do this is to focus on how the training can help them do their jobs.

I always ask my clients to make sure their employees can answer these three questions before the training begins:

  1. What’s the training about?

  2. How is it relevant to me?

  3. How will I be able to apply what I learn back on the job?

 

Tip #3: Follow-up

Researchers estimate that as much as 50 percent of learning happens after the training class. That’s when employees try out their new skills. In many causes, employees need support and encouragement to change old habits. 

This makes it critical to incorporate some sort of follow-up activity to help them out.

Examples include:

 

Tip #4: Make sure it’s a training need

Before sending employees to training, make sure training is what they really need. Many customer service problems are misdiagnosed as a training issue. In many cases, another issue is the real problem.

Examples include a poor product, an unfriendly policy, or a toxic culture. Whatever the cause, your service can only be as good as the weakest link in the chain.

There are many tools that can help you diagnose a customer service problem such as the Five Whys technique and Quick Fix Checklist.

 

Tip #5: Eliminate role-playing

There’s a persistent myth that role-playing is an effective customer service training method. It’s not.

Role-playing actually hurts learning because it divides the employee’s attention between learning the new skill and acting out a role. To make matters worse, most employees don't enjoy it.

You can fix this problem by utilizing an experiential learning approach that helps employees apply new skills in a realistic setting.

 

Tip #6: Follow the 70-20-10 rule

A 2009 study by the American Society for Training and Development popularized what’s now known as the 70-20-10 rule for training.

  • 70% of learning comes from experience

  • 20% of learning comes from your boss

  • 10% of learning comes from formal training

The percentages aren’t hard and fast, but the concept is illuminating. Since formal customer service training only accounts for 10% of learning, leadership messages and on-the-job experience need to be aligned with the training or the training will fail.

You can fix this problem by ensuring that formal learning, leadership, and on-the-job experiences are all pointing employees in the same direction.

  • Ask employees to help create the training

  • Run a pilot program so participants can tell their peers about the results

  • Use the Workshop Planner to map out ways to involve the team

Customer service training can make a big difference when done right.

Comcast’s Toxic Culture and the A**hole Brown Incident

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.

Comcast treats a customer horribly. The customer posts their story online and it goes viral. Backpedaling, a Comcast executive issues an apology and promises to get to the bottom of it. 

You might immediately think of last summer’s cancellation call from hell. Or, perhaps the bizarre “Comcast got me fired” story springs to mind. You may have even heard the latest installment where Comcast changed one customer’s name to Asshole Brown.

These incidents happen over and over again. It’s like a warped version of customer service Groundhog Day.

Look closely at these service failures and you’ll see a common thread. Comcast has a toxic customer service culture.

More on that in a moment. First, let’s take a closer look at the latest debacle.

The A**hole Brown Incident

Lisa Brown was shocked when she saw her latest Comcast bill. The account is under her husband’s name, Ricardo, but the name on the bill had been changed to Asshole Brown.

Image Source: Elliott.org

Image Source: Elliott.org

The story was first reported by Christopher Elliott on his blog. A familiar pattern soon emerges when you read the details.

Ms. Brown contacted Comcast to cancel the cable service on her account. The Comcast rep then transferred Brown to a Retention Specialist whose job it is to talk customers out of canceling.

In the end, Brown was charged a $60 cancellation fee and subjected to an insulting name change.

Brown has since received multiple apologies from senior Comcast officials. Charlie Herrin, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience, issued a vague public apology that didn’t specifically mention Brown by name (either name), but it’s clear he was referring to her.

Herrin wrote that the employee responsible will be fired. He added that Comcast will be investigating “technical solutions that would prevent it from happening moving forward.”

Herrin made another interesting statement in his public apology.

The culture of a company is the collective habits of it’s people.

 

Really Bad Collective Habits

There’s clearly a lot of collective habits at Comcast that reveal they have a toxic culture.

For example, Comcast is apparently in the habit of changing it’s customers names. Yep! Asshole Brown wasn't an isolated incident. 

Elliott reported a few recent examples on his blog:

  • Whore
  • Dummy
  • Fakoe (Sound it out. It’s not polite.)

At least one of these name changes was directly tied to an attempt to cancel service.

I examined this issue closely in my book, Service Failure. It’s amazing what people will do when there’s a toxic culture that shapes poor behavior.

In this case, Comcast employees are explicitly encouraged not to care about their customers. The only thing that matters is preventing cancellations. Former employee, Lauren Bruce, said this in an interview with Bloomberg:

I always felt really disempowered to do the right thing. It was all about the dollar.

This pattern is clearly connected to Ryan Block’s infamous cancellation call in July of 2014.

Then SVP of Customer Experience Tom Karinshak made this promise in his public apology for that incident:

We are investigating this situation and will take quick action.

More than six months later, they haven’t taken any action at all. Comcast’s cancellation process remains fundamentally unchanged.

I describe it in detail in this post, but here are the highlights:

  1. Cancellation information is deliberately hard to find.
  2. Customers must call to cancel.
  3. Special employees called Retention Specialists try to talk customers out of canceling.

 

Can Comcast Change?

Marsha Collier raised an excellent question during the #custserv Tweet Chat on January 27: 

At Comcast, Charlie Herrin is still relatively new to his role. He was promoted to SVP of Customer Experience in September. It may still be early, but the company’s inability to learn from repeated failures tells me Herrin won’t make much of a difference.

After all, he was hired from within. That means he was already a part of the toxic culture he’s allegedly tasked with changing.

Other big companies have had success. 

Sprint, Starbucks, and Home Depot immediately come to mind. All three were able to make significant improvements in customer service after a new CEO was named.

Maybe that’s the real answer to Comcast’s customer service woes. A new SVP of Customer Experience isn’t all that’s needed. They need someone new at the top.

Alas, don’t count on that anytime soon. Comcast is still making money. Lots of it.

Why Role-playing Doesn't Work for Customer Service Training

Note: This post was originally posted on the Salesforce Blog.

Here are two things you can count on when scheduling customer service training. 

  1. Employees will be worried that the training includes role-playing.
  2. Managers will be worried that the training doesn’t include role-playing. 

Employees don’t like role-playing because it feels awkward and uncomfortable. 

Managers like role-playing because it provides hands-on practice. Many are convinced that role-playing helps their employees learn new skills inside and out. 

The bad news is it doesn’t work. The good news is there is an alternative training technique that does build skills through hands-on practice. And, unlike role-playing, employees actually enjoy it.

More on the alternative technique in just a moment. Let’s start with role-playing’s limitations.


Why role playing doesn't work

Role-playing falls short as a training tool because it works against the way our brains acquire new knowledge and skills. One challenge is multitasking.

Role-playing requires participants to focus on two tasks simultaneously. They must concentrate on playing their assigned role while also concentrating on applying a new skill. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t built for multitasking. We can only focus our conscious attention on one thought at a time. Researchers have discovered that multitasking actually slows us down and hurts performance. The net effect is role-playing makes it harder to learn new skills, not easier.

There’s a second reason why role-playing doesn’t work.

Learning a new skill requires a certain amount of discomfort. It’s that feeling you get when you realize you aren’t very good at something. This is healthy in small doses because it helps you understand that you still have some learning to do. Role-playing amplifies this feeling of discomfort to the point where it disrupts the learning process. Many training participants feel awkward when they have to pretend to be someone else.


An alternative that works

Experiential learning is an alternative training technique to role-playing that’s highly effective. Like role-playing, participants get hands-on practice applying new skills in a realistic fashion. Unlike role-playing, participants don’t have to pretend to be someone else. They get to be themselves.

I like to use David Kolb’s experiential learning model to create highly effective customer service training activities. There are four steps in Kolb’s model:

  1. Concrete experience
  2. Reflective observation
  3. Abstract conceptualization
  4. Active experimentation

One of my favorite experiential learning activities trains customer service reps to work fast on a busy day while still providing attentive service to each individual customer.

Step 1: Ensure participants have concrete experience in this situation

This helps employees understand what they do well and what they need to improve upon. They can draw from their actual work experiences, but I prefer to incorporate this into the activity. To do this, I give participants three minutes to learn three pieces of information from three other people in the room: the person’s name, a hobby, and their customer service strength. Sounds easy, right? It’s more challenging than it seems. On average, only 10 percent of participants are able to successfully complete the activity.

Step 2: Reflective observation

I do a short debriefing session where I ask participants to think about two things:

  1. What were the challenges they faced in the activity?
  2. Do they encounter similar challenges in their daily work?

Step 3: Abstract conceptualization

This is where participants determine what they’d do differently the next time to improve their performance.

To do this, we discuss specific skills and techniques that could be used to improve our success. The best part is the participants usually contribute great ideas on their own. I usually only have to add one or two suggestions.

Step 4: Active experimentation

Participants get to try out their new ideas. I give participants another three minutes to talk to three new people. Nearly everyone succeeds this time. And, they now have a new concrete experience to start the continuous learning process all over again.


Don’t lose sight of the goal

The ultimate goal for training is to have employees learn new skills that will help them achieve better results. You can make your customer service training much more effective if you ditch unsuccessful methods like role-playing in favor of approaches that truly help employees perform.

Every Customer Service Team Needs the Spirit of Flo

Some employees are naturally infused with the spirit of service.

People visiting the San Diego Botanic Garden last December encountered an employee named Flo who had this spirit. They were so moved by her kindness and generosity that they wrote a letter complimenting her service.

The letter described the type of service we hope all our employees will provide. It also revealed a bit of a mystery. 

Photo credit: Rachel Cobb

Photo credit: Rachel Cobb

More on the mystery in just a moment. First, here’s the letter:

Human Resources Department:

This letter is to express gratitude to one of your employees. Her name is Flo and she worked at Quail Gardens on the night of December 28. [Note: Quail Gardens is another name for the San Diego Botanical Garden.]

We noticed Flo at the Gardens because she greeted us as we were walking around enjoying the Christmas lights. Three of us visited the Gardens that evening but ended up exiting near the additional parking lot instead of at the main parking lot. Rather than retrace our steps, we very much underestimated how far it would be to walk around the neighborhood to the main lot.

One in our group uses a cane so he waited for us on a bench at the Seacrest residential facility. After reaching Encinitas Blvd, we stopped at a gas station to ask exactly how much farther we would need to go to get back to Quail Gardens. It was 8:45 pm. The facility was closing at 9:00 pm and we were worried that we could not walk that far in 15 minutes. 

That’s when we meant Flo. She remembered us from Quail Gardens and greeted us again when we saw her at the gas station. We offered to pay her to drive us back to the parking lot, and she agreed to drive us but would not accept any money. 

We made it back just in time to get the car before the Gardens closed. We then returned to pick up our friend at Seacrest and to explain why it took us so long to get there.

We appreciated the generosity that Flo gave us that night. We are both in our sixties and the walking had already tired us out. We could never have walked the rest of the way to the Gardens. 

We hope that Flo’s kindness and generosity can receive some type of recognition for going out of her way to assist us. We know this type of generosity does not happen very often, and hope that Flow can be acknowledged for her kindness.

What customer service leader wouldn’t want to receive this letter?

Flo exhibited many traits of an outstanding customer service professional. She made her guests feel welcome, she connected with them in a personal and authentic way, and she took care to help the guests in a time of need.

Which brings us back to the mystery.

There are no employees named Flo at the San Diego Botanic Garden. They don’t have any Florences or anyone else with a name that sounds like Flo.

The letter was shared with employees but nobody recalled the story. 

While Flo remains a mystery, employees have decided they can all embody Flo’s service spirit. The story is very reminiscent of Fred in Mark Sanborn’s The Fred Factor. Like Fred, Flo found a way to make a difference.

It’s a great reminder for anyone in customer service. We can all find a way to make a difference when we’re infused with the spirit of service.

The San Diego Botanic Garden is a wonderful place to visit. The friendly staff enjoy helping guests feel welcome and discover the gardens. If you’re in the San Diego area, consider visiting to see for yourself. 

Customer Experience Success Story at AT&T

Customers view service relative to their expectations. 

  • Good service meets expectations.

  • Poor service falls short of expectations.

  • Outstanding service exceeds expectations.

Here’s an email I received from my friend Larry. He expected to receive poor service from AT&T, but was pleasantly surprised in several ways.

Hey Jeff,

I wanted to share a GREAT customer service experience with you.

While I was out of town this weekend there was a power outage and I thought I lost my internet modem. I have not always had the best of luck when dealing with AT&T and am quick to say it. But I want to also be quick to point out my good experience.

First, I went to the local store. I got there about 15 min before they opened at noon. The parking lot was packed and there was a line at the door. 

When the door opened at noon, it was an amazing sight…there were a ton of employees inside and everyone who came in the door was immediately greeted and helped. No waiting at all. This caught my attention in a positive way.

I was met by a young lady who took me to a table and I explained my problem. We trouble shot the modem and immediately determined that it wasn’t the modem, but the power cord. We got the cord from another new piece of equipment and everything worked just fine. 

A power supply costs $10. A new modem costs $100. I asked for the $10 option. 

Initially she suggested we order one and I could have it come to my house or to the store and pick it up. She was unable to find the part # for the cord, and went to ask for help finding it. 

After a few minutes, she came back and I asked if there was a cord in the store I could borrow or rent for a few days until it arrived. She didn’t object and tried to order the cord for me. After another couple minutes, she just took my broken power cord and replaced it with the working one from the new modem box without charging me and said they will fix it on their side because she could not order a new one.

This is a great example of a front line employee taking the initiative and going above and beyond to FIX a customer issue. Instead of being without internet for several days or having to unnecessarily purchase a new piece of equipment. I was out of service for a couple hours and left a very satisfied customer who wanted to share that experience.

I am also sharing this on FB.

~ Larry

Notice how expectations played a role in Larry’s experience.

Larry’s initially low expectations made it easier for him to be pleasantly surprised by good service.

He was worried about wait times when he saw the large crowd. Excellent staffing levels allowed Larry to receive service much faster than he expected. 

Larry expected to pay for the repair. The associate took the initiative to find a solution she was empowered to deliver and gave Larry a replacement power cord at no charge.

These pleasant surprises prompted Larry to share his experience with AT&T on Facebook and with me. It all came down to one customer, at one store, served by one associate.

AT&T promises smart, friendly, and fast service at their AT&T stores. It sounds like they delivered.

How to Engage Your Employees: A Step-by-Step Guide

There's a big problem with employee engagement.

The benefits of engaging employees are widely publicized. Engaged employees are more productive, stay longer, and provide better customer service. You may have also heard that disengaged employees cost companies billions of dollars per year. Or is it trillions?

Gallup's popular employee engagement index has hardly moved despite these benefits. The index sat at 30 percent in 2006 when I gave my first presentation on employee engagement. In 2018, it was up to just 34 percent.

Unfortunately, employee engagement is a mushy concept. What exactly is it? And how exactly do you improve?

This guide will demystify employee engagement. You'll learn exactly what it is, why engaged employees are critical, and how to improve engagement step-by-step.

A team of engaged employees sitting at a conference table, celebrating a recent success.

What is employee engagement?

The lack of a definition hampers a lot of employee engagement initiatives. Leaders agree on the abstract concept, but aren't quite sure what to do.

Even leading consulting firms disagree on the definition.

  • Is it employee satisfaction?

  • Commitment to the company?

  • An emotional connection to the job?

It’s important to gain clear agreement on the meaning of employee engagement. You can't measure, improve, or sustain something if you can't define it.

Here’s the definition we’ll use for the purposes of this guide:

An engaged employee is deliberately contributing to organizational success.

I like this definition because it's specific. It lays out a clear description of what engagement looks like. You need to do three things if you want to engage people:

  1. Define organizational success.

  2. Share that definition with employees.

  3. Help employees contribute.

We'll take a closer look at each step in just a moment. But first, let's look at the impact of having engaged employees.


Why is employee engagement important?

The case for employee engagement is not a philosophical one. Engaged employees perform their jobs better and contribute more to the organization's success.

Don't just rely on vague statistics or anecdotes.

You need to make the case for employee engagement using hard numbers if you want to get executive buy-in. This means calculating the true financial impact of engagement if at all possible.

Start by identifying key metrics that are likely affected by employee engagement. In other words, what is the impact of employees doing their jobs well? Examples include:

  • Productivity

  • Quality

  • Customer satisfaction

  • Revenue

  • Cost savings

You can also look at the secondary costs of engagement. Here are a few examples of those:

  • Turnover. Disengaged employees are more likely to leave.

  • Theft. Disengaged employees are more likely to steal.

  • Harassment. Disengaged employees are more likely to harass others.

Once you identify the metrics affected by employee engagement, use these metrics to assess the financial impact. For example, a hospital decided to focus on employee turnover. Their annual turnover rate for nursing staff was 30 percent compared to an industry average of 20 percent.

The hospital took the following steps to calculate a hard dollar estimate that their CFO endorsed:

  1. Calculated the hard cost of turnover using this worksheet.

  2. Calculated the cost of turnover at 30 percent.

  3. Calculated the cost if turnover was just 20 percent.

The difference between #2 and #3 equaled the potential amount the hospital could save by reducing nursing turnover through employee engagement. The CFO calculated that reducing turnover from 30 down to 20 percent would result $100,000 in hard cost savings. 

He acknowledged this was a very conservative number. It didn’t account for hard-to-measure soft costs such as improved patient outcomes. By the CFO’s own estimate, the potential soft cost savings were $1,000,000.

Translating employee engagement into financial impact will get your executives' attention!

Need some additional ideas? Here are 13 ways to calculate the true cost of customer service.


How do you engage employees?

An engaged employee is deliberately contributing to organizational success. You can engage employees by doing three things:

  1. Define organizational success

  2. Share that definition with employees

  3. Help employees contribute

Let's break this down and take a closer look at each step.


Step 1: Define Organizational Success

In customer-focused organizations, success is defined by a customer service vision statement. This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service (or experience) that gets everyone on the same page. The customer service vision often does double duty as the corporate mission, vision, or brand statement.

There are three characteristics of a good customer service vision:

  1. It's simple and easily understood.

  2. It's focused on customers.

  3. It reflects both who you are now, and who you aspire to be in the future.

Here's an example from Convo, an app-based video relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people:

Our mission is to connect humans through universal communication solutions shaped by visual and cultural experiences.

Notice Convo's customer service vision matches all three characteristics:

  1. Simple: it's just one sentence.

  2. Customer-focused: it describes what Convo wants to do for people.

  3. Authentic: this is what Convo is already doing, and wants to do more.

You can use this guide to create a customer service vision for your organization, department, or team.


Step 2: Share the definition with employees

Employees can't be expected to contribute to organizational success unless they know what makes the organization successful. This is why it's critical to share the customer service vision with employees.

It's not enough for employees to be aware that the customer service vision exists. They need to use it to guide their work.

You'll know you've shared the vision successfully when employees can answer three questions about it:

  1. What is the vision?

  2. What does it mean?

  3. How do I personally contribute?

Here's a sample communication plan from The Service Culture Handbook:

Phase One: Announcement

  1. Share the customer service vision via company-wide communication from the CEO.

  2. Reinforce the vision via messaging from the corporate communications department.

  3. Display the vision on signage ad posters at all company locations.

Phase Two: Initial Training

  1. Hold town hall-style kick-off meetings at each location to discuss the vision.

  2. Create one-page job aids to distribute to all employees.

  3. Provide employees with mugs, t-shirts, and other swag to support the vision.

Phase Three: In-Depth Training

  1. Integrate the customer service vision into existing training programs.

  2. Have managers follow up with employees after the training to observe them using the vision to guide their daily work.

  3. Integrate the vision into an existing employee feedback form used by managers to coach employees on their performance.

This is just an example. You can use any approach that works for your organization's unique culture and situation. 

Help employees contribute

Most employees want to do a good job. The challenge is knowing exactly how and being empowered to do great work. 

Employees lose their natural motivation when they aren't empowered. People start jobs with high hopes and good intentions, but that enthusiasm is ground down over time through poor products, bad policies, a lack of resources, and poor leadership. 

Eventually, employees develop an issue called learned helplessness, where they accept that failure is a foregone conclusion so they stop trying. 

In other words, the employee becomes disengaged.

Empowering employees means enabling them to do great work. There are three elements to this:

  • Resources: employees need the right resources.

  • Processes: best practices must be identified and shared.

  • Authority: employees must have the authority to do what's right.

Visit this empowerment resource page to learn more about empowerment and find a step-by-step guide.



Employee Engagement Resources

Here are selected resources to help you engage employees.

Five Customer Service Trends Worth Watching

Yesterday, I facilitated a webinar called Customer Service Trends to Watch in 2015. Here’s a re-cap along with links to additional information.

You can watch a replay of the webinar here.

Trend #1: Fixing Broken Systems

Most service failures are caused by broken systems.

It might be a rotten culture, an unfriendly policy, or an underperforming department. These issues go beyond a simple employee error. They can’t be fixed with training. They’re systemic.

The now infamous Comcast cancellation call is a terrific example.

In 2015, I predict we’ll see more companies getting serious about fixing broken systems and making it easy for their employees to provide outstanding service.

 

Trend #2: Preventing Service Failures

Matt Dixon was a keynote speaker at ICMI’s CC Expo conference last May. One of his slides really caught everyone’s attention:

Delighting customers is fine, but service failures are what really impacts loyalty.

This isn’t a new idea. Dixon co-authored a 2010 Harvard Business Review article called “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.” And, he released a book on the subject called The Effortless Experience in 2013.

So, why is this a trend now?

Because companies are starting to realize how badly service failures are costing them. Not just in terms of lost customers and lost business, but in terms of wasted time, increased costs, and lots of unnecessary damage control. 

I expect to see a few more companies get serious about service failure prevention in 2015.

 

Trend #3: Proactive Social Care

My 2014 study on what angry customers Tweet about yielded a surprising result. Waiting is the number one reason angry customers Tweet. The number three reason was no response to a message sent to the company.

In other words, customers send angry tweets because another service channel failed to resolve their problem.

Some smart companies are flipping the script. They’re actively searching for problems they can solve. 

Here’s a great example from cable provider Bright House Networks. The rep happened upon a casual Twitter conversation about cable packages.

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Trend #4: Fewer Surveys

In my 2014 article on the Salesforce blog, I detailed five signs that a customer service survey is missing the point.

People are getting tired of taking surveys. Even worse, most companies don’t do anything with them!

In 2015, I expect to see more companies fix their broken surveys. Or, better yet, abandon their customer service surveys altogether for one of these alternatives.

 

Trend #5: Employee Motivation

Managers just can’t seem to figure out employee motivation. 

Some try incentives. Others try threats. All too many don’t try.

A few are discovering Daniel Pink’s outstanding book, Drive, where he lays out three keys to motivating knowledge workers (e.g. customer service employees):

  • Purpose
  • Mastery
  • Autonomy

Here’s a synopsis of how these principles work for customer service employees.

 

So, will any of these trends hold true? Only time will tell.

How to Assess Your Team's Customer Service

Do your 2015 plans include working on customer service?

Many companies have service on their radar. The challenge is knowing where to get started. 

Do send your customer service reps through training? Perhaps you should invest in new technology? Will a new incentive program energize the team?

A great way to begin is by assessing where your team is now.

A good assessment compares your team’s current performance to where you want to be and provides detailed recommendations for closing the gap. It allows you to save time, focus resources, and get better results from your customer service initiatives. 

For example, a call center wanted to reduce the number of calls they sent to an outsourced call center. The third party call center gave them flexibility to handle spikes in contact volume. The trade-off was they could offer better service at a lower cost when they kept calls in-house.

A customer service assessment revealed some low-hanging fruit. Within just one week, the call center was keeping 50 percent more calls in house. 

There are three steps required to conduct a really good customer service assessment:

  1. Define what “good” looks like
  2. Select an approach
  3. Take action

 

Define Good

It’s hard to find something if you don’t know what you’re looking for. That’s why the first step in any assessment is defining what good service should look like. 

On a strategic level, this involves defining outstanding service for your team by creating a customer service vision.  

On a tactical level, this means defining what is supposed to happen for a certain process or interaction. Examples include establishing service standards, procedures, or contact guidelines.

 

Select an Approach

The next step is to select the assessment that best fits your needs. 

Large-scale assessments take several weeks to complete but offer an in-depth review. For example, ICMI offers an operational assessment for contact centers that takes a holistic look at the entire operation including management, employees, and technology. 

The time and expense of a large-scale assessment might be a bit much for many smaller organizations, but there are less-expensive alternatives available that are still very effective.

The Toister Performance Solutions onsite customer service assessment focuses solely on employee performance. It takes less than a day to complete, and you’ll have a detailed written plan the next business day. 

If you prefer to try the do it yourself approach, try using the Customer Service Alignment assessment for a strategic view of your operation. You can also use the Quick Fix Checklist to hone in on the solution to a particular problem. 

 

Take Action

An assessment isn’t worth your time if you don’t take action. 

There are many reasons why companies don’t take action after an assessment. Comfort level with the findings, the strain of other initiatives, and a lack of focus can all play a role.

It’s important to approach customer service assessments with an open mind. After all, why conduct an assessment just to tell you something you already know? The whole point is to look at things from a different angle.

It’s also imperative to conduct the assessment at a time when it will have your full attention. 

Assessments can be a powerful tool for improving customer service. That’s why they’re number three on my list of ways to take service to the next level.

Incidentally, training is all the way down at number seven.