Why You Need to Evaluate Your Hours of Operation

A customer service leader recently told me about a demotivated employee on her small team.

He was the first person scheduled to work most days. By the time he got settled in at his desk and turned the phone system on, he would be crushed by an avalanche of calls.

The employee would regularly spend the first hour of his day struggling to keep up with the volume until other coworkers started to arrive. By then, call volumes typically diminished and his colleagues enjoyed a more relaxing start to their day.

The customer service leader recognized this employee was one of her best. She also sensed he was getting frustrated. What should she do?

The solution may seem obvious in hindsight. It was time for this leader to evaluate the hours of operation and her staffing levels throughout the day.

Here's why you might need to do it, too.

The Impact of Operating Hours

There are two dimensions to operating hours and staffing.

• The hours and days you are open for business

• Your staffing levels at various times during the day

Both have a significant impact on service quality and profitability.

For example, the customer service leader I described earlier likely had customers who were frustrated by having to wait when they called first thing in the morning. Angry customers tend to take longer to serve, which lengthens the wait time for the next customer.

Over the long run, those customers might take their business somewhere else.

I suggested that she review her schedules and consider having more staff available at a slightly earlier time of day. She could shift a person or two to an earlier start time so her total hours would remain unchanged. This would help prevent her employee from feeling so burned out. It would likely also prevent customers from having to wait.

Case Study: Independent Retail Book Store

Hours of operation and staffing levels are critical decisions for small businesses. Let's look at an example for an independent retail book store.

According to Womply, a company that provides customer insight data to small businesses, the average independent retail bookstore does 5.5 percent of its total weekly business on Sunday.

Bookstore revenue by day of the week. Image source: Womply

The national average weekly revenue for this type of business is $4,334, so a 5.5 percent share means a typical Sunday clears $216.70 in sales.

Here are the big questions:

• Is it worth it for this business to be open on Sundays?

• If so, what hours should it be open?

• And if it's open, how many employees should be available?

Let's tackle the first question.

According to multiple sources, including this one and this site, the average gross margin for a bookstore is 40 percent. This is the difference between the price the bookstore pays to acquire the books and the price the bookstore sells them for.

So 40 percent of $216.70 in revenue leaves just $86.68 in gross profit. That gross profit has to cover the wages of employees working in the store, along with fixed costs such as rent.

Here are a few rough calculations on the cost of employees for that Sunday:

• $10.89 average wage (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

• 16 hours (2 employees working 8 hours each)

• $174.24 hourly cost of labor (16 x $10.89)

The $174.24 is actually low, because it doesn't include the "fully loaded" costs associated with paying employees, such as payroll taxes, insurance, etc. 

But the math alone on this is pretty clear. The store will lose $87.56 by being open on Sunday.

Let's look at the other two questions:

• What hours should the store be open?

• And if it's open, how many employees should be available?

There may be other times when it may be a good idea to be open longer hours or have more employees on staff.

Let's say the bookstore normally closes at 8pm on Saturdays. It happens to be located in a busy part of town with several restaurants that draw large crowds.

The store might benefit from staying open until 10pm on Saturday if it can make some sales to the after-dinner crowd.

Imagine the store does an experiment and finds a way to average $150 in additional sales from 8pm-10pm on Saturdays. At a 40 percent gross margin, that leaves $60 to pay employees and other expenses. So two employees working two additional hours at $10.89 each (2 x 2 x $10.89) would cost $43.56.

Having the right number of people on staff is also essential. Too many employees is a waste of money, but so is having too few.

Here are just a few ways that being short-staffed could hurt the bookstore's business:

• Customers may walk out when the line is too long

• A helpful salesperson could have suggested more sales

• Inventory gets moved out of place and needs to be re-shelved

Making small adjustments to the hours of operation and staffing levels could mean the difference between the bookstore losing money or making a respectable profit.

Take Action

Your business may have software to help you track your volumes throughout each day. A few examples include:

• Phone system

• Email, chat, or other messaging volumes

• Customer service ticketing software

• Point of sale software

• Business insight software like Womply

Start by pulling a historical record of the data for the past six months and compare it to your employee schedules.

Look for situations where you are either understaffed or overstaffed and try to determine where your schedule needs adjustment.

Don't be afraid to try small experiments where you extend or shorten hours of operation or add or subtract staffing levels at various times of the day. Whether you manage a contact center, run a small business, or oversee a large enterprise, having the right staffing level is critical.

When Do You Need a Customer Service Vision Facilitator?

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My client had been working on creating a customer service vision for several months.

For the uninitiated, a customer service vision is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that acts as a compass to point all employees in the same direction. Creating one is an important first step towards developing a strong service culture.

The challenge was my client's executive team could not agree on the wording. There were multiple drafts that felt close, but it still wasn't quite right.

That's when the client hired me to facilitate the process. After two hours, we had a customer service vision statement that the President and CEO both loved.

Hiring a professional facilitator is not the right move for every organization. It can be costly or you might already have someone internal who is capable. Here's when you should consider it.

Situation #1: You're Stuck

Some teams, like the client I mentioned above, get the process started and then become stuck.

I shared the process I use for writing a customer service vision in this blog post and in The Service Culture Handbook. The steps can appear deceptively simple, though there are some pitfalls along the way.

For example, one customer service leader told me she had gathered some employees for a vision writing session and the group came up with two good but very different statements. Now she was having a difficult time merging the two together into one clear vision.

This is one of the most difficult parts of the process, in my experience. It's also an example of where a professional facilitator should be able to help your team get unstuck.

Situation #2: You're in a Hurry

Companies sometimes spend months on creating a customer service vision. The typical process I use with clients takes about two weeks:

1. We gather input from employees via a survey

2. A group of 7-10 employees meet to write the vision

3. I help my client create a plan to share the vision

Step two, the vision writing meeting, typically takes just two hours. 

It can take a deft touch, particularly during the vision writing meeting, to gently move people forward. There have been many times when the group has wanted to have an extended discussion, while as a facilitator I knew a little time pressure would help everyone better access their strongest feelings.

Moving at that swift pace can be difficult without a professional facilitator. Part of the facilitator's role is to ensure there's a clear path and then quickly move everyone towards the goal. 

Situation #3: You Need Someone Neutral

Executives often have strong feelings about concepts that should be reflected in the customer service vision. 

That can make it difficult for an executive to simultaneously solicit input from employees while espousing their own ideas. Strong visions ideally contain a balance of perspectives that ring true for everyone.

One client had really strong feelings about certain concepts being included in the customer service vision, but employees struggled to embrace them. Through the facilitation process, we learned the roadblock was the specific wording this leader was using rather than the concepts themselves. A few minor tweaks to the language and suddenly everyone was happy.

A facilitator can help in these situations. Ideally, this person will help you balance the perspectives and input from all participants, while ensuring a key executive's desires are still incorporated into the final product.

Finding a Facilitator

There are a few places you can go to find a facilitator to help you write your customer service vision.

Try a professional association such as the Organizational Development Network or the Association for Talent Development. These organizations both have a network of local chapters, which might be the best route to go for a small business seeking a less expensive option.

You can also ask for referrals. Many businesses have used a consultant to help facilitate a strategic planning session or an executive retreat.

If you get stuck, feel free to give me a call at 619-955-7946 or email me. Although vision facilitation is a service I provide, I'd be happy to walk you through the process and give you some suggestions with no obligation.

Lessons from The Overlook: Embrace the Slow Times

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

We've just finished an extended busy season where The Overlook has been rented every weekend since November. Revenue is up considerably over last year and we're very happy.

My wife, Sally, and I are also glad things are slowing down. 

Small maintenance issues add up over time in any home, condo, or apartment. The Overlook is no exception, but it's difficult to do that maintenance when someone else is staying in the house. 

After a winter of roaring fires, the fireplace needed cleaning.

That maintenance is essential to keeping everything looking good and in smooth working order, so a temporary slow period gives us an opportunity to get a few chores done.

One of those chores is conducting preventative maintenance (PM). We have a checklist of items that need to be done so we don't forget. This month's PM chores include:

• Inspecting house systems like the HVAC, septic system, etc.

• Verifying all electrical, plumbing, and appliances are in good working order

• Deep cleaning the house

There are a few places that need some paint, so we'll be coordinating with a local painter to get that work done.

Sally and I are also making a last minute trip to the cabin to take some photos of the interior. We've made a few small changes, such as hanging new artwork or changing the bedding in one room, so we'll be able to use the updated photos for marketing on our website, our property manager's website, and on The Overlook's Facebook page.

Of course, this also means we get to enjoy staying at The Overlook ourselves!

Many businesses have slow periods. It's helpful to take advantage of these times to work on important projects that can't get done when it's busy.

For example:

• Complete a preventative maintenance checklist

• Schedule larger projects, such as renovations

• Create new initiatives, such as marketing campaigns

Yes, we'd all like the revenue to keep streaming in. The silver lining of a slow period is we know we're keeping The Overlook looking great and in good condition, which means we'll be ready once it starts to get busy again!

Seven Simple Ways to Improve Your Customer Focus

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Coins can be a mini customer service hassle.

Think about the last time you bought something with cash and needed to collect change. There's an awkward exchange as the cashier hands you the bills and then dumps the coins on top of it. It's tricky to hang on to everything.

A drive thru line is the worst place for this to happen. I've sometimes found myself too close to the wall of the building to open my car door and retrieve the lost change. There's an awkward dance that follows as you pull forward while gesturing to the driver behind you to stay put for a moment so you can collect your missing 17 cents.

There's a way to avoid this.

The cashier can put the coins in your palm first and then place the bills on top. It's much easier to control the coins that way.

That's just one example of a simple way to focus your service on your customer. Here are six more you can easily implement.

Make the Effort to Follow-up

Some customer service situations require a follow-up contact. The big question is who should take responsibility?

Let's say a customer calls to check the status of an item she ordered. The customer service rep verifies the order is in production and is scheduled to ship the following day for a Friday delivery.

A transactional customer service rep might say, "Give me a call if it doesn't arrive by Friday and I'll track it down for you."

A customer-focused rep might say, "I'll monitor the status of your order and follow-up with you on Friday to make sure it arrived in good condition."

Use Clear Language

It's easy to fall into the trap of using unclear language. 

Imagine a customer is anxious to get a billing problem resolved. You want to keep him happy, so you tell him, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it right away!"

The problem with this word choice is "right away" might mean within one day to you, while the customer interprets "right away" as within the hour.

A more customer-focused is to use clear language to describe exactly when the error should be corrected. "You should see the correct amount on your account by 5pm tomorrow."

Do the Time Zone Math

Serving customers across multiple time zones can be tricky. 

For instance, if you're in Phoenix, should you say good morning when it's 9:30am your time but your customer is calling from Atlanta? (Trick question, it depends on the time of year since Phoenix does not participate in daylight savings time.)

Many of us become adept at time zone conversions after awhile. We can make things easier for our customers by working out the math so they don't have to. So if I'm in Phoenix and my customer is in Atlanta, I can tell her I'll call her at 11:30am her time without her having to worry what time that is where I am.

Anticipate Hidden Needs

My wife and I checked into a small inn not long ago and were about to head out to dinner. The front desk associate had recommended a restaurant just a few blocks away, so we decided to walk.

She handed us a pair of flashlights as we were about to leave. "Use these while you are walking," she said. "The road is dark and there is no sidewalk, so the flashlights will make it easier for cars to see you. You can never be too careful!"

That small act of kindness not only kept us safe, it made us feel as though the associate genuinely cared. 

You can create a similar feeling for your customers by anticipating needs your customers aren't yet aware of. Use your knowledge and experience to be on the lookout for opportunities to share proactive service.

Use the Pre-Emptive Acknowledgement

You can often defuse a customer's anger by acknowledging their frustration before they reach a boiling point.

It's probably happened to you. Let's say you go out to eat on a busy Friday night. You place your order and enjoy a nice conversation with friends or family. After awhile, you start feeling hungry and notice it's taken a long time for your food to arrive.

Just then, your serve arrives at your table, apologizes for the delay, assures you that your order is coming right out, and offers to refill your drinks.

That's the pre-emptive acknowledgement. You might have grown much more frustrated if your server had disappeared completely until your food arrived. But by showing up at your table to apologize for the wait, it becomes a non-event.

Look for opportunities to do the same thing for your customers. The trick is you have to spot situations where a customer is likely to get angry before their anger comes on too strong!

Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

Using the preemptive acknowledgment technique from Working with Upset Customers by Jeff Toister

Take the Thank You Letter Challenge

This one is the ultimate customer focus exercise.

Start by writing a thank you letter to yourself that you would hope to receive from a customer. The letter should describe how you helped the customer in some way.

Next, read the letter each day for 21 days and try to receive that same feedback from a real customer. I've created this daily email reminder to help you with this challenge.

Take Action!

Customer-focus is a powerful skill.

It helps you better understand your customers, which in turn makes it easier to meet and often exceed their expectations. I encourage you to try at least one of these exercises right now and see how they can make a difference!

Here are some additional resources to help you:

• Reminders: Customer Service Tip of the Week emails

• Book: The Service Culture Handbook

• Video: Leading a Customer Centric Culture

Why You Should Stop Surveying Your Customers

What if you discovered your business was doing something that more than 25 percent of your customers disliked?

That should get your attention, though some businesses engage in unfriendly practices that bring in significant revenue. Think of airline baggage fees, hotel resort fees, and cable equipment rental fees. 

Okay, but what if you learned an activity that more than 25 percent of your customers disliked delivered absolutely no value to your business?

You'd probably stop it immediately.

The customer service survey falls into that category for many companies. Customers don't like it and it delivers absolutely no value. Smart customer service leaders should either fix their broken surveys or stop doing them altogether. 

Read on to learn which path you should take.

Customer Service Survey Drawbacks

A 2017 study from Customer Thermometer asked 1,000 customers to give their opinions on surveys by, you guessed it, surveying them.

• 25 percent dislike being surveyed after a purchase

• 47 percent dislike being prompted for feedback on a website

• 43 percent dislike being surveyed in exchange for a contest entry

The caveat is an inherent bias in the results. The chances of you filling out a survey about surveys when you really don't like surveys is pretty low. So we could reasonably expect the positive results to be inflated.

In fact, 45 percent of respondents reported they routinely ignored survey requests.

Okay, so far the data shows that surveys annoy a lot of customers and nearly half of customers don't complete surveys, so they aren't representative of your customer population.

It gets worse.

A 2016 study from Interaction Metrics concluded that 68 percent of surveys from leading retailers were "total garbage," meaning the surveys yielded no useful information.

The kicker is a 2017 study from Capgemini Consulting revealed that companies improperly used Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys saw no difference in customer perception compared to companies that did not track NPS or customer experience data.

The big question is whether it's worth the risk of annoying so many customers if your business is getting zero value out of your surveys.

How to Tell if Your Survey Generates Value

Think about the intention behind a customer service survey. This is what a survey plan should look like:

• Generate meaningful insights

• Use those insights to take action

• Measurably improve the business through those actions

So you can start assessing the value by starting at the beginning. Does your survey generate any meaningful insights?

Here are just a few questions it might answer:

• What makes your customers happy or unhappy?

• What products, services, or locations are performing the best or worst?

• What generates the most complaints?

Insight alone isn't enough. You'll need to actually take action. Examples include:

• Fixing customer pain points

• Reducing customer service waste (ex: repeat complaints)

• Strengthening areas where customers are happy

Finally, you'll need to make sure those actions are generating measurable business results in some one. For instance:

• Can you improve customer retention?

• Can you serve customers more efficiently?

• Can grow revenue through more word-of-mouth advertising?

These are all examples and by no means an exhaustive list. The bottom line is your survey needs to be a conduit to improving the business or else it's a waste of time.

Take Action

I've assembled a customer service survey resource page to help you learn more about what makes a great survey. You'll find blog posts and helpful videos.

Take time to evaluate your survey. If it's not driving value you'll have a big decision to make. Should you scrap it or fix it?

How Fast Should a Business Respond to an Email?

April 7, 2020 Update: A newer version of this study is now available.

Email is a critical customer service channel.

A 2017 study from inContact revealed that just 43 percent of customers were highly satisfied with their most recent email customer service interaction. Those who were happy cited speed as a top delighter.

The average company takes 12 hours and 10 minutes to respond to an email, according to a 2018 study from SuperOffice. That's certainly better than the old one business day standard, but is it fast enough?

In April 2018, I surveyed more than 1,200 consumers to learn exactly how fast they expect businesses to respond to emails. The survey also examined response time expectations for Twitter and Facebook messages.

You can read the analysis below or browse the data yourself.

Study Overview

This is the first time I've done this study since 2015, when those results revealed the new email response time standard was just one hour.

The 2018 study surveyed more than 1,200 consumers to see if this has changed.

Participants were asked how quickly they expected a response when contacting a business via email. Response time expectations for Twitter and Facebook messages were also assessed.

Finally, the study examined whether response time expectations varied by age group. For instance, do Millennials expect a faster response than Baby Boomers?

The age groups were defined using definitions from the Pew Research Center. One note, too few members of Generation Z (ages 21 and under) and the Silent Generation (ages 73 and over) participated to include their perspective in the age group portion of the study.

Email Response Time Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of one hour, with 15 minutes representing world-class service..

This conclusion comes from looking at the response time that will meet the expectations of at least 80 percent of customers. 

This can be a little confusing at first because the top choice was one day, with 43 percent selecting it. But one day only meets the expectations of those who selected one day or 2+ days, which is a total of 56 percent. You pick up 14 percent of customers if you can respond to email within four hours, though that's still just 70 percent of the total.

A one hour email response time will meet the expectations of 89 percent of your customers. Companies aiming for world-class customer service should respond within 15 minutes or less.

The study looked at response time expectations by age. The responses were fairly close together, but there was a mild surprise. Baby Boomers want the fastest response.

A smaller group of 206 respondents was asked an additional question: How quickly do you expect a response when emailing a coworker?

Response time expectations for this group are very high and arguably unreasonable, with 41 percent of people expecting coworkers to respond to email within one hour. 

The pressure to respond quickly causes many people skim and scan emails from colleagues. They then send partial responses which generates a lot of unnecessary back and forth. One study found that the average email conversation at work includes 4.5 messages.

Which generation has the highest expectations for coworkers? Generation X leads the pack on this one.

Twitter Direct Message Response Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of 15 minutes.

Anything slower that 15 minutes risks disappointing a large portion of customers. This can present a challenge for businesses as Twitter is not as popular as more traditional service channels such as email, phone, or even chat. There may not be enough volume to justify staffing for a 15 minute response time. 

Once again, Baby Boomers have the highest response time expectations:

One note from the study is only 40 percent of participants message businesses via Twitter. That percentage is only slightly lower for Baby Boomers, with 35 percent saying they use Twitter for customer service.

Facebook Message Response Time Expectations

Businesses should target a response time standard of 1 hour, with 15 minutes representing world-class service.

A one hour response time may be adequate for most customers, but 17 percent still want to hear back more quickly. For Facebook, it's Millennials who want the fastest response.

Only 50 percent of participants message businesses via Facebook. Millennial Facebook usage is slightly higher than the group average, with 55 percent saying they have contacted a business via a Facebook message.

Get More Insights

I hosted a webinar where I shared some more granular data from the study along with several tactics for meeting customer demands for fast responses. You can watch the webinar replay.

Study: Executives Are Delusional About Customer-Centricity

There's a famous statistic that 80 percent of executives believed their organization delivered a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of customers agreed.

This comes from this 2005 report from Bain, so it's a little out of date.

A 2017 study by Capgemini Consulting sought to provide updated insight into the so-called executive disconnect. A total of 450 executives and 3,300 consumers were surveyed, though this study focused specifically on the digital experience. This includes searching for product information online, using a company's app, or searching for technical support information on a website.

The results?

Executives still believe they are doing well, with 75 percent saying their organization is customer-centric. Just 30 percent of customers agree. On the bright side, it has improved since 2005! 

That's still a pretty big disconnect. Here's are three key insights from the report.

Insight #1: Experience is a Differentiator

Let's say a customer is trying to choose between two products, your's and a competitor's. 

The customer visits each website to learn more about the product, watch some tutorials, and see which one best fits her needs. That aspect of the digital experience is a key part of the customer journey, so it's important to get it right.

Capgemini discovered that 81 percent of consumers will pay a premium for a better experience.

Last fall, I purchased an ecobee smart thermostat for a vacation rental property I own even though my initial choice was a more well-known competitor. The reason was ecobee's website was intuitively laid out and the company's helpful support gave me far greater confidence that their product would work as intended.

Insight #2: Better Experience Boosts NPS

This may be obvious, but it's great to have data to back it up.

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, tracks how likely a customer is to recommend your product or business to someone else. Many businesses grow revenue through word-of-mouth referrals, so this can be an essential metric.

The study found that companies that used NPS results to regularly make adjustments to business operations enjoyed an NPS score that averaged 14 points higher than companies that did not closely link NPS and operations.

This is an epidemic in the business world. It seems like nearly every company surveys its customers, whether its NPS or another model. Yet much of that data goes completely unused.

The lesson here is your survey can be really valuable, if you actually use it. Here's an online course on how to design and implement an effective survey.

Insight #3: Poor Experiences Hurt Business

Losing a customer is a big concern when someone experiences a service failure. Similar to other reports, the Capgemini study found that 20 percent of customers stopped doing business with a company after a poor experience.

This should leave two important questions:

1. What about other 80 percent?

2. What are your customers doing?

A study by Dr. Venessa Funches shed some light on what angry customers do when they continue doing business with a company:

• 35 percent do less business

• 70 percent spread negative word-of-mouth about the company

It's up to you to find out the answer to the second question, what are your customers doing after a poor experience.

One tactic that will help is to make sure customers can opt-in to a follow-up contact when they complete one of your surveys. This allows you to potentially save their business and gain valuable insight into what went wrong.

Take Action

Studies like the Capgemini report are fascinating because they provide general insight into the world of customer experience and customer service.

My advice to customer service leaders is to use this data as a prompt to check your own organization. 

• How do your customers feel about their experience?

• Is a poor customer experience costing your company revenue?

• What can you do to improve?

How Malaysia's HappyFresh Created a Customer Service Vision

I recently received an email from Timothy Chan, Regional Fleet Acquisition and Retention Specialist at HappyFresh.

While I get a lot of similar emails, this one stood out for both his enthusiasm and the fact that my book had somehow made it all the way to Malaysia.

"Tim from Malaysia here. I work for an online grocery shopping company. I have just finished reading your book, The Service Culture Handbook, and I must say I enjoyed it immensely. 

"I have just recently been put in charge of managing the customer service team at my company (after being transferred from the logistics department). Just last week I took your advice and held a meeting to decide on a customer service vision—it was a lot of fun and I am very happy with the vision my team ultimately decided upon. Now begins my more difficult task of really embedding the vision into our culture."

I was curious to learn more about how Chan and his team used the concepts from the book, so we corresponded via email and he graciously shared his story.

The HappyFresh customer service team.

Q: Tell me a little about what your team does and the customers it serves.

"As Malaysia’s leading online grocery shopping company, our team is hard at work every day assisting and serving both our customers as well as our fleet of around 100 shoppers and deliverymen."

Q: What was the process to develop the customer service vision?

"I helped the team develop this vision by following the step-by-step guide provided in The Service Culture Handbook. Started by giving a presentation about Customer Service Vision which included a lot of stories from companies that have thrived by staying true to their visions (with particular emphasis on Zappos).

"The presentation was attended by representatives from the customer service and logistic team as well as the heads of Field Operations and HR. After the presentation, everyone was divided into 2 groups to draft their visions. By comparing the visions, we then decided on certain words that we felt simply could not be left out from the finalized vision and from these words our vision was born:

"Your professional, personal pal throughout our journey together."

Q: What does the vision mean to you?

"To me, the vision means that we should always strive to be a true friend—someone who truly cares and genuinely wants to help. However, we need to remember that we are also professionals and should always behave as such.

"The ‘journey’ part of the vision carries 2 meanings:

"Firstly, it is a reminder that we are on a never-ending journey of constantly striving to be as true to the vision as possible. Secondly, it reminds us that there are different parts to every journey (beginning, middle and end) and we should always act accordingly.

"What I love about the vision is that it can be applied equally well to the way we treat customers, our fleet of shoppers and drivers and also to the way we treat one another as colleagues."

Q: What are you doing to make sure everyone on your team knows the vision?

"I conduct regular 1 to 1 check-in sessions with each member of our small CS team. As we discuss how we can improve performance during these sessions, I try to refer to the vision as much as possible. Furthermore, one of our talented CS representatives, A.K., created stickers to stick on everyone’s laptops/desktops so that we can always clearly see our vision."

Q: What unexpected challenges or obstacles did you encounter throughout this process?

"It is not easy ingraining the vision into the psyche of a team. It takes a lot of effort to persistently champion the vision and to make other people start championing it as well. It is important to ‘walk the talk’, be willing to be vulnerable and be open to scrutiny."

Q: How has having a customer service vision been helpful?

"With so many KPIs, goals, frustrations and issues, having a customer service vision has been like having a guiding star to turn to whenever we felt unsure or overwhelmed."

Webinar Recap: Ask Me Anything About Building a Service Culture

On Wednesday, April 4 I hosted a webinar to answer questions about building a customer-focused culture. The goal was to help customer service leaders identify ways to implement concepts from The Service Culture Handbook. 

We had a nice discussion and were able to tackle a lot of great questions. You can watch the webinar below. (Click here if you don't see the video.)

Additional Resources

Here are some additional resources to go with some of the questions from the webinar.

Q: How do I get employees to buy-in to the customer service vision?

Employees are much more likely to buy-in to the vision if they get a chance to help create it. Here's a step-by-step guide that explains the process I like to use. Once you create the vision, it's imperative that employees can answer three questions about it:

1. What is the customer service vision?

2. What does it mean?

3. How do I personally contribute?

Knowing the answers to these questions moves the vision from an abstract statement to a clear and specific guide.

Q: How can you keep the customer service vision fresh?

I recommend customer service leaders chart out a communication plan to find different ways to share and reinforce the customer service vision with employees. You can use the guide on page 12 of this workbook.

Q: Should we have a separate vision for each team or department?

The short answer is not if you can avoid it! The most customer-focused organizations operate under a single customer service visions. It's okay to create a vision for your team if you don't already have one for your organization. Just beware of these dangers.

Q: Does a service culture apply to internal customer service?

Yes! The way we treat each other at work is a fundamental part of an organization's culture. It's unreasonable to expect employees to treat customers well if they feel poorly treated. Here's a blog post that explains a bit of the psychology behind that. 

Q: What are some tips for an effective customer service survey?

I've assembled several tips in this blog post. You can also view my training video on Lynda.com. You'll need a Lynda subscription, so get a 30-day trial if you don't already have an account. LinkedIn Premium subscribers can access the course here.

Q: How do we deal with customer feedback on the internet, such as Google Reviews?

Reviews on Google My Business can be a powerful way to attract new customers! Keep in mind that potential customers will read reviews about your business and decide whether or not to give your company a try. Staying active on Google My Business can also improve your business's position in search results. Whatever the platform, make sure you carefully analyze customer feedback to spot trends.

Q: How do we scale our service culture as our company is rapidly growing?

A customer service vision is essential to preserving your start-ups culture as the company starts to expand. Here's my guide to scaling your service culture.

Three Ways to Leverage Knowledge-Centered Service

A story about the tragic death of a pet hamster recently made national headlines.

Belen Aldecosea was traveling from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale last November. She wanted to bring along her pet dwarf hamster, Pebbles, which she claimed was certified by her doctor as an emotional support animal.

When a Spirit employee told Aldecosea the hamster was not allowed to board the plane, Aldecosea flushed Pebbles down the toilet in airport restroom.

She claims she did this on the advice of a Spirit employee. Spirit adamantly denies any employee told her to do this.

Here's one thing that's not in dispute: Aldecosea contacted Spirit prior to traveling and was erroneously told by another employee that the hamster was allowed.

The stakes can be high when customer service employees are asked about seldom-referenced policies or obscure problems. They need access to the right information in the right place at the right time.

Here are three ways Knowledge-Centered Service can help.

Reduce Memorization

Knowledge-Centered Service, or KCS, is a process organizations can use to capture, structure, reuse, and improve critical information used to solve problems.

Reducing memorization is one clear benefit. Here's a short experiment to highlight a common challenge:

Name all of the planets in our solar system in order from closet to the sun to farthest.

Many of us will struggle to recall the first eight. There's controversy by the time we get to Pluto. Is it a planet or not? NASA's website is surprisingly unhelpful when it comes to settling this question.

We need clear, reliable information that's easy to find in situations like this.

One client of mine struggled to get employees to remember a three-step procedure for greeting office visitors via a security intercom system. They tried team meetings, emails, and written memos but nothing worked.

The solution was putting the right information in the right place at the right time. My client hung a sign next to the intercom with the three steps. Problem solved.

Another client struggled to get employees to remember complex technical information about the medical devices it sold. The solution was creating a single page with links to information sheets for each product so employees could quickly and accurately answer customer questions without memorizing the answers.

Shorten Training

If you're old enough, you grew up during a time when you memorized all of your friends' phone numbers.

Today, I can barely remember my own phone number. Important information about our friends such as phone numbers, birthdates, and addresses are all safely stored in our smart phones. 

It's a phenomenon called digital amnesia where we've become less adept at memorizing information.

That makes training much more difficult since traditional training often revolves around getting participants to memorize facts, procedures, and other information.

KCS can help solve that. Rather than memorizing piles of information, participants are taught to use a knowledge base to identify known solutions to problems. I've helped clients cut new hire training time by as much as 50 percent by switching from a memorization-focused training regime to a KCS approach.

The best part happens when new information is introduced.

Let's say your company releases a new product. You can do a short hands-on training meeting with the new product and capture everyone's questions into a searchable frequently asked questions (FAQ) document that anyone can access. 

Now your team can quickly recall what they learned about the new product and sound like an authority when answering questions just by accessing the FAQ. That FAQ can be updated and corrected as new insights are gained or you receive feedback from customers.

Improve Self-Service

Good self-service often runs on information, which means that self-service can fail when that information isn't readily available.

For example, some airlines allow passengers to book free stopovers. This is essentially an extra long layover that allows you to visit one city and then continue to another hours or even days later for the price of one ticket. 

Here's what happens when I search the Spirit Airlines website for information on stopovers. (Yes, I added the space on purpose.) 

Nothing useful here, not even a clear "we don't allow stopovers" policy. This will probably prompt a call to customer service if I wanted to find the answer.

A best practice is to routinely track what customers are searching for. So if you notice a lot of customers are searching for "stopover," "stop over," or even "layover" you can add a helpful resource that appears when a customer searches any of those terms.

Many customer service software providers have created an interim solution to help customers locate self-service. The Zendesk Answer Bot scans customer emails and intuitively suggests solutions before the customer hits send.

Conclusion

The principles around KCS have been around for a long time. I was first introduced to them 20 years ago and have seen first-hand how important knowledge is in the world of customer service.

You can read an overview of the KCS methodology here if you'd like to explore the topic further.