Do Happy Employees Really Lead to Happy Customers?

You've probably heard the platitude, "Happy employees lead to happy customers."

It's one of those sayings that just sounds right. Famous leaders have said it. Not-so-famous leaders have said it, too. It's all over the internet.

But is it true?

The things we believe have a mixed track record. Some things are supported by facts and analysis, while other beliefs are driven by anecdotal evidence. There are even a few oft-quoted statistics that are simply false, such as "55 percent of communication comes from body language." It does not.

So I decided to investigate the happy employees equal happy customers claim by reviewing Glassdoor ratings for the 20 companies with the best customer service. This list was compiled by Christopher Elliott using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

Here are the results.

Employee Ratings at Top Service Organizations

The average Glassdoor rating for the top 20 customer service companies is 3.8 (out of 5), compared to the average rating of 3.4. 

The companies are listed on the chart in the order they appear on the top 20 list, so Chick-fil-A is number one while Mercedes-Benz is the twentieth company.

While the average ratings for this group are generally high, these aren't necessarily the elite companies in terms of employee ratings. Only seven companies from the list on are Glassdoor's 2018 Best Places to Work list.

• Google (#5)

• HEB (#20)

• Wegmans Food Markets (#49)

• Trader Joe's (#70)

• Chick-fil-A (#72)

• Toyota North America (#78)

• Apple (#84)

Three companies on the top 20 list actually have employee ratings that are lower than the Glassdoor average:

• Aldi (3.3)

• Cracker Barrel (3.3)

• LG Electronics (3.2)

Proving that there are outliers everywhere, customer service laggard United Airlines is ranked #55 on the Glassdoor Best Places to Work List, despite a dismal 2018 ACSI rating of 67.

Recommend to a Friend Ratings

Glassdoor has something akin to an eNPS rating where reviewers can indicate whether they would recommend working at their company to a friend. 

The average recommend to a friend percentage for the top 20 companies is 71 percent compared to the 49 percent Glassdoor average. The average is denoted with a large red X.

Only one company on the list, Lexus, has a lower recommend percentage than the Glassdoor average, with just 48 percent of employees saying they would recommend the company to a friend.

One anecdotal note here is companies with elite service cultures can sometimes be very polarizing. The right employees love it while other employees are uncomfortable. 

Amazon provides a good example. The company has a 3.8 Glassdoor rating and a 74 percent recommend rating. One happy employee wrote, "An Amazing Place to Work" and rated the company five stars, while a two-star reviewer wrote, "Exciting work, abusive culture." A three-star reviewer summed it up with, "Can be amazing for some people, horrible for others."

There are certainly many explanations for variability in employee reviews, including their individual boss, job assignment, or location. On the whole is appears that the very best places to work aren't necessarily the customer service leaders.

CEO Ratings

Glassdoor also asks employees whether they approve of their company's CEO. The average rating for the top 20 customer service companies is 87 percent, compared to the 69 percent Glassdoor average.

Just one company (LG, 67%) had a lower CEO approval percentage than the Glassdoor average. 

Glassdoor publishes an annual list of the top-rated CEOs, and CEOs from seven of the top companies made the list:

• Charles C. Butt, HEB (#7)

• Colleen Wegman, Wegmans Food Markets (#9)

• Akio Toyoda, Toyota North America (#24)

• Sundar Pichai, Google (#45)

• Dan T. Cathy, Chick-fil-A (#50)

• Craig Jelinek, Costco Wholesale (#83)

• Tim Cook, Apple (#96)

There's plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the reason for this correlation. Employees tend to blame company leadership for poor service, while leaders of customer-centric organizations are often studied, profiled, and copied due to their successful track record.

Conclusion

Granted, this data provides a limited snapshot. Yet that snapshot seems to show that happy employees are at least correlated with happy customers.

That doesn't mean that making employees happy automatically leads to happy customers. United Airlines is #55 on Glassdoor's 2018 list of best places to work even though the airline has one of the lowest customer service ratings in the airline industry.

What has been your experience?

Prepare for Unexpected Surprises on Your Customer Journey

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Unusual situations can make or break customer experience.

I recently discovered three torn couch cushions at The Overlook, a vacation rental property my wife and I own. The cushions all belong to a patio furniture set we had purchased a year ago.

Replacing or repairing the cushions has been a difficult challenge so far.

• There's no information on the furniture company's website about torn cushions.

• A customer service rep told me I can't buy individual cushions.

• The warranty department denied my claim to have the cushions fixed.

So now I have three torn couch cushions and no idea how to fix them. I've also developed some resentment toward a company I've bought a lot of furniture from.

Think about how your employees are equipped to handle unusual situations. Here are a few ways you can test that.

Test for Rigid Channel Options

Try calling your company.

Chances are, you'll first be connected to a phone menu. Make a list of the options and then pull a random sample of 20 customer calls. Ask yourself how neatly each call fits those options.

The furniture company had just three options when I called:

1. Place an order

2. Check on an order

3. Warranty information

It wasn't clear which option fit my situation. Should I place an order for new cushions? Did the company even sell individual cushions? Or is it possible the cushions could be repaired or replaced under warranty?

Some companies have a built-in menu for chat and web contact forms. You can test these with the same exercise you did for the phone channel. Pull a sample of 20 contacts and see how closely each one fits the menu options.

Many companies avoid menus entirely. Emails sent through a web contact form are routed to the the right person using behind-the-scenes technology. Phone, chat, and social media agents are trained on a wide range of issues and can pull in an expert colleague if needed.

Test for Rigid Procedures

It's often helpful to have clear procedures. 

This makes it easier to train employees, since how to do things is well documented. It can also make things more efficient when everyone is operating the same way.

But there's a danger when procedures are too rigid.

The warranty procedure at the furniture company was a great example. The procedure was I called in and spoke with an intake person. She took down the basics of my claim and emailed a link where I could upload photos of the damage. I asked her for additional ideas and options, but she was unable to provide any information outside of the procedure.

The warranty team was supposed to reply within 3-5 business days, but they never did. When I escalated the issue to the social media team, all I got was a flat no. They denied my claim and plainly stated they weren't going to help.

I'm not upset that the warranty claim was denied. I'm upset that I still have three torn couch cushions and the company isn't helping me fix that issue.

Take a look at your top customer complaints. Chances are, there's a rigid procedure or an inflexible policy behind it. 

• Are your employees empowered to react to unusual situations?

• Do employees instinctively focus on a solution or defending the policy?

Take Action

You can learn a lot of examining your top customer complaints.

One client I worked with was the parking department for a university. Their biggest customer complaint was the process used to issue annual parking passes. It required people to come to the parking office on campus and wait in a long line.

The parking department redesigned this process around making it easy for customers. They set up temporary stations around campus so people could pick up their parking pass near the building where they worked. The annual parking pass quickly went from the biggest complaint to the biggest compliment.

In The Service Culture Handbook, one of the companies I profiled was Cars.com. Leaders consistently ask customer service agents for input on how to improve processes. Agents are asked to answer two questions when they submit their ideas:

1. Why is this better for the customer?

2. Why is this better for the customer care agent?

Ideas that are better for both the customer and the agent get the strongest consideration. The process also helps agents feel empowered to improve wonky processes for both themselves and the people they serve.

Why is Service So Great at the USS Midway Museum?

Let's start with a few facts about the USS Midway Museum.

The decommissioned aircraft carrier has operated as a museum in San Diego since 2004. Visitors can explore the flight deck, crew quarters, and other areas of the ship while enjoying a self-guided audio tour narrated by Midway sailors. Well-informed volunteer docents are on hand to answer questions.

It's become the top-rated tourist attraction in San Diego.

The museum offers visitors a unique opportunity to see what it was like to live and serve aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier. It features an incredible service culture where volunteers and employees go out of their way to create a special experience for guests. 

Here are just a few of the Midway's online ratings:

• 4.8 (out of 5) stars on Google

• 4.5 (out of 5) stars on TripAdvisor

• 4.8 (out of 5) stars on Facebook

• 4.5 (out of 5) stars on Yelp

• 4.8 (out of 5) stars on Expedia

Keep reading to learn the secrets behind the Midway's powerful service culture.

Photo courtesy of the USS Midway Museum

Mission-Focused

Last year, I had the honor of working with the Midway to help revise its customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page.

We used the process outlined in The Service Culture Handbook. The first step is gathering input from all employees via a survey that asked, "What do you want our customers to think of when they think of the service they receive?"

The museum's more than 800 volunteers were asked to weigh-in, too.

The feedback was overwhelmingly conclusive. Employees and volunteers alike were already using the organization's mission statement as a guide when serving customers:

Preserve the historic USS Midway and the legacy of those who serve; Inspire and Educate future generations; and Entertain our museum guests.

When a cross-functional group met to draft the vision statement, everyone agreed the mission should serve as the customer service vision. There was no need to craft a separate statement. One thing that makes the Midway so special is how people are aligned around the mission.

Hiring for Culture Fit

It's not surprising that a lot of people want to work at the Midway.

Liane Morton, the museum's director of human resources, told me the organization is developing a reputation as an employer of choice. "The number of applicants sourced directly through our website, versus a public posting on Indeed, for example, has steadily increased over the past seven years." Current employees are also eager to recommend the Midway to others. "Our number one source of candidates is through employee referral."

The Midway shares a lot of information about the culture on its website. This lets potential applicants know up front what they can expect from working there.

My friend, Jaime, is a great example. I remember her excitement when she went through the application process and she couldn't have been happier when she finally landed a job. The enthusiasm you see from Jaime in this promotional video is absolutely real.

The biggest challenge for Morton is finding people like Jaime among such a large pool of potential applicants. "People are complex," says Morton. "Some people are really good at interviewing and will say all the right things, but they aren't really a great culture fit. Others are not good interviewers even though they would make a great addition."

Morton tries to overcome this challenge by getting people comfortable so they reveal their real selves. "I like to walk people out of the room after the interview. It feels like the formal interview is now over, so people often loosen up and are more themselves while we walk and talk."

Another technique is what Morton calls the "Garometer." 

Prospective applicants check in with an employee named Gary at the visitor information center. Successful applicants must make a good first impression. Morton explains that the way you treat the person who greets you is a good indicator of how you will actually interact with people. Feedback from Gary’s interaction with candidates proves very useful.

Onboarding New Hires

New employees are quickly indoctrinated into the culture.

Most of new hire orientation focuses on the culture, rather than rules and work procedures. Countless stories and examples are shared to help people understand what's expected. There's even a section that explains why the culture is so important to the Midway and how it helps the organization succeed.

Employees also take the museum tour. "We want every employee to have had the experience of being a customer," says Morton.

The museum's approximately 400 volunteer docents are also a key part of the service culture. They go through an eight week training program (one day a week for eight weeks) that includes several hours spent on how to interact with customers.

Leadership

The service culture at the USS Midway Museum starts at the very top, where CEO John "Mac" McLaughlin is a culture champion.

Morton explains that McLaughlin is constantly talking about the culture with employees. "He is the best leader I have ever worked for. He makes my job in HR so much easier because his is always promoting the culture."

It's essential for leaders like McLaughlin and Morton to model the culture since employees will take their cue from them. 

Occasionally, a leader at the museum might struggle to emulate the culture. Morton describes a proactive approach. "It’s so important to address leaders working against your culture and ultimately help them transition from the organization if they cannot align with the organization's values.  A leader makes such a big impact, and employees will not embrace the culture if their leader doesn't embrace it."

Service Culture Challenges

Every organization faces challenges when trying to build and maintain a service culture.

At the USS Midway Museum, one challenge is the bad habits new employees bring with them from past employers. A lot of employees are taught in previous jobs that rules are more important than customers.

"We have policies, too," says Morton, "but we break them when we need to. For example, museum members can get into the museum for free when they show their membership card. Members sometimes forget their cards, but we just let them in anyway. We trust them.

"New employees will sometimes have difficulty just trusting the member like that. That's because they would get in trouble at their last job if they didn't follow the policy precisely. We really have to work with employees to let them know its okay."

Another challenge is maintaining employees' passion for the job. 

Morton and other leaders work hard to identify and fix any issues that might make employees unhappy. There are sometimes, though, when passion just fades and working at the Midway is no longer a fit for the employee.

"If you are no longer having fun and enjoying working here, that’s okay, and we can help you transition," says Morton. "It doesn't do the employee or the USS Midway Museum any good for the employee to stick around if they are unhappy."

She will often help employees move on to another role or even another organization with no hard feelings.

Conclusion

I must admit I'm a big fan. I've spent countless hours exploring the museum and its one of my favorite places to send people who are visiting from out of town.

If you're in San Diego, I encourage you to visit the museum and see for yourself!

How to Gain Big CX Insights from Small Details

My wife, Sally, and I really enjoy wine. 

It's fun to explore new wineries and share both bottles and experiences with friends. So we were a little excited when I found a winery in Napa Valley that was looking for "investors."

The deal was enticing. 

In exchange for investing a small amount of money into the winery, you would receive an estimated 6 percent annual return plus a few bonus perks such as free wine, wine discounts, and even business cards. The business cards were a huge perk since many Napa wineries offer benefits such as free tastings to people affiliated with the wine industry.

Naturally, we had two big questions before we invested.

1. Was the wine any good?

2. How was the customer experience?

To test both, I placed an order for two bottles. The process revealed a lot of clues about how the winery was managed.

Here's how that one experience told Sally and I all we needed to know.

The Purchase Experience

Texas was a key part of the winery's sales strategy. The state represents a growing market with a lot of wine enthusiasts, but has less competition than California. 

So I went to the websites of two of Texas's biggest wine retailers, Total Wine and Spec's, and searched for the wine. Total Wine was sold out while Spec's didn't have anything from the winery listed.

A lack of inventory can easily drive customers to a competitor. You can't sell what you don't have.

So I went back to the winery's website and tried to place an order. The online store was not integrated into the website, and it took a bit of navigating to place my order. The order confirmation email arrived quickly, but did not confirm an expected delivery date.

Warning signs:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

Fulfillment Time

Amazon is the product delivery benchmark for many of us. You can get purchases delivered the next day, sometimes even the same day, seven days a week.

The wine industry is a little different. Most smaller wineries typically ship purchases twice per week. Shipping time from Napa to my home in San Diego is about two days, so I expected delivery to take up to a week.

Two weeks went by and the wine had not arrived. I also had not heard from the winery.

List of warning signs so far:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

Transactional Service

I sent a follow-up email to the company to check the status of my order. This could be a good thing in a way, since it would be an opportunity to try out the winery's customer service.

The CFO, Kevin, quickly responded:

My first question was, "Why is the CFO answering customer service email?" This might not be too unusual in a small winery, but it didn't make much sense in a winery that was looking to woo investors so it could grow into a powerhouse.

The other red flag was Kevin promised that my wine would ship the next day. Why not today? It seemed my order hadn't been a big priority until I raised an issue.

The warning signs list grows:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

• The CFO is answering customer service emails

• Website orders aren't a priority

Poor Leadership

The warning signs had added up, so it was time to cut bait on this investment idea. I replied to Kevin and put my cards on the table, explaining that I had ordered the wine as a trial run while considering an investment.

That investment clearly wasn't going to happen, so I asked him to cancel my order. He quickly responded again:

Kevin inexplicably copied two other people on the email, Brandon and Kathleen. I have no idea who they are, though presumably they were employees tasked with stopping my shipment and issuing a refund.

Here's a guess, based on my experience working with executives like this. Copying those people on the email was Kevin's way of giving them an assignment. It's both inappropriate (why include the customer?) and potentially unclear to the employees. 

Ten days passed and no refund. I emailed again to ask about the status. Kevin quickly replied to Brandon, copying me.

Whoa! Three problems here:

• Who is Brandon?

• Why is Kevin emailing him rather than replying to me?

• It's Wednesday. Why will it take the CFO until Friday to process my refund?!

It was really further evidence of Kevin's poor leadership. He may have been frustrated with Brandon (who was copied on the last email) for not issuing the refund earlier. Or perhaps he thought he was being responsive by showing me that he had tasked this duty to Brandon. 

None of that mattered. The CFO should have been able to issue a refund immediately.

The big list of warning signs:

• Lack of inventory in key market

• Poor e-commerce experience

• Long delivery time

• Lack of proactive delivery notices

• The CFO is answering customer service emails

• Orders aren't a priority

• Poor executive leadership

Epilogue

Friday came and went with no refund. It had now been 30 days since I had placed more order and more than two weeks since Kevin promised a refund "ASAP."

I wound up disputing the charge with my credit card company since Kevin, Brandon, or whoever else was working there couldn't seem to get it done. Which tells me the winery may have some cashflow issues in addition to it's many other dysfunctions. 

Sally and I were disappointed this investment idea didn't work out, but one test order told us this winery was probably going to struggle. You can learn a lot about a business when you view it from a customer's perspective.

Book Review: Would You Do That to Your Mother?

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Jeanne Bliss's new book would be a perfect addition to your company's customer experience book club.

The format of Would You Do That To Your Mother lends itself well to discussion. There are enough practical ideas for improving your customers' experience that you'll surely find something to implement.

The book asks you to imagine your mom as your customer. What type of experience would you want her to have? How can you apply lessons learned from Mom as a kid to make your customers' lives better?

A sign at Einstein Bagels encouraging customers to behave the way mom taught us.

Buy on Amazon

There are four principles described in the book. Each comes with clear descriptions and many examples of what Bliss calls "Make Mom Proud" companies that are using the principles to succeed.

Enable Employees to Thrive

This principle means hiring people who fit with your organization's culture, and then enabling them to bring their best self to work each day.

One example Bliss shares comes from Vail Resorts, a company that runs ski resorts. It has banned the words "Our policy is" and other trigger words that could make a guest angry in a tense situation. Employees are instead empowered to provide a variety of goodwill gestures to make things right such as free lift tickets or a complimentary meal.

Make It Easy to Do Business With You

The idea here is to remove friction between your customers and your business so it becomes easy to do business with your company. 

If you don't already know this, removing friction is becoming a huge trend! It's the focus of Gopher Sport, winner of ICMI's 2018 Global Award for Best Small Contact Center. Shep Hyken's new book, The Convenience Revolution (October 2018), is written entirely around this concept as well!

Bliss gives the example of Casper's 100-day trial period for new mattresses. The company realized it's difficult to pick out the perfect mattress by lying on several options in a store for a few minutes each. So Casper gives customers 100 days to try return their new mattress for a full refund if they don't like it.

Help Your Customers Achieve Their Goals

The third principle is based on the concept that you are more likely to get what you want if you help other people get what they want. 

In other words, Bliss describes "Make Mom Proud" companies as having a customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding service (or an outstanding experience) that gives every employee a clear and unified purpose.

Ikea is a terrific example shared in the book. As a customer myself, I know how Ikea makes it easy to find functional, stylish furniture on almost any budget. Walk into any Ikea store and you can see evidence of this vision in nicely-appointed rooms decked out in incredibly low-priced furniture and accessories.

Establish a Balanced Relationship with Customers

The fourth principle focuses on companies sticking to their values. This helps customers learn to trust companies since they know what they stand for and can trust them to remain consistent.

An example that really stood out in this chapter is Lemonade Insurance. One of the values the company operates under is trust, and it has designed its insurance claim process to demonstrate that. Customers filing a claim can skip a lot of paperwork and audits and simply record a short video of themselves taking an honesty pledge.

I hadn't heard of Lemonade Insurance before reading Bliss's book, so I had to check them out. The story of the company processing and paying a claim in just three seconds is incredible.

The Bottom Line

Would You Do That To Your Mother? is a thought-provoking guide to giving your customers a better experience. The writing style easily lends itself to a company book club, where you can read a chapter, discuss the principles, and identify ways to implement the concepts in your own organization.

It's currently available on Amazon or get bulk discounts at 800-CEO-READ.

How to Improve Training with Level One Feedback

Level one feedback is more commonly known as the survey you take at the end of a training program.

Some trainers derisively call these surveys "smile sheets" because they are often used for nothing more than confirming everyone had a great time. I must admit I haven't always put a lot of stock in them.

But I leaned heavily on level one feedback for a recent project.

My first full-length training video, Customer Service Foundations, launched on Lynda.com in 2014 and has garnered more than 2.4 million views. In late 2017, I was approached by the company and given the opportunity to update the course with a new version.

The revision included a tighter script, new scenes, and re-shooting the entire thing. Many of the revisions I made came directly from level one feedback. (You can see the finished course here.)

Here's what I did and how you can apply the same lessons to your next training project.

A Quick Overview of Level Ones

The term "level one" comes from a training evaluation model attributed to Donald Kirkpatrick. It's one of four levels in the model:

• Level 1 = Reaction

• Level 2 = Learning

• Level 3 = Behavior

• Level 4 = Results

Kirkpatrick defines level one specifically as "the degree to which participants find the training favorable, engaging and relevant to their jobs." You can watch a short primer on the Kirkpatrick model here.

The Kirkpatrick Model from Measuring Learning Effectiveness by Jeff Toister

There's not a ton to be gained from level one evaluations in terms of actual learning. I know plenty of examples where participants had a great time in training only to go back to work and do absolutely nothing with it.

The real value is in product development. 

If participants like your training programs, find them engaging, and believe they are relevant, they are more likely to tell other people about their favorable experience. That becomes helpful word-of-mouth marketing.

So yes, a level one evaluation is really a customer service survey. 

Search Feedback for Themes

The starting point is to search participant feedback for themes, just like you would a customer service survey. I analyzed comments from thousands of survey results from this course. (You can read this primer on analyzing survey comments if you aren't sure how.) 

Overall, the feedback was very positive. People really liked the course, which helps explain its popularity. Some people did have some constructive feedback, and my analysis quickly revealed three clear themes:

---

Theme #1: The course is too long.
Sample comment: "great information, but, very lengthy and would not show completed in my tasks."

You have to be a bit of a detective when analyzing survey comments. That last part of the comment made me suspect the participant was more interested in getting credit for watching the entire course than they were in learning new skills.

It's good to follow-up on surveys and have a conversation with a sample group of participants. You will often get a lot more insight this way.

I talked to a lot of people who were watching my videos and discovered many watched the entire 1 hour 57 minute course from start to finish. The course is divided into short segments that are less than 5 minutes each, yet people just plowed all the way through.

I can see how that would be boring.

Here's a comment from a happy participant who used the training the way it was designed to be used:
"Great to have each segment short, so that you can take a little piece at a time."

---

Theme #2: Too basic
Sample comment: "If you have worked here or in customer services for any amount of time, 2 hours is an overkill. only took this class as it was mandatory."

The target audience for this course is new and inexperienced professionals. Even the title, Customer Service Foundations, implies this.

Some people, like this one, were really upset because they were mandated to take a course they didn't feel they needed. Other comments revealed people didn't clearly understand the course focused on the basics and was not intended to share more advanced skills.

Here's a comment from a happy participant who understood the target audience:
"Highly Recommended for customer service representatives with little to no experience."

---

Theme #3: Wish there was more detail on ___ topic
Sample comment: "There could be a bit more on serving difficult customers."

This one was a real challenge for two reasons. First, people tended to want more information on different topics. The second challenge was you can only squeeze so much content into one course. I really had to think about this one.

Here is a comment from a happy participant:
"The level of detail and easily relatable material greatly exceeded my expectations."

---

Notice I compared happy and unhappy participants for each of these themes. This provided some important context that told me, in general, people who didn't like the course were either taking the wrong course or taking the right course the wrong way.

Turn Feedback into Action

It's essential to use participant feedback to improve your course. The challenge is to make improvements without breaking the elements that people really like.

For example, if I added more detail in all the areas people requested (theme #3), the course would be even longer, which probably wouldn't go over well for the people who felt it was already too long (theme #1).

Here's what I did:

Fix #1: Shortened the course

I was able to shorten the new course by 25 percent.

A few tactics helped me do this:

• Shortened scripts by getting to the point faster in each segment

• Eliminated content that was non-essential

• Spun off more detailed content into stand-alone courses

Fix #2: Created a how-to video

The new course kicks off with a welcome video and then moves to a short how-to video that explains who should watch the course and how to use it. You can watch the how-to video here.

What to know before watching this course from Customer Service Foundations by Jeff Toister

I also created an "Additional Resources" guide that participants could download which contained resources to explore specific topics in greater detail. The resources included books, blogs, podcasts, and even other training videos.

Fix #3: Created educational campaign

I've also created my own ongoing campaign to educate customer service leaders and employees on the best way to use these videos.

The campaign has included working with individual clients, sharing best practices with people I know are using the videos, and writing blog posts. Here are a few sample posts:

• How to Get the Most Out of Training Videos

• How Popcorn Can Ruin a Good Training Video

• Simple Training Plan: Serving Upset Customers 101

Take Action!

You can gain a lot from those level one training surveys if you think of your training participants as customers. Take a close look at their feedback and use it to make improvements.

Three Easy Ways to Prevent Angry Customers

The customer service rep sounded tired.

I had called the company to ask about a recent bill. A past due notice had been mailed to me, even though I was sure I had made the payment and even had a receipt.

The customer service rep explained there was an issue with the new billing system and she would have to do some research to verify my payment was correctly applied. She asked if I could call back the next day.

Now her tiredness made sense—she had been getting a lot of calls like this.

It's easy to imagine this employee had been getting beat up by angry callers. It happens to customer service reps every day. That's probably why "working with upset customers" is one of the most commonly requested training topics.

Training employees is fine, it's just not the right place to start. If you want to help your beleaguered employees, the best place to begin is preventing angry customers in the first place.

Here are three ways you can do that.

Fix Systemic Problems

The most important thing your company can do is fix the issues that cause customers to get angry in the first place. In this case, it was a new billing system that wasn't working properly at the time it was implemented.

Customer service leaders often talk themselves into believe this isn't possible:

• "We don't have the budget!"

• "We can't hire the staff we need!"

• "It's not our fault the system doesn't work!"

The truth is you often have a lot more power than you think!

One software company initially blamed buggy software and a lack of staffing on a flood of phone calls that kept customers waiting for up to an hour. Then the team did the Circle of Influence exercise and found three solutions within their grasp:

• Fully solve issues on the first call to prevent callbacks.

• Empower the tier one team to handle more issues without escalating to tier two.

• Track and summarize issues to share with the development team.

The team was surprised when the first two solutions immediately cut the peak hold time by 50 percent. The third solution was more long-term.

Sharing clear, objective feedback got other departments to finally listen. The conversation went from "We're getting a lot of calls!" to "Here's how many calls we're getting on issue x, and here's how much those calls are costing the company."

Executives were ready to listen once the problems were defined in concrete financial terms.

Four Seasons Hotels are regularly among the upper echelon of all hotels in terms of service. The company is famous for having a "glitch report" that hotel leaders review each day with their associates. It helps them identify, fix, and make amends for any service issues that occur.

Be Proactive

Customers are far less likely to get angry when they are notified of an issue proactively.

The company with the billing issue should have mailed follow-up notices to every affected customer. The notices could have acknowledged the billing issue, apologized, and provided a clear action plan for resolving it without the customer having to call.

There would still be some customers who called, but this proactive approach surely would have prevented a lot of calls, too!

Companies often have several tools at their disposal to proactively notify customers of issues:

• Email notices

• Social media updates

• Status pages (like this example)

We've all experienced an example of proactive service from our doctor or dentist. Many offices will proactively call, email, or text an appointment reminder the day before. That simple step prevents a lot of missed appointments, which keeps customers happy and saves the office money!

Empowerment

We often think of empowerment as giving employees some level of authority. But that's only part of the definition. Empowerment means enabling your employees to deliver outstanding service. This is generally comprised of three elements:

• Resources: the right tools, equipment, supplies, etc.

• Procedures: identifying the best-known way to solve each issue.

• Authority: the ability to exercise a degree of autonomy to serve customers.

The rep who handled my billing question wasn't empowered to solve the issue on the spot because she either didn't have the right resource (a billing system that worked) or the best-known procedure for finding the answer.

The problem became worse because she wasn't empowered to proactively follow-up with me once she found the answer to my question. This meant I would have to call back again to get my answer.

When fires devastated communities in Sonoma and Napa counties last Fall, my wife and I wanted to donate pet food and other supplies to an animal shelter that was housing pets for displaced families. 

We weren't sure what shelters were collecting donations or what they needed, so I contacted the customer service team at Chewy.

I received a response in just two minutes that said, "We're on it!" Just 1.5 hours later, a Chewy customer service rep sent me the name and address of a shelter plus a shopping list of items they needed. I was easily able to order supplies (via Chewy, of course!) and make a donation.

None of this would have happened if Chewy's customer service team was not empowered to go out of their way to find a solution.

Take Action!

Preventing customer anger can solve a lot of issues before they begin. Once you do that, customer service training can still be helpful. 

I've put together a simple training plan you can use to teach your customer service reps to better handle upset customers. 

Here are some additional training resources:

• Working with Upset Customers training video

• How to Serve Upset Customers daily email course

• Customer Service Tip of the Week email reminders

Why Companies Fail to Respond to Customers

Matt Beckwith is a huge Chick-fil-A fan. Well, at least he was until the company repeatedly failed to respond to a simple question about ice cubes.

Beckwith tried calling, but wasn't able to get a live person on the phone. So he turned to Facebook Messenger and sent a message on two separate occasions without getting a response.

As he wrote on the ICMI blog, his enthusiasm for Chick-fil-A has suddenly dampened.

Companies failing to respond to customers is an epidemic. Customer relationship management software provider SuperOffice emailed 1,000 companies for its 2018 Customer Service Benchmark report; 62 percent did not respond.

Social media software company Sprout has found that, on average, brands reply to just 1 in 10 social media messages from customers.

Surely we can all agree that not responding to your customers is a recipe for failure. So the really big question is, "Why don't more companies respond?"

Here are a few reasons.

Reason #1: It's Not a Priority

Most customer service leaders would say that responding to customers is a priority. But there's a big difference between saying something is a priority and actually putting the investment and resources into making it a priority.

Companies routinely fail to provide customer service channels with adequate staffing and resources. This is especially true with written channels such as email and social media.

For example, smaller companies often have phone agents handle email in between phone calls and other tasks. This workflow naturally puts email in a backseat position. Customer messages languish in a general inbox until someone has a free moment to check them.

Data released in 2017 by the consulting firm Execs in the Know showed that the customer service department does not have any ownership of social media in 49 percent of companies. The same report also revealed that 22 percent of companies don't train their social media agents.

Companies that truly want to respond to customers provide adequate resources.

Reason #2: It's Not in the Plan

Contact center consulting firm Services Triad conducted a survey of 32 contact centers in Quebec to see what actions they took to ensure they had adequate staffing. While narrow in scope, I believe the results mirror what you'd likely find around the U.S. and Canada.

One question asked contact center leaders whether they forecasted customer contact volume for various channels. This is critical, since accurate forecasting allows you to have the right number of agents available to meet customer demand.

The results were startling:

The data shows that 35 percent of contact centers have no idea how much email volume to expect on a given day. That number jumps to 66 percent for social media. These contact centers simply react to what they get. Many customer service leaders have told me their teams often get overwhelmed.

The same survey found that even the phone forecasts were lacking. For example, 56 percent of contact centers do not include time for customer follow-ups or callbacks in their schedules. Many contact center agents are closely monitored for how well they adhere to their work schedule, a practice which actually discourages responding to customers.

Reason #3: Automation

Automation has been offered as a solution to help companies respond faster to customers, but it's not without challenges.

Sometimes automation doesn't work. We've all suffered the embarrassment of trying to use the self-checkout kiosk at a store, only to need an associate to help us out. There are also plenty of examples of tone-deaf automated messages inserting themselves into social media conversations, like this one.

Other times it just feels cold. There's nothing like getting a boilerplate "Dear Valued Customer" email to make you feel like you are anything but valued.

Take Action!

I recently joined forces with my friend and customer service writing expert, Leslie O'Flahavan, to host a webinar to show you how to balance speed and quality when responding to customers. You can watch the webinar here:

Lessons from The Overlook: Why We Revised Our Vision

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 arrived at The Overlook earlier this month just as our property manager was finishing up a tour. A couple and their daughter were visiting a few properties to decide which one to book for a family getaway later this year.

They appeared to really like our cabin. "It's beautiful," one said. Another exclaimed, "You have a very nice place!" 

We checked in with our property manager a few days later and learned they rented another cabin. The couple really liked The Overlook, but they ultimately decided they wanted to be closer to town so they could walk to shops and restaurants.

That bit of feedback solidified something we've been thinking of for months. Sally and I knew then we needed to tweak our customer service vision.

The Backstory on Our Vision

If you read this blog regularly, you know how often I stress the importance of creating a customer service vision. It's a shared definition of outstanding service that you can use as a compass to point everyone (and every decision) in the same direction.

Here's our original vision for The Overlook:

Welcome to your mountain community retreat.

Each word was carefully chosen to represent the experience we wanted to create for our guests. You can read the full story, but here's a summary:

• Welcome: we want our guests to feel welcome throughout their stay.

• Your: we want our guests to feel like the place is their own, so they'll treat it well while they're there and return on a regular basis.

• Mountain: Guests come here for the mountains, so we'll emphasize that experience.

• Community: We want our guests to experience that charming small-town friendliness that comes with being part of a rural community.

• Retreat: A mountain cabin like The Overlook is a place to get away from it all, so we want to help our guests relax.

The one word we got stuck on when we did an annual vision review last year was "community." We just weren't sure how to emphasize community for our guests so they could enjoy the town of Idyllwild the way we enjoyed it.

For example, we loved the Fourth of July parade, which brought out a festive crowd of locals to see the pageantry. Where else but a small town can you see Santa Claus waving from a fire truck in July?

Or a dog named Max who happens to be the elected mayor?

What Guest Feedback Says

It's important to keep in mind that your style and preferences may not be a perfect representation of your customers. 

For example, there's a faux deer antler chandelier over the dining table. It's definitely not our style and Sally and I would replace it in a heartbeat if the Overlook was just our private cabin. However, we've gotten so many positive comments about it that we know it's the right decor.

So looking at guest feedback, our guests are staying at The Overlook for a retreat while the local community is far less important.

• "Everything is well maintained and beautifully appointed and the views of the city lights, sunsets, and mountain landscapes are simply spectacular."

• "Everything you need to do what you need. Relax, hike, run, bike, swim, etc."

• "Great cabin to build memories in!"

Our New Vision Statement

It's natural for a customer service vision to go through a revision or two. In most cases, adjusting just one or two words is all that's needed.

Here's our new vision:

Welcome to your mountain retreat

That's it. We simply removed "community." Sally and I realized we've been focusing on making The Overlook a welcoming retreat in the mountains all along. Here are just a few things we've added since buying the cabin:

• Extra towels for the hot tub

• Family-friendly games, puzzles, and DVDs

• Access to Netflix and other streaming services

• Upgraded and expanded seating on the deck

• Extra seating on the catwalk

• Game room with a ping pong table

Updating our vision has provided amazing clarity. We'll continue to use our vision to guide our decision-making, with a renewed emphasis on making The Overlook the perfect place for a welcoming mountain retreat.

Four Customer Service Skills You Need to Have

LinkedIn Learning has just released a new edition of my Customer Service Foundations course. It's a training video designed to help people learn the fundamentals of service.

Creating a course like this requires some tough decisions:

• Which skills are most important and must be covered?

• How in-depth should each skill be addressed?

• Which skills are useful, but best saved for a separate course?

These decisions are critical. Include too much content and learners can get overwhelmed. Include too little, and learners won't get enough value. It has to be just right.

I based my choices on extensive research, interaction with thousands of customer service professionals, and a bit of trial and error.

Here's a list of the top four skills I think every service professional needs.

On the set filming Customer Service Foundations. From left to right: Jeff (Director), Jeff (me), Sam (Producer), and Rob (Production Lead).

Vision

If I had to pick just one customer service skill, this one would be it.

Having a vision means understanding and articulating a desired positive outcome for the customers you serve. An IT service desk professional I worked with once described his vision by saying, "I used to say I fixed computers; now I realize what I really do is help people get back to work."

That change of perspective from transactional (fix computers) to a positive vision (help people get back to work) can dramatically alter how you approach service.

I've noticed that people who have a strong customer service vision tend to figure out the other skills they need pretty quickly. Those who don't often find themselves stuck.

It's great if your company already has a customer service vision statement to follow. If not, you can create one by taking the Thank You Letter Challenge.

Rapport

Service gets easier when we can build rapport with the people we serve.

It helps us create a connection and develop a sort of shared kinship where we both take responsibility for making the experience a great one. 

In one study, I discovered customers who mentioned an employee by name in a survey were 1.5 to 4 times more likely to give a top score (5 stars, etc.) than a negative one.

Introducing ourselves and sharing our name is a skill you already have. You can add to your rapport toolkit by learning the five question technique. Here's a video explainer:

Start a conversation from Customer Service Foundations by Jeff Toister

Listening

Most people are pretty good at listening—when they put their mind to it.

The challenge is we often face unseen obstacles that discourage us from using our listening skills. Here are just a few examples:

• Being in a hurry makes us instinctively want to listen less.

• Multitasking makes it more difficult to listen.

• Judging the other person makes harder to truly understand them.

Elite customer service professional prioritize listening to customers. And they don't just listen for the customer's rational needs, they try to uncover the emotions behind it.

One study surveyed airline passengers who experienced a flight delay or cancellation. The single issue that drove the most customer frustration was not the service failure itself, but the way it was handled.

Here's a short video that shows you how to identify emotional needs.

Identify emotional needs from Customer Service Foundations by Jeff Toister

Problem Solving

Must of customer service comes down to our ability to solve problems. This gets easier if we've already mastered the first three skills:

• Vision focuses our desire on a positive outcome for the customer.

• Rapport makes customers more open to our ideas.

• Listening helps us better understand what customers really need.

Of course, we've all been frustrated as customers by nagging problems that just can't seem to get solved. Often the missing element is ownership.

Many people confuse ownership for blame. They worry about being responsible for causing the problem, so they try to avoid it.

What ownership really means is taking responsibility for solving the problem. Here's a short video from the course that explains it.

Take ownership of problems from Customer Service Foundations by Jeff Toister

Take Action!

Here are a few action items you can implement right now!

1. Try implementing each of these four skills.

2. Share which skills are on your Top Four list.

3. Take the full Customer Service Foundations course.

You can find the course on LinkedIn Learning. You'll need a subscription, but a free 30-day trial is available.