General Information Archives

Is It Time To Revamp Your Customer Service Standards?

I came across an interesting article talking about ways to reinvent the customer experience. It showed that only 1% of customers have an experience that meets their expectations. That’s an extremely low percentage – it could be attributed to actual declining customer service, or that consumers’ expectations are higher than they once were.
At any rate, it’s always a good time to take a good look at your current standards and see if there is room for change – there almost always is.

By looking at customer feedback responses, talking with your customers, and evaluating sales numbers, you can get some insight into the health of your customers’ experience. Are there complaints that revolve around certain themes? Do you see a drop in returning customers?

Technology and other advances have made it easy to reinvent ways you interact with customers, whether it is changing the way customer inquiries are handled, better ways to communicate with customers and make them feel valued, or even something as simple as speeding up the time spent in line.

The key question to ask yourself, as stated in the article, is:

“If we had no infrastructure, no politics, no barriers, and no limitations–how would we exploit the status quo to radically improve customer service?”

Doing something because “it’s always been done that way” or not having the time to make change is not an excuse. We are headed into the fourth quarter and a new year – why not start thinking now about ways you can improve the customer experience? It’s time to think outside of the box and really brainstorm for ways to make it better.

Here are some tips to get started:

1. Have a brainstorming session: throwing out any and all ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem, is the best way to start with your team. Ask the question above and collect ideas. The point here is to think freely and pretend for the moment that you can implement anything you want to. This will give you a “wish list” of ideas.

2. Ask your customers directly: if you are using a customer feedback program, or even a mystery shopping program, include a question that asks, “If there was one thing we could improve on, what would it be?” A few of our clients have added this question with great success. Your customers are the ones in the experience – they have thoughts about things that could make the experience better. Why not ask? You may get ideas you’ve never thought of.

3. Don’t feel like radical change is needed: making even small changes can go a long way. From the wish list you create, pinpoint some small changes that are most realistic and easy to implement. Customers will notice, and you will feel accomplished in the process, making it easier for you to continually monitor and make changes to make customers’ lives easier.

Change is good, and if you’re still doing things “old school”, consider making some honest evaluations of your standards and processes and decide how you can make change for the better.

Your Employees May Not Be Talking To You…

…but they may be talking to the world!

Social media monitoring tools are generally thought of for monitoring a company’s online reputation with its customers. Have you given thought to the fact that employees are sharing their thoughts and opinions too?

We’ve seen an increase in clients wanting to monitor their online reputation in the eyes of their employees lately, even if they use an employee based feedback program. As it is with customer feedback programs, sometimes employees do not share their true, honest opinions for fear of retaliation or thinking that no matter what they say, their voice will not be heard. But, they will tell the world through social media.

Traditionally, our social media monitoring started as monitoring employee online activities for instances of company degradation or disclosing proprietary information. Lately we’ve seen a shift in more general monitoring – not to see what an employee is doing this weekend, for example, but instead looking for trends among employees talking about their work.

This can be more difficult to uncover and cannot always be tied to a specific individual because they prefer to leave anonymous comments. However, this data is still quite useful, especially if you see a negative trend in one or more aspects of the workplace. This may be a sign that you need to do more in depth interviewing of your staff.

There are a few places you can start:

1. Glassdoor: if you’re not familiar with the Glassdoor site, it is a site that offers company information, along with an area for employees to review the company. A quick search on this site may tell you if employees are talking about your company and what they are saying.

2. Run an initial online search: type in your company name along with the words “employee” and “reviews” or even “hate my job” – word phrases that disgruntled employees may use. You might be surprised with what you find. You may even find, like with Starbucks and Walmart, that there are forums specifically created for employees to complain about their jobs.

3. Google Alerts: this is a start to uncovering employee opinion and sentiment, though it can be challenging and time consuming depending on how you set up the search. If, after running an online search, you find results that indicate your employees may be talking about their work online, then it’s a good idea to set up a Google alert to watch the trend in conversation. If it remains consistent or increases, good or bad, it might be time to turn to a more formal social media monitoring program to help you. These programs are more streamlined and do the legwork for you. Additionally, they can provide some analytical insight into the social media data.

Keeping the lines of communication open with your staff is important; making sure you’re collecting as much feedback as you can, from as many channels as possible, will serve you well in the long run.

Undercover Boss, Or Is There Another Option?

I’m a big fan of the show, Undercover Boss. This show depicts company CEO’s who go “undercover” for a week at some of their locations, acting as a new hire, to see how operations are run and where their strengths and weaknesses are. I know it’s scripted, as all reality shows are, and there’s always a formula – they run into an employee who has financial or family hardships, one outstanding employee, and sometimes an employee that is not up to company standards. At the end, the CEO reveals himself/herself and discusses the experience, rewarding the good ones and helping the others do better.

There are two recent episodes I’ve seen that gave me pause. In these episode, the details were different, but the theme was the same. One episode featured White Castle, while the other featured the 7-11 convenience chain.

In the White Castle episode, the CEO learned through talking with employees that they were generally worried about being fired if they didn’t strictly adhere to company standards. Of course employees should be following standards, but the point was driven home when the one employee shared that she came to work every day hoping she wouldn’t do something to cause her to lose her job. This particular employee made the CEO realize that this was the message corporate was sending to its employees, or at least that’s how the message was being perceived.

In the 7-11 episode, there was a scene where a manager was cleaning up the bakery items since the company wants to serve fresh items. All was fine until the manager started throwing away donuts, bagels, and the like. The CEO was upset about this, and the manager shared that he wanted to find a way to have these items donated to a food pantry or similar charity, and has tried to express this to corporate, but has gone unheard. The CEO was upset by the fact that so much food was being wasted and this employee felt that his opinions and thoughts were overlooked by corporate.

Not every company can afford to have corporate be an “undercover boss” for time and financial reasons. However, this show (especially these two episodes), drive home the fact that companies, whether you have five or 5,000 locations, do not typically know what their employees are thinking. They may not be asked, or employees may feel as though they cannot share their opinions, or it’s not worth the time because they won’t be heard.

Since most cannot employ the “undercover boss” methodology, you may wonder what other options are out there….there is one simple program that you can implement to let your employees know you care.

Employee feedback surveys can be a useful tool to gauge employee sentiment, pinpoint common themes that might need attention, and gain valuable insight and suggestions for improvement. This should be an anonymous program so that employees feel they can share freely, and if it is handled by a third party, it gives the employees a comfort level because they are less likely to feel that corporate will try to figure out who’s leaving the feedback or “punish” those who do not leave all positive feedback about their work.

It can be a simple survey asking about their satisfaction level with their work, what challenges the see as being a barrier to being successful as an employee for the company, and if they have any suggestions for improvement. Leaving an open ended area for comments may also encourage additional feedback. Keeping it general, especially the first time out, will give managers a sense of the overall sentiment and give them a starting point for working with employees to create a mutually successful work environment.

If you haven’t watched Undercover Boss, I highly recommend it, especially if you are in an upper management position. You might get inspiration for employing a feedback system or talking with your employees in another manner to see how they’re doing. Nothing ruins customer service like low employee morale!

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