Shep Hyken's Blog, page 202

Guest Blog: How to Improve Customer Satisfaction by Educating Employees

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Kevin Leifer writes about the importance of properly educating and training employees which in turn leads to happier employees. This reminds me of one of my favorite expressions: What’s happening on the inside of the company is felt on the outside by the customer. – Shep Hyken

Happy employees increase customer satisfaction and well-trained employees are satisfied employees.

A study from 2005 reported that a five-point improvement in employee attitudes caused a 1.3 rise in customer satisfaction that in turn, generated a 0.5% increase in customer attitudes.

Like so many things in our business, it can be hard to know which investments (technology,training programs, etc.) are worth your money and which lack the big pay off.

How do you know what your staff needs? What will have the biggest impact on improving customer satisfaction?

In this article, you will learn five key benefits that come from educating your employees.

1. Train employees to act as if the business is their own

Disengaged employees aim to do as little as they can for the most money.

Engaged employees arrive early and stay late. They suggest ideas for increasing profits and improving customer satisfaction. Moreover, they do it without seeking more money.

The difference between the two types of employees is stark.

How do you change disengaged employees into engaged employees?

Show them a new way of thinking. Who do your employees see as their employer – you or themselves? If they believe they are working for you, many will do just enough to get by.

However, when employees see themselves as self-employed, they’ll work hard to make your business succeed.

For them, your success makes them successful. Increasing sales and profits is in their best interests because it helps them achieve their goals and guarantees their employment. They are the kind of employees that managers notice and promote.

2. Teach employees to watch what they’re saying

A standard retailing problem is when your employees talk to customers in unhelpful ways. The words employees choose, and their tone, affect the experience your customers have in your stores. The wrong words lose sales.

Words also make a difference when customers enter your stores. What’s the first impression someone gets when he or she walks into your store? Are your employees helping people? Alternatively, are they standing around chatting and gossiping?

Train your employees to focus on positives when they talk to customers. Validate the shopper’s ideas as unique, intelligent, and original.

Teach them how to handle questions from customers. You want them to avoid negatives, like “I don’t know.” Instead say, “That’s a good question, I’ll find out.”

Show your employees how to use “power” words that will boost sales.

3. Build a high-trust culture

Trust is the currency of the new economy, says Stephen M. R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust and Smart Trust. Plenty of research backs up his claim.

A study of a large Canadian retailer found an extremely significant relationship between workplace trust and key performance indicators. The top 25% of retail stores on ‘Great Places to Work’s Trust’ Index achieve 7% basis points higher sales performance than the bottom quartile stores.

Building a high-trust culture starts with meeting the three human needs.

While popular, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is not accurate. Instead, scientists have identified three needs:

Autonomy: people need to perceive they have the freedom of choice and that they are the source of their actions.

Relatedness: people need to belong to a group. They want to feel connected to others without worrying that people have ulterior motives. It is also about contributing to something greater than them.

Competence: people need to feel like they can handle everyday challenges. They want to know they are getting better as time passes. They wish to feel a sense of growth.

Make sure that your employees are exposed to educational content that will increase their competence. When employees are confident about what they are doing, they will feel free to act with greater autonomy. Moreover, through learning together, they will meet their need for relatedness.

4. Create competitions among employees

Have you created in the past a contest in your business that focuses on individual goals? Be wary, rewarding competition can be destructive when focused on a single employee.

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling, say that making employees compete against each other is a bad thing.

Why? Employees need to work together as a team to make your retail business as successful as it can. If the success of their workmates means they’ll be less successful, they will not do their best.

Instead of creating a win-lose environment, you need to create a win-win environment. Set a team goal and reward/track everyone’s contributions toward that goal. Ask employees what reward they would like, and then tell them what they need to do to earn that reward.

You also want to reward employees for beating their personal bests. For example, an employee signs up more customers for your loyalty program this month than they ever have before. Also, make sure to acknowledge their success.

When you do these things, you’ll build a high-performing team. You’ll also recognize the achievements of individuals.

5. Inspire employees through connecting what you want to their highest values

Do you motivate employees or inspire them?

At first blush, it seems like motivation and inspiration are the same thing, but it is important to know how they differ. It can change the results you are getting.

Author and speaker Dr. John F. Demartini tells audiences never to call him a motivational speaker. He considers himself an inspirational speaker instead.

Motivation is external pressure to do something you do not want to do. Inspiration is when you are on purpose moving toward fulfilling your highest values.

So if you are going to give up motivating employees, how do you inspire them instead?

Know your highest values. Know your employees’ highest values. Then connect what you want them to do to their highest values. Link their work to their highest values.

Inspired employees are engaged. They are present in body and spirit. They make it their personal mission to improve customer satisfaction.

Educated employees are engaged employees. They are happy employees. Happy employees mean delighted customers.

The five benefits above show clearly that you can motivate your employees with the right training program. And as explained throughout this post, Improving your employee skills improves customer satisfaction.

Kevin Leifer is passionate about retail, specifically aligning a brand’s expectation of their customers’ experience with consistent execution in-store. Having managed national touring programs for the National Basketball Association, Nabisco, Coca-Cola and AT&T, Kevin joined ICC/Decision Services in 2000 as an account executive managing the retail apparel business.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com. Have you heard Shep’s latest podcast on Amazing Business Radio? Click here to listen.

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Published on October 16, 2015 04:30

How to Make Your Customers Feel Special

Customer Service Experience

You do the same thing, over and over each day. Work is a routine. You might even get bored. So how do you stay motivated to be nice to your customers? Before we answer that question, let me share an example with you to set up the lesson.

I have a friend who is a very successful orthopedic doctor. He has a reputation for being really good at what he does, which includes both his ability as a surgeon and his bedside manner. One morning we were playing golf and with a couple of holes to go I asked what he was doing the rest of the day. He said he had a hip-replacement surgery to perform in about an hour. I asked him if he needed to leave right away. He said he was in no rush. The hospital was nearby and as long as he was there a few minutes early, he’d have plenty of time to prep for the surgery. I asked if he needed to get psyched up for the operation to get his “head in the game.” He casually said, “No,” and proceeded to take his shot.

I was surprised that he didn’t need to spend time to mentally prepare. Whenever I do a speech, which I assume is much easier to do than a hip-replacement, I need some time to get focused. How could he not need time to mentally prepare?

As my doctor buddy walked away, another member of our golf group came up to me and said, “He does this all of the time. It’s like carpentry. For him, it’s as easy as a skilled carpenter hanging a door.”

Carpentry? That’s what a hip surgery is? As easy as hanging a door? I don’t think so. But, the point is that it is mechanical. The doc does three to five surgeries a day, four days a week. That’s at least 12 surgeries, if not more, each week, and if he does that at least 40 weeks throughout the year, he is doing at least 500 surgeries a year – for the last thirty years. That means he done at least 15,000 surgeries. I’m guessing by now he’s finally got it down. Okay, I get it.

So, on the last hole I asked him if he ever gets bored doing his “carpentry” work. He laughed and said, “All the surgeries are pretty much the same, with the exception of the occasional problem. But, what’s not the same are the patients. Each of them are different. They are all people and need to be treated as if they are the only patient I have.”

And, there you go! He gets it. That’s why his reputation is stellar. That’s why other doctors refer their patients to him. He’s a good surgeon – and a good person.

Isn’t that what you want from the people you do business with? You want them to be good at what they do, sell a product that does what it’s supposed to do, and give you the customer service experience you rightly deserve. And conversely, that is exactly what your customers want from you.

So, no matter how long you’ve been doing what you do, no matter how many times you’ve done it, no matter if you are bored by it or still get excited about it, each time you interact with your customer, it’s your opportunity to make them feel special… as if they are your only (and most important) customer.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Published on October 14, 2015 05:09

Amazing Business Radio Interview: Ken Weber

October 13: Ken Weber on Easy Ways to Fix the Mistakes You Make with Your Money

Shep Hyken talks with Ken Weber, one of the premier mutual fund experts in the United States. They have engaging conversation about Ken’s book “Dear Investor, What the HELL are You Doing?: Smart and Easy Ways to Fix the Mistakes You Make With Your Money.” Ken shares some of the most common mistakes he sees investors making and what he sees ahead for the stock market. If you’ve invested any money into the stock market, mutual funds or insurance you must listen to this show.

Click here to listen.

“When I talk to new clients, the only thing I can guarantee is volatility.” – Ken Weber

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Published on October 13, 2015 17:27

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of October 12, 2015

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS ARTICLES

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

Celebrate customers more frequently and less formally by Steve Curtin

(Steve Curtin) Rather than pass out logoed pens and koozies to call attention to customer service for one week in October, why not place the spotlight on customer service daily?

My Comment: As I read this article (again) it is the end of National Customer Service Week. Customer service enthusiasts will love these ideas. And I think all will agree that these great ideas will work for the other 51 weeks of the year, too!

Would you drive all night for a customer? by Kelley Styring

(LinkedIn) One of those bad situations turned into a customer service experience that went way beyond what I’d call “going the extra mile.”

My Comment: I’m a sucker for a good taxi-cab story. This one is awesome. A great story and metaphor to emphasize how important it is to go the extra mile – or extra 1,400 miles for your customer!

Why A Chief Customer Officer Is Integral To Your Company by Blake Morgan

(Forbes) In the old days companies would differentiate their services with logistics or price. While some companies today differentiate on quality, customer experience remains the most competitive tool to differentiate that we have today.

My Comment: More compelling reasons why companies need to have the Chief Customer Officer in place – or at least someone with the similar responsibilities. And, really enjoyed the video that accompanied the article.

Four Cornerstones that “Create the Conditions” for a Service Advantage by Gregg Baron

LinkedIn) Your investment in increasing the probability of complete and total customer satisfaction is among the highest ROI strategies you can focus on. The question is how do you actually execute on this so it is both a sustainable and substantial advantage for your organization?

My Comment: There is a lot that can go into creating a customer service initiative. It includes the culture, the system and the people. And, it helps to have a good way to track and measure success.

6 ways you can keep your best customers coming back for free by Matt Quinn

(Sauce) What you do want to do is give or tell them something that makes them feel extra special. After all they are extra special to the success of your store. So with this all laid out, below are 6 of my favourite things you can give to your best customers for free.

My Comment: You don’t have to be a retailer to make use of some (or all ) of the six ideas here. Great ways to create extra value for your best customers.

Shep Hyken is a customer serv ice expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Published on October 12, 2015 05:14

Guest Blog: The Benefits of Staying Human

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Dan Goss shares his thoughts on the automation of the customer service department. This is an important topic as many times contacting your company for help is the first contact a customer has with your organization. – Shep Hyken

When we need to get in touch with a customer service department, we too often pick up the phone or open a live chat window online and wind up speaking to a robot. Following initial contact, these robots then regularly introduce us to a Kafkaesque world of unhelpful dialogue, question trees that ultimately lead to dead ends, and mazelike, unending and unhelpful options.

This is cited as a huge cause for frustration among customers, and even a reason to take their business elsewhere, but still the machines persist. Why?

Put honestly, they save money. As the cutting edge of these technologies becomes more sophisticated, the technologies can take over more functions of traditional staff, helping cut costs and ‘streamline’ a company’s customer service department. As the technology becomes more affordable, more businesses will have access to it, and will have to weigh the pros and cons themselves – I’m not arguing that there are no benefits to automation of customer service. I’m simply arguing that the benefits are far outweighed by the drawbacks.

As another post on this blog stated, businesses often make mistakes when they attempt to cut costs or make a decision which benefits them, while reducing the quality of the customer’s experience. Employing machines to cut costs in your customer service department is perhaps the best example of this process in action – it forgets the core of customer service: actually serving the customer.

When someone calls a customer service line, they want to be listened to, and treated as an individual. Good customer service not only deals with problems quickly and cost-effectively; it deals with them in a way that makes the customer feel validated, valued and pleased that the company would do whatever it took to fix their problem.

The use of automated stallers, filters and screeners in place of human customer service reps is just the opposite – it’s a tactic used so the company doesn’t have to talk to its customers! The machines send the message that the company doesn’t value the customer enough to simply speak to them one-on-one, that the customer is just another drop in the sea of complainers, each like the rest. The backwards logic of this isn’t lost on the customer.

Obviously, there are companies that are just too big to have zero automation: to them the answer is to keep it simple! Use minimal automation to sort customers efficiently so they can speak to a human as fast as possible. No-one wants to have their every problem solved by an endless series of automated question trees.

Maybe one day some smooth-talking complainotron will be able to provide the simple relief of speaking to a human being, who can adapt to your problems in real time and make you feel like a valued friend of the company, rather than a nameless nuisance on an automated factory line, but that day is not today. If it were my customer service department, I’d be pretty hesitant about allowing the robots to take over just yet.

Dan Goss is a writer and researcher for Customer Service Guru. He is keenly interested in customer service practice, particularly the impact of technology on customer experience and the evolution of customer service in the age of social media. When he isn’t writing about customer service, he likes to read, poorly play the cello, and have his complaints dealt with effectively. You can find him at your nearest coffee machine, email him at dgoss@pixus.co.uk or tweet @gurucustomers.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com. Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:

Company Culture: How to Go Beyond Lip Service

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Published on October 09, 2015 07:10

Top Tips for Customer Service Week [Infographic]

Customer Service Tips

This week is Customer Service Week. It shouldn’t be a week. It should be all the time. None the less, it has become recognized as a week to celebrate and promote customer service. Take the time to do something special for your customers or employees.

Check out my YouTube Channel for daily videos this week in honor of National Customer Service Week.

(Click on the infographic to make it bigger.)

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Published on October 08, 2015 08:33

Don’t Chase the Money. Chase the Customer. By Shep Hyken

This week is National Customer Service Week and I hope you are taking time to emphasize customer service. I always ask, “Why just a week?” Shouldn’t we deliver and celebrate great customer service all year – year after year! How about National Customer Service EVERY Week. I hope you enjoy this article and continue to have an Amazing week.

Take care of your customer and the money will follow.

I recently had the chance to interview Tariq Farid, the founder and CEO of Edible Arrangements. If you aren’t familiar with Edible Arrangements, it is like a flower shop, but instead of flowers, they sell and deliver bouquets of fresh fruit.

The company originally began as a flower shop when a neighbor loaned Tariq the money to open the business while he was still a teenager in high school. He quickly repaid that loan and started to expand into what is now a 1,200 unit international franchise organization. Tariq shared stories about how he “wowed” his customers with a level of service that allowed him to compete and win in a very competitive business. He walks the talk, having created a simplistic three word mission statement, which is “To Wow You!”

In addition to using customer service as his competitive weapon of choice, he grew his business by listening to his mother’s sage advice: Don’t chase money!

What that means is that if you care more about the money than the customer, you won’t always make the sale. And if you do make the sale, you might not keep the customer long term.

So what does it really mean to put the customer before the sale? I think it is best summed up with a personal story about a shopping experience I had several years back.

I went to the mall to buy a shirt that was advertised to be on sale. Unfortunately, the store was sold out of the shirt in my size. The salesperson picked up the phone and called the other stores in the area, but to no avail. None of their stores had the shirt. That’s when the salesperson called a competitor in the mall. She found the shirt, in my size, and had the store hold it for me. Pretty impressive! Her effort earned her my loyalty.

I once heard a similar story. Everything was exactly the same except for the ending. Rather than send the customer to the competitor’s store to pick up the item, the salesperson asked the customer to come back in about fifteen minutes. The salesperson went to the other end of the mall, bought the shirt from a different store, and brought it back to sell to the customer. It didn’t matter that the store didn’t make any money on that sale. What mattered is that the salesperson took care of her customer.

I’ve been a believer of this concept since the beginning of my career. The late Dr. Theodore Levitt, professor at Harvard Business School, used to say, “The function of a business is to get and keep your customers.” If you ask people, “What the function of a business?” most will say, “To make money.” Unfortunately they are wrong. Making money is the goal, and if you confuse the function with the goal, you may not hit your goal.

So, don’t chase the money. Chase the customer!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Published on October 07, 2015 04:35

Don’t Chase the Money. Chase the Customer. by Shep Hyken