9 Principles for Driving a Service Culture
Delivering awesome customer service involves 9 principles. Customer service is not complicated. It is the execution of some fundamentals that make a huge difference. It must start at the top and involve every employee. Remember that 99% of customer contact with your employees is with your front-line employees.
Relentless Strategy
Focus on strategy. You must be Relentless, and it has to be a way of life. Very few executives understand how fast you can grow your business when you master the Service Strategy.
Reduce Friction
Remove stupid rules, policies and procedures. Make it easy to buy from you. Does a live person answer the call 24/7 in 1 or 2 rings? Do you have hours convenient to the customer or the owner?
Empowerment
Empowerment is the backbone of great service. Everyone must be empowered. It takes typically 2 miracles at the same time to get an employee to spend $5 – $25 on a customer. Empowerment must happen on the front line. It dramatically increases your costs every time you move it up the chain of command.
Speed
People today expect and want speed. You must drastically reduce the time for everything you do. Reduce the time by 90 percent if you want to separate yourself from your competition.
Training
All employees must be trained on customer service with something new and fresh every few months. Ninety-nine percent of customer interaction is with your front line employees. They are the least trained, least valued, least paid and the face of your organization
Remember Your Name
The most precious thing to a customer is their name. Remember it and use it. It costs you nothing and takes no additional time.Less than 1 percent of companies use this skill.
Service Recovery
When you screw up you must keep the customer and all employees must practice the 4 skills of service recovery. 1. Act Quickly 2 Take Responsibility 3. Be Empowered 4. Compensate
Reduce Costs
Price is critical with all customers. Service leaders are frugal and always looking for ways to reduce costs. All my research shows service leaders are aggressive at eliminating waste and costs.
Measure Results
You must measure the results of creating a service culture to keep top management passionate about this process, the financial investment and time required. What is your NPS score?