Although Walt Disney died in 1966, if you were to read any of today”™s best-selling business books, you would think he wrote them. Disney valued collaboration and promoted the team concept with his employees. He believed that exceeding guests”™ expectations required a well-rehearsed cast, with every member playing a significant role. Are you exceeding customer expectations?
Exceed expectations and achieve great customer service by doing just a few things. By knowing your vision and values, employees become front-line customer-problem solvers. Everyone must fully understand why the organization exists and how the job they do helps to meet your customers”™ needs. It”™s hard for people help with the mission if they don”™t know what it is.
In his book “Unusually Excellent,” John Hamm talks about getting back to basics. “When the best golfers in the world get frustrated with their game they don”™t buy a new set of clubs or try a new approach to their game. Instead they work with a swing coach to get back to the most basic fundamentals of grip, stance, posture, ball position and aim ”“ the same elementary lessons they learned when they first started playing the game,” Hamm writes.
Would Hamm, who was named one of the country”™s top 100 venture capitalists and whose advice is often published in Business Week, Fast Company, Fortune, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, suggest that you and your people need help with your game, help with the fundamentals of outstanding customer service?
In the first week of employment, everyone should have a basic understanding about how the company”™s products and services make life better for the customer. Every employee should call two to three customers every week to ask, “How are we doing?” In asking for customer feedback, two questions must be answered:
Ӣ How easy or hard is it to do business with our company?
Ӣ What do you consider to be exceptional service?
By comparing the answers given to the mission statement and goals, team building and collaboration can be sharpened. People must then be empowered by training on the fundamentals of exceeding expectations. To succeed, continual coaching and reinforcement of the basics must be done until it”™s ingrained in your culture.
Next, by knowing the values of your organization and their order of importance, every team member will then have the knowledge they need to solve your customers”™ problems more quickly and effectively. The value of safety is more important than on-time delivery at Federal Express. Because of a prioritization of values, no one is ever uncertain about the right thing to do.
A recent Gallup poll survey indicated that over 95 percent of workers want to contribute to the success of their organization. The same poll finds that most come up woefully short in having the information and guidance needed. Train, empower, and reward your employees! Happy employees take pride in their work, and do it well. They treat customers well if they”™re treated well and poorly if they”™re treated poorly.
The best strategies will fail if staff is lacking the right customer service training. People must be given a chance to learn what to do. People cherish the responsibility of being customer-problem solvers. When they know your vision and values they solve problems your way. In the end, you will, like Disney, have collaborative teams that are well-rehearsed, with every member playing a significant role.
Questions for discussion:
Do our people know what our vision, values, mission and purpose are?
Have we made everyone aware of how the work they do helps us accomplish them?
Joe Murtagh is The DreamSpeaker, an international keynote speaker, meeting facilitator and business trainer. For questions or comments, contact Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com, TheDreamSpeaker.com or call (800) 239-0058.
