Customer Service Training, Tips, Articles & Videos with Myra Golden
Take a Peek Behind the Scenes of PaySimple’s Customer Service Department
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I just love going inside Contact Centers and discovering how great companies manage processes to consistently deliver an outstanding customer experience. My customer service keynote presentations are made up entirely of benchmarks of real companies doing really fantastic things.
Today I want to share with you a look inside PaySimple’s Contact Center. In this short video, you will see how PaySimple ensures their customers have everything they need to succeed. PaySimple focuses on making their customer’s lives easier by delivering immediate and accurate answers. Watch this video and be inspired.
How Getting Out of the Way Might Lead to a Better Corporate Culture (And Better Photos)
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Last Sunday I grabbed my camera and took my son and his friend to the neighborhood lake for a breather from Wii and PlayStation. I let them go barefoot and they ran on at least 100 feet ahead of me. I stayed back to let them do what boys do: explore, play and discover. I watched as they watched the ducks in complete silence and then I smiled when they suddenly got up and began throwing pebbles into the lake, startling the ducks and sending geese inflight. While the boys explored and played, I took shot after shot of them in action. They all but forget I was even there.
Thirty minutes later I was back home looking at some of the most amazing pictures I have ever taken. Here are 3 of my shots from Sunday afternoon.
Exploration
Watching the ducks and geese
Discovery
What made these pictures so amazing to me is that I completely got out of the way and allowed the boys to do what came naturally to them. I didn’t make them stop to smile and pose for shots. I didn’t interrupt their natural curiosity and energy. I simply stayed back with a watchful eye and tried to capture the exuberance of two young boys at play.
Imagine the difference in my shots if I’d made the boys stop and pose and smile. The pictures would have been far less exciting and the boys would not have enjoyed their playtime nearly as much. Now imagine your culture and customer experience if you gave your employees more freedom, fewer rules, and if you stayed back just a little.
Isn’t this what we should be doing with our employees? What if we stayed out of their way, had fewer rules, and gave them freedom do what comes naturally? Is it possible that giving our employees room and freedom just might lead to a better customer experience? What if we were there to give our employees support and guidance, but we granted them freedom to be themselves and have fun with customers? (i.e. I kept the boys from danger by not allowing them to go into the deeper waters to get a soccer ball. That’s guidance. Yet, I still let them have fun.) I think it’s possible that staying out of the way, giving freedom and offering support might just make for a more innovative, fun, and profit-generating culture.
Stand back. Get out of the way. Let your employees explore, play and discover.
The Top 3 Things Most Companies Miss When It Comes to Creating a Customer-Focused Culture
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Many organizations talk about creating a customer-focused culture, but few companies actually create and sustain a true customer-focused culture. Culture is about more than exciting customer service training, employee empowerment, buttons and mugs, and advertising. A real and sustained customer culture begins with clarity of purpose, customer-friendly policies, and the right people. Organizations often miss 3 critical aspects of customer culture. Let’s take a look at the 3 critical areas of a customer focused culture and learn how to adopt and master each of them.
1. Be very clear about the behaviors employees are expected to deliver. Oftentimes employees don’t take care of customers because they fear they’ll do too much or they just don’t know that the company wants them to do whatever it takes to please a customer. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is crystal clear in its message to employees. Every Ritz-Carlton employee is empowered to spend up to $2,000 per guest, per day to resolve issues and ensure guest satisfaction.
One of my clients clarifies expectations of employees this way: “Do what’s right for the customer and you will have done what’s right for the organization.” My client further tells employees that they will never be reprimanded for taking care of a customer.
Be crystal clear on what you expect of employees and it will be much easier for them to reach your customer-focused targets.
2. Develop customer-friendly policies. Were your policies written to create the best possible experience for your customer or were they written to settle disputes and protect profits? Most corporate policies look something like this:
“ABC Company will offer you an exchange or refund provided that you return the item within 28 day of purchase and you produce your original ABC register receipt at the time you return the item.”
Creating and sustaining a true customer service culture isn’t possible without having customer policies that help customers have the best possible experience. Every year a popular home shopping network extends its normal 30-day return policy during the holidays so that customers can buy gifts with confidence. At this company, all purchases from November 1st through December 23rd can be returned for any reason until January 31. Customers can buy gifts for friends and family confidently knowing that those gifts can be returned well after the holiday season.
Take a look at your policies and ensure they support the best possible experience for your customers.
3. If employees aren’t completely customer focused, replace them.
The world’s largest online shoe retailer, legendary for customer service excellence, pays employees to quit. All new employees go through an intensive 5-week customer service training. After two weeks in the immersive customer service and culture training, employees are given “The offer.” “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $2,000 bonus.”
The company has found that the people willing to take the offer don’t have the sense of commitment to excellence they are looking for. The company only wants people that fit in with their customer-centric culture.
A customer culture will only happen when all employees have bought into the culture and support it fiercely. Strategically move or remove the wrong people so you can truly focus on delivering the best possible customer experience.
Be crystal clear in your expectations of employee behavior. Ensure your policies really do give customers the best possible experience. And by all means, have only the right people in charge of servicing your customers. When you do these things, you’ll be on your way to creating a true customer focused culture.
For help with creating your company culture, explore customer service consulting and customer service training at http://www.MyraGolden.com.
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Tags: Customer service culture
I work with companies that are serious about delighting and keeping customers. My blog includes thoughts, articles, videos, and even rants about customer service. Thanks for stopping by. :)
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