Customer Service Training, Tips, Articles & Videos with Myra Golden
Fiercely Focus on Someone Today. What You See Might Surprise You.
Leave a Comment
After a wonderful dinner at my parents’ house on Easter Sunday, I went for a solo walk in my mother’s garden. When I spotted my mother’s patch of white tulips, I ran to my car and grabbed my camera. The chorus of white tulips was beautiful. But I decided I could get a more dramatic shot by focusing on a single tulip and blurring everything else out. I loved the way the shot turned out. The white tulip, while beginning to wilt, looks stately and royal and it truly stands out. In the patch with the other white tulips, it just blended in. My fierce focus on that one white tulip magnified its beauty and makes it look almost majestic.
When we have the vision and discipline to fiercely focus on a single thing, everything else fades into the background. Fierce focus allows us to see the beauty in a thing and to magnify the best of the thing. It’s funny how it works, but intense focus on a single thing seems to make flaws and imperfections fade away. All our eyes seem to see is beauty and perfection. When I focused on the single white tulip, the weeds and wilting petals of other tulips disappeared. You simply see beauty in the white tulip that I zeroed in on.
Today I challenge you to take someone out of the crowded “patch.” Fiercely focus on that one person. See the beauty, gifts and magnificence of your child, spouse, employee, co-worker or boss. Blur out past conflicts, imperfections and personal differences. You focus by being fully present in the moment, withholding judgment and by believing the very best of the person. Focus solely on the person and I promise you, you will see their beauty in an entirely new and enchanting way.
How to Get Buy-in and Create Ownership
1 Comment
When I was overseeing consumer affairs for an international car rental company, I struggled with getting my team to deliver the level of customer service our customers expected and deserved. One day I sat down and typed an email to my staff that read: “We urgently need to fix our hold times, talk times and case turnaround times. I need your help. What is stopping us from meeting our service goals? How do we turn this around?”
Though I didn’t realize it at the time, emailing my employees for solutions gave my people ownership of the problem and automatically built buy-in for the solutions and changes.
That email started a thread of responses, reasons, excuses and ideas from my team. The email discussions led to the development of a task force made up of 7 of my employees who worked as a team to find ways to improve our service experience by tackling our biggest problems. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, emailing my employees for solutions gave my people ownership of the problem and automatically built buy-in for the solutions and changes.
My employees identified the root causes of our problems and they developed the strategies to attack the problems. I didn’t have to sell them on ideas or work to enforce change. Within 11 weeks of my initial email, my employees had figured out how to fix our blazing problems of long hold times, excessive talk times and delinquent case processing
The point. Go to your employees when you have customer-impacting problems to resolve. Your employees are in the trenches and they have the creativity and strategy to turn your service experience around…if they are trusted and empowered to do so. Letting your employees tackle service problems gives them ownership and creates buy-in.
If you liked this article, you might want to check out my new web event “Delivering WOW” where I help you create a culture where your employees consistently make emotional connections with customers and surprise and delight customers.
Like this:
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. :)
Visitor Comments
 | jessica on Sticks and Stones May Break My… |
 | myragolden on Sticks and Stones May Break My… |
 | Lillian Watts-Ray on Sticks and Stones May Break My… |
| myragolden on Sticks and Stones May Break My… |
 | Linda Jones on Sticks and Stones May Break My… |
