Question: What happens when your team needs training, but you can't afford to shut down operations for a full day? What happens when training keeps getting rescheduled because there's never a "good time"?
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Question:What happens if you make an investment in training, but you don’t choose the right program? What happens when your investment is wasted and good will evaporates because there is no follow-up reinforcement or coaching?
When your attempt to provide training is just lip service – because it doesn’t really address your employees’ needs, it’s inexpensive and you think “it will do,” or there’s no follow up and everything goes back to the way it was before – you are sabotaging your organization’s success and not leveraging one of the highest ROIs you can earn.
You can successfully use training to address customer service, process efficiency – and employee engagement, retention, productivity, and innovation – all at the same time.
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“A trip to a major museum exhibition these days can feel more like a Black Friday sale at Walmart than a rewarding adventure in esthetic uplift. So much so that a Gauguin retrospective at London’s Tate Modern, in 2010–11, elicited a slew of complaints on the museum’s Internet message board,” reports ArtNews.
So how do you consistently provide a rewarding, positive visitor experience? Where does the visitor journey begin?
Conventional wisdom might have you believe that the “adventure in esthetic uplift” starts when the visitor crosses the gallery threshold and starts reading the text that accompanies the exhibit.
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In a recent survey, McKinsey found that government agencies ranked among the last in customer satisfaction among 11 researched industries. When dealing with government, whether it’s the City, State or Federal agencies, we have all experienced customer service situations where civil servants are not just difficult, they are downright uncivil.
Consider however, what they are up against: the competing demands of keeping up with all of the Federal/State/City requirements and regulations and trying to maintain composure with customers who are late, belligerent, poorly informed, and/or difficult to explain things to. Public sector employees are constantly challenged.
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Great customer service has the potential to build customer engagement and loyalty by providing your business with a way to make an emotional connection with its customers. By accomplishing this, your company goes a long way toward rendering itself irreplaceable–a business for which any substitute is just that: an imitation, an also-ran.
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We live in a reputation economy. What your customer experiences directly with your staff - good or bad - not only impacts your bottom line but also your online reputation. “Customers today have a louder voice (think Yelp and other rating sites), have access to more information on you and your competitors, and as a result expect an increasingly awesome experience. And they should,” says Christine Comaford.
Your organization profits and your reputation is enhanced when your clients benefit from a seamless customer service experience aligned to your brand:
In a well run organization, valued customers can be internal or external. We define a customer as anyone we serve. That means, depending on your responsibilities, there may be no difference between internal customers – serving your fellow employees and management – and external customers who purchase or use your goods and services.
We then define good customer service as the experience all of us want to have when we are the customer. It should reflect what your organization believes and the values you share, as well as providing the same treatment to everyone in the organization whether it is the president or the front line person.
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Even for the savviest organization, maintaining a balance of meeting payroll, paying vendors, and finding ways to expand the business can be an incredible challenge. So how can you find more opportunities to cultivate the loyal, profitable customers that keep your business running smoothly?
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Would you hire an accountant who didn’t know how to use a ledger? Would you put your trust in a contractor who’d never handled sheetrock? A taxi driver without a license to get behind the wheel?
You get the idea.
So why are you entrusting your company – your best customers, your reputation, your future earnings – to frontline customer service employees who lack empathy and empowerment? An empathetic customer experience from your frontline employees creates loyalty and return business.
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he higher education industry is changing. Are you changing, too? Is your institution following “market forces” by charging professors and staff to change their view of students -- to treat them like “customers” who have entered into a contractual relationship with your school?
Traditionally, higher education organizations are social institutions, dealing in the public good, rather than dealing in commodities transactions. However, “with the rise of mass higher learning, tight public funding and intense competition for students, universities are often encouraged to see students as “customers.” But should they?” asks Geoff Sharrock.
In the era of tuition in the hundreds of thousands (and the resulting student loans), tight and rarified job market, and overall prevailing consumer culture, is public good our newest commodity?
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A recent New York Times front-page article speaks about “Baring a Bit of Your Soul to Connect with Voters.” The premise is that a highly personal touch in story-telling “… can help to spread a candidate’s story in a way that…can inspire donations.” Unlike typical advertisements, candidates share not only their definitions of leadership, but also their beliefs, their experiences and their pain. These videos are so effective because candidates come across with authenticity and credibility.
In this world of exploding social media and competing priorities, how do YOU make a difference?
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Every dollar you spend to operate your small, public, or donation-driven organization is a conscious decision and is many times a trade-off of competing priorities. That’s why there are four critical factors to consider when adding to your team:
1. Hiring: “According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the price of a bad hire is at least 30 percent of the employee's first-year earnings. For a small company, a five-figure investment in the wrong person is a threat to the business,” notes Falon Fatemi. Proven hiring methodologies can enhance teamwork, reduce turnover and provide you with a competitive edge.
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The news about Nike’s purpose-driven marketing and how successful it has been is everywhere. A recent feature the Newsday Long Island Business section goes into detail about Nike’s controversial ad with the former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Most brands steer clear of this kind of advertising for fear of customer alienation. What was the reaction to Nike? Their stock and sales are going up, up, up.
Why is Nike so successful?
“Good morning, how are you today, Alexa?” “Siri, where is the nearest health food store?” #ThisistheWorstAirline
Technology advances are changing our everyday lives at home. We use Artificial Intelligence and social media to let our friends, our neighbors - and ourselves - know what we want and when we want it. And we use these emerging technologies to interact with companies, whether making purchases, finding out what’s new, or letting the whole world know about our experience (usually when it’s highly negative).
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Let’s answer some basic questions: Who is the customer? What is customer service? How do you create customer service excellence?
We define a customer as anyone that we serve. That means that there is no difference between our internal customers – serving our fellow employees and management – or our external customers that purchase our goods and services. The customer isn’t someone who exists only between 8am and 5pm. By encouraging and promoting this within your organization you reinforce the skills and attitudes of customer service excellence that are beneficial to your employees and to your paying customers.
In the high-stakes world of donor dollars, foundation grants, and community competitions … how are you faring? Competition is fiercer than ever, time and attention given to your services is way down, and your digital footprint can live in infamy. You have probably updated the information in your presentation to reflect your latest successes and numbers … but when was the last time you updated the way you present yourself and your organization?
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When it comes to a company’s ability to formulate and execute upon a transformational strategy, few factors, if any, are more influential than its culture.
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While the importance of workplace culture is well-understood, how to build a great culture is less established. This article includes five common myths about culture-building -- as well as five strategies for cultivating a unique, healthy, sustainable organizational culture.
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As always, companies who provide great customer service have a huge advantage over companies that don’t. Here are the six customer service trends we expect to see in 2018 and, more importantly, our advice on how to manage them.
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