A Modern Day Customer Service Parable

Too often you hear stories about people’s customer service nightmares and commiserate with them as you talk of similar experiences. The Virgin Group founder Richard Branson recently shared a story about customer service himself, but the story ended with a satisfied customer and not a disgruntled one.

A Virgin Atlantic customer’s free limo failed to pick him up at his hotel (apparently the customer waited at the wrong door). So, he called a cab and arrived at the airport angry, running late and nervous he would miss his flight. A Virgin agent spotted him and tried to calm him down, apologized for the limo mix up and rushed him through the security staff lane to get him to his gate. She even reimbursed his taxi fare out of her own pocket. The passenger boarded the plane on time thanks to the Virgin agent’s ability to turn a negative customer experience into a positive one.

Unfortunately, when the agent later recounted this story to her supervisor and asked to be reimbursed for the $70 taxi fare, her supervisor asked if she had a receipt and refused to repay her without one. Branson pointed out that had any Virgin employees learned of the agent’s trouble with the supervisor, they would be unlikely to act in similar manners when other potential customer service issues arise. Agents would hesitate to steer from procedure to help customers if they knew their jobs would be at risk. That’s definitely not a good thing for Virgin’s customers, and therefore, not a good thing for Virgin.

Luckily, the airport manager heard about this story and intervened. He informed the finance team that he approved the reimbursement and educated the supervisor on the merits of “catching people doing something right.”

Branson writes, “Good customer service on the shop floor begins at the very top. If your senior people don’t get it, even the strongest links further down the line can become compromised, as the story shows.”

Train your employees well enough and instill faith in them that they can always act in a way where they’re “doing as they would be done by.” When your employees are happy, your customers are happy, and therefore, your company is happy as well.

Employee as Brand Ambassador

In most cases, especially at retail, the customer’s first touch point with your store or brand is the store employee. If you subscribe to the results of a survey from the Human Capital Institute and Monster.com, this is troublesome. This study identifies a pretty significant misunderstanding in that 84 percent of employers believe their workforce is content to just have a job, when in reality only 58 percent of the workers feel the same.

When thrust into the role of acting as an ambassador for your brand, it’s hard to argue with the benefit of having happy employees. For one thing, their attitudes will be immediately reflected on the customer. Beyond the first impression, unhappy and unfulfilled employees tend to seek different employment opportunities, creating high turnover rates. The constant carousel of new people makes maintaining a well trained and knowledgeable staff difficult. When the store staff isn’t experienced and well-informed, they aren’t going to be as helpful to the customer, even if they have a great attitude.

Another finding of interest was that 57 percent, “believe employers are exploiting the recession to drive longer hours and lower pay from their workforces.” If this is indeed the case, it may help maintain staff in the short term, but it creates employees who have already checked out the minute things get batter. The net result is another huge loss for maintaining a customer friendly environment.

A better medium to long term approach would be to plan for the recovery. Use the tighter job market to be highly selective when hiring and then nurture those employees so they will be more likely to stay when their options open up. Show them your commitment by enabling them through training and incentives to not just serve, but delight customers. The key thing to remember is that the employment door swings both ways. Putting customer experience as a factor in employee relations will ensure that it swings your way more times than not.

Indifference vs. Difference

It’s pretty easy to spot poor customer service and even easier to identify trends because we see the same mistakes made in retail locations everyday. In an article on HospitalityNet.org, Steve Curtin points out three behaviors that we all see on shopping trips and gives a simple explanation for why these unacceptable practices live on.

The behaviors are 1) employees checking text, emails and social media instead of attending to customers, 2) employees smoking just outside of the entrance of the store and 3) employees holding conversations with co-workers while helping customers. These conversations generally involve complaining about work, another co-worker or even a customer right in front of other customers. Curtin chalks this behavior up to indifference and questions whether the employees would act the same if they knew a division president would be making an on-site visit. He uses the tale of the, “Emperor’s New Clothes,” as an analogy for the apathy that enables these customer killing actions to proliferate.

On the flip side, consider the case of the King of Prussia Mall as documented in the Pottstown Mercury. This is a case where the Mall, not the mall tenants mind you, has hired a corporate trainer to help the customer service desk, mall greeters and maintenance staff improve customer service skills. The resulting stories of extraordinary customer service are exemplary. After training, a series of “mystery shops” were performed to judge things like friendliness and courteousness. The staff received a close to 100% score.

The King of Prussia Mall put an interesting tag on the program. They called it “Concierge Training” and made sure everybody who worked for the mall including the maintenance staff know what the expectation are. As a side note, it turned out that the maintenance staff is especially adept at applying the high standards.

The King of Prussia Mall is not afraid to say, as Curtin suggests, “The Emperor is Naked!” and battles the indifference though empowered and knowlegible employees who make a difference.

Employee Satisfaction = a Good Customer Experience

Ever have a boss you loved to hate? You’d bite your lip when he or she spoke, afraid you might say what you were really thinking. If so, you already understand how employee satisfaction equals the customer experience.

Not long ago, as I shopped at a local discount store, I overheard several employees bashing their boss. Obviously, the ladies did not like their jobs, but they needed the work.

When I asked for help, I received half-hearted service–just enough to get by, nothing more. My customer experience was sorely compromised. Perhaps the boss was difficult to work for. I’ll never know because I won’t be shopping in that store again.

Conversely, I’ve shopped in stores obviously eager to improve the customer experience. The supervisor had a great working relationship with his employees, and it was a pleasure all around. I felt welcomed and valued and received service with a smile.

A good mystery shopping program uncovers necessary information in both these instances. The boss of the unhappy employees doesn’t realize what’s going on behind the scenes. Mystery shopping would reveal it…and explain why his profits are dwindling. Mystery shopping rewards and motivates employees. If they’re unhappy, it can be fixed. If they’re already treating customers well, mystery shopping ensures the retailer’s future.

Employee satisfaction equals a satisfying customer experience. To cater to customers’ needs, it’s not enough to guess. And they’re probably not going to tell you, even if you ask. Like the unhappy employee in the beginning of this story, they’re biting their lips and hoping you don’t notice.

The only way to give customers what they want is to know what that is. And the only way to really know your customers’ unbiased opinions is through mystery shopping.

Yum! Brands Recognized for Diversity By Black Enterprise

Yum! Brands Inc., parent company of A&W All-American Food, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, has been named one of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine’s “40 Best Companies for Diversity” for its comprehensive results across key diversity measures for the fourth consecutive year.

BLACK ENTERPRISE reported that supplier diversity and total workforce diversity are two areas in which Yum! Brands is particularly strong.

For More Information Click Here.

Paying Employees To Quit: What We Can Learn From Zappos

Online retailer Zappos recently started paying employees up to $1500 to quit the company during initial training sessions. Is this just a PR stunt? Are they crazy?

The bottom line is that satisfied and happy employees provide great customer service. As a customer, who wants to deal with an unhappy employee? It affects the overall customer experience. I think this is a great idea for Zappos or for any other company to weed out employees who could potentially affect the customer experience in a negative way.

For instance, let’s say that I am a satisfied and loyal Zappos customer that spends on average $250/ year at Zappos.com. This means over the next 25 years I will spend $6,250. One day I get on the phone with an unsatisfied employee that really pisses me off. Because of this negative experience, I stop purchasing from Zappos. That’s $6,250 worth of potential revenue lost. How about if the unsatisfied employee pisses off four other similar customers in one month? Zappos will lose $31,250 worth of potential revenue just because one employee created a negative experience for five customers. Imagine if you had a couple more unsatisfied employees and they piss off at least 5 customers a month. You do the math. If you think $1,500 is too much to weed out unsatisfied employees think again.

Improving Customer Satisfaction by First Improving Employee Satisfaction: Best Buy Shows How It’s Done

When was the last time you had a negative experience with someone who was servicing you? How were you feeling at the moment? Did you make a vow never to return there again? On other hand, when was the last time you had a positive experience with an employee? The connection between employee attitude and customer satisfaction is very important. If employees mistreat customers, then customers might not return. However, if customers have positive, memorable experiences, then customers will keep coming back. They might even recommend your store to their friends. It all starts with the employee.

BlueShirtNation.com

So, what exactly is BlueShirtNation.com? BlueShirt Nation, which is named for the polo shirts worn by store staff, is the employee social network of Best Buy. Best Buy executives first introduced the social network because they wanted to tap into their store employees for marketing ideas. Instead, they have seen higher participation in Best Buy’s 401(k) plan, lower employee turnover, and even photos of staffers’ pets.

Employee turnover at retail stores can reach double digits; however, employees utilizing BlueShirtNation.com are likely to stick with the company. The employee turnover for BluShirtNation.com users is slightly more than 8 percent.

Engaged Employees Are Motivated Employees

If your employees are often heard grumbling under their breath or, worse yet, amongst themselves, you might want to consider surveying your employees to find out what they’re really thinking.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal Online, June 18, 2007, there’s a trend among human resource professionals to survey employees as part of an ongoing effort in ‘employee engagement.’ Engaged employees are more cheerful, more helpful, contribute more to the workplace, take initiative and speak well of the company in their off hours. With benefits like these, no wonder more companies are jumping on the engagement bandwagon.

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