Interesting statistic, isn’t it? Well, the first thing to consider is how many service and customer-centric champions your business can boast of having on board. A decent result should be above eighty percent, meaning, a minimum of eighty percent of staff comprise the right people who are masters of the art of keeping customers happy. When the right people are added to the right products and services, the right resources, the right processes, the right technology and the right customer comforts, the business will be well on the road to delivering an experience that is impeccable, as well as memorable.
If the business has fewer than eighty percent of staff who are not customer-centric, the possibility of having to struggle with hit and miss service delivery, will become quite real. Why? Because human issues will cause distractions that impede the delivery of a seamless and frictionless customer experience. The more customer-centric the staff complement, the more likely they will be willing to expand their experience delivery toolkits and this may redound to fewer toxic collisions with customers. The less negative energy that circulates in a business, the higher the concentration of hospitality that will emerge.
When the right people are added to the right products and services, the right resources, the right processes, the right technology and the right customer comforts, the business will be well on the road to delivering an experience that is impeccable, as well as memorable.
Typically, the eighty percenters as I call them, come with their own motivational toolkits. They have their own weather system, as in, it’s generally a sunny day for them and they are the stars in the organization’s constellation of departments. They hardly need external motivation. What they do need mostly, however, is to not be subjected to demotivational influences and situations.
One demotivational influence is watching lethargic colleagues being allowed to get away with not pulling their weight. Many managers appear to be oblivious to the damage that is done to the psychology of the team, when lethargic employees are not sanctioned for underproductive contribution to the team’s effort.
The more customer-centric the staff complement, the more likely they will be willing to expand their experience delivery toolkits and this may redound to fewer toxic collisions with customers.
Service and customer experience champions are good at finding creative solutions to customers’ needs. This means bending the rules a bit at times, in the interest of great service delivery. When the rule book is thrown at them, without their efforts being viewed through the lens of exercising good judgment on behalf of pleasing the customer, champions feel stifled and confused about the doublespeak of the business.
The resulting question in their heads would be, “Why am I being reprimanded if the business says that it’s committed to exceeding its customers’ expectations and my actions are clearly in line with this philosophy?” Unfortunately, this situation results often, in the service champion taking a decision to colour within and not outside of the box.
Service and customer experience champions are good at finding creative solutions to customers’ needs.
Please don’t micromanage service and customer experience champions, “en masse.” Nothing kills the energy of a champion who is required to “report in” constantly, throughout the day, when he or she is not a candidate for micromanagement. A more worthwhile use of authority and oversight, is to only micromanage those individuals who qualify for this style of supervision.
Whilst champions hardly rely on expansive quantities of extrinsic motivation, they welcome any effort by their employer to support their enthusiasm. One way to support this enthusiasm, is for a business to provide a platform that recognizes the voice of the internal customer-centric champion.
When a business onboards and sustains an appreciative enquiry process that makes it easy for feedback, suggestions and recommendations for improving the customer experience to be ascended to the boardroom, service champions are the first to make their deposits.
One way to support this enthusiasm, is for a business to provide a platform that recognizes the voice of the internal customer-centric champion.
Let me address a question that may be on your mind at this point. “What does a business do if its champion level is at, let’s say fifty or sixty percent?” I’m happy that you asked.
This level signals that it’s time for the business to undertake a radical repurposing and repopulation effort. Radical because if just over half of the employee population is generating customer success, there’s some unrealized revenue going to competitors.
Repurposing because the business will need to rethink and rebrand its existing strategy for achieving customer success and finally, repopulation, because there’s about forty or fifty percent of employees who will need to be evaluated to determine their fitness for delivering on the brand promise.
May I suggest that the evaluation of the indeterminate group of forty or fifty percenters, should be conducted with a bias toward extracting any dormant capacity for great service delivery. It is only when this strategy yields no useful result, that the default strategy should kick in.
Namely, “if you can’t change the people, change the people.”