Personal Excellence Supports Service Excellence

Personal Excellence Supports Service Excellence

My father was a public servant who took immense pride in being diligent, loyal and going way beyond the extra mile in serving members of the public. You could say that he was defined by his work ethic. We have many individuals in both the public and the private sectors who hold up their businesses through their stellar work ethic and sense of pride in meeting performance expectations.

My work as a service transformation consultant allows me a special vantage point to view the range of employee performance levels that exist in businesses. I see the employees who are stars, the satisfactory sluggers who are doing just enough to keep themselves from being fired and the employees who are just marking time, unfazed by the mounting counts of misdemeanor, captured in their employee files.

All of this brings me to my point of the power of personal excellence in predisposing individuals to be exceptional at service to team members on the inside and to external customers on the outside. Without fail, the employees who demonstrate high levels of personal excellence, deliver twice as much on the service delivery end as their less than energetic colleagues. These are the employees who take pride in doing a good job, as a result of their own inner persuasion. They don’t need anyone to push, prompt or motivate them to step up and stay up at a level of excellence. Their standard of performance is driven by their internal operating system, which makes for consistent delivery to the highest standards.

 

Without fail, the employees who demonstrate high levels of personal excellence, deliver twice as much on the service delivery end as their less than energetic colleagues. Their standard of performance is driven by their internal operating system, which makes for consistent delivery to the highest standards.

 

 

When personal excellence is carved into an employee’s “nature,” a high quality style is cast across everything to which he or she applies effort. The mindset of “always doing one’s best” is the driving force applied to the end game. No wonder businesses fight hard to retain high performing employees, who rig good outcomes in favour of their employers.

In this age of disruption, employees who demonstrate personal excellence, will become even more highly favoured in the workplace. Why? Because their minimum bar is simply higher than that of the average employee. The higher levels of self-management, more independent thinking skills and natural inclination to higher quality outputs, place these employees at a significant advantage, over their less value-adding counterparts.

In a world where customers have become highly demanding, highly impatient and highly expectant, there are two other compelling reasons why personal excellence is favoured. Firstly, it’s a tipping point to customer experience excellence. There’s no need for deep reasoning and convincing arguments to recognize how personal excellence supports courtesy, quick solutions, willingness to serve and going the extra distance for customers.

Secondly, personal excellence in an employee enables him or her to own responsibility for delivering a great outcome. He or she does not have to be reminded about the need for his or her actions to line up with the highest standards of output. This means that the personal and customer experience platforms for excellence are already aligned.

 

Personal excellence in an employee enables him or her to own responsibility for delivering a great outcome.

 

 

Wherever the employee is placed, he or she delivers on the promise of meeting and more often, than not, exceeding expectations. When an employee owns responsibility for delivering a great customer experience, the business only has to train for some secondary skills of customer engagement. No surgery is required to create a winning mindset and customer-centric attitude.

Now, what self-respecting business that is committed to creating raving fans out of its customers, will not jump at the chance to have an employee population in which excellence is a naturally occurring attribute? The burning question is “how does a business go about getting to this employee nirvana?”

The answer lies, firstly, in understanding that “like attracts like.” When excellence sits at the core of a business, that business becomes attractive to individuals who are a right fit, sparking the opportunity for personal excellence to become wedded to excellence in the delivery of customer experience.

 

When excellence sits at the core of a business, that business becomes attractive to individuals who are a right fit, sparking the opportunity for personal excellence to become wedded to excellence in the delivery of customer experience.

 

 

I’ve wondered, often, about why I feel such an affinity to customer experience excellence. Who knows? Maybe it’s the force of my father’s dedication to excellence that has threaded through my values system, predisposing me to what would become my career focus.