Customer-facing staff in the UK are intelligent communicators and problem solvers who are keen to deliver excellent service. So what’s stopping them? Natalie Calvert, CEO of Calcom Group says we are currently letting our staff down, explains how to begin making amends and the fantastic opportunity for those who get the best from their employees.
Bright, empathic, enthusiastic, brilliant; all words I regularly use to describe the people delivering front line service I meet on an almost daily basis. So if the people in most organisations are so passionate and driven, why is customer service excellence still the rare preserve of the elite providers rather than a universally recognised norm?
This is one of the key questions which led to the creation of the Team Leader of the Future, a programme designed to investigate what happens once the boardroom customer strategy meeting ends and the hard work begins.
We will be talking about some of the key findings of the programme in more detail over the coming months, but the most alarming observation we have found during our time speaking to businesses is the glaring difference between what is being discussed at the top and what is communicated through to Team Leaders and ultimately the staff tasked with delivering services.
In other words, the senior executives might have a clear, absolute picture of how service provision should operate, and how it relates to business performance, but unless the front-liners have the same picture communicated to them, nothing will change. The task of the Team Leaders is being made even harder by the volume of admin they are expected to process - up to 30 per cent of their working day. This means there is precious little time for Team Leaders to communicate with their managers, or give meaningful guidance to their team.
It is easy to talk about delivering good service, but unless your business is structured and targeted around this goal, with rewards for staff based on service outcomes, it is just rhetoric (the classic case of the plaque on the wall proclaiming service excellence being held up as some kind of tangible proof of commitment to customers).
The good news is that communication/reward/structure issues, while tricky to rebalance for businesses dealing with day-to-day operations, can be fixed (we help businesses with this issue all the time). This statement can be made with confidence because the key element is already in place to affect change: the people. The vast majority of front-line service professionals want to feel satisfied they are integral to delivering a positive customer experience. Therefore, they will accept any changes imposed if it is explained why this will enable them to work more effectively. As long as you have a plan for change, supported by your staff, you are in the perfect position to do great things and ensure that service becomes a brand building, business differentiator.
This is one of the key questions which led to the creation of the Team Leader of the Future, a programme designed to investigate what happens once the boardroom customer strategy meeting ends and the hard work begins.
We will be talking about some of the key findings of the programme in more detail over the coming months, but the most alarming observation we have found during our time speaking to businesses is the glaring difference between what is being discussed at the top and what is communicated through to Team Leaders and ultimately the staff tasked with delivering services.
In other words, the senior executives might have a clear, absolute picture of how service provision should operate, and how it relates to business performance, but unless the front-liners have the same picture communicated to them, nothing will change. The task of the Team Leaders is being made even harder by the volume of admin they are expected to process - up to 30 per cent of their working day. This means there is precious little time for Team Leaders to communicate with their managers, or give meaningful guidance to their team.
It is easy to talk about delivering good service, but unless your business is structured and targeted around this goal, with rewards for staff based on service outcomes, it is just rhetoric (the classic case of the plaque on the wall proclaiming service excellence being held up as some kind of tangible proof of commitment to customers).
The good news is that communication/reward/structure issues, while tricky to rebalance for businesses dealing with day-to-day operations, can be fixed (we help businesses with this issue all the time). This statement can be made with confidence because the key element is already in place to affect change: the people. The vast majority of front-line service professionals want to feel satisfied they are integral to delivering a positive customer experience. Therefore, they will accept any changes imposed if it is explained why this will enable them to work more effectively. As long as you have a plan for change, supported by your staff, you are in the perfect position to do great things and ensure that service becomes a brand building, business differentiator.
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