Excellence is a Habit

 

It was Aristotle who said ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

I recently read two interesting articles that confirmed the validity of this statement. The first concerned Retailer Awards in the UK. The second, an article in Fortune magazine, a US publication that listed the best companies to work for, as voted for by staff. Whilst these articles were unrelated the points they raised certainly overlapped. Unsurprisingly there is a direct connection between organisations that staff rated as being excellent to work for, and the companies that were rewarded for delivering excellence in customer service.

By following the six points listed below not only are you creating a better work atmosphere for your staff; you are also enhancing your customer service levels.

1. Recruit for Company Culture.

Quality Customer Service is not something you can dictate as a policy. It has to come from the culture of the firm. What is a firm’s culture? Culture is the unwritten rules as to how a firm does business. It is what management and staff instinctively do or don’t do. It is the collective attitudes of all those working in the business. It is the atmosphere that pervades.
So, how can you recruit staff that will add positively to the company culture? Firstly you have to know what sort of culture you want to have. What attitudes and behaviours do you want to encourage and what attitudes and behaviours will not be tolerated. Secondly, be rigorous with the interview process. A fifteen minute conversation where you do most of the talking is not an effective interview. The more time, effort and resources you put into the recruitment process, the better your hiring decisions.
Remember the golden rule of recruitment - you can always teach someone the necessary skills to do the job, you cannot teach personality or a ‘can do’ attitude.
In the Four Seasons hotel chain (voted one the best companies to work for), which is renowned for its excellent customer service, every applicant irrespective of the role they are applying for, goes through at least four interviews, including one with the general manager. They are less concerned with experience which is what you see on a CV, than with a positive, helpful attitude which only comes across in person. Finding the right match works both ways. The Four Seasons has an annual staff turnover of approximately 18% which is half the industry average. Find the right staff, train them, treat them with respect and you are creating a loyal workforce.

2. Proactively shape the customers experience.

What is the experience you want customers and potential customers to have every time they interact with any aspect of your business? When it comes to branding, either you define your brand or your brand defines you. People are going to use words to describe their experience of entering your premises or speaking over the phone with a staff member. What do you want that experience to be? For example, if you want the customer to feel valued, then how do you ensure that this happens? One way is to make the day customer-focused not task-focused for staff. Constantly piling up ‘things to do’ focuses people’s minds on the tasks rather than interacting with the customer. Another way is to encourage intuition, but ensuring the emphasis is on learning not blaming, when on the odd occasion a poor decision is made.

3. Stay close to the shop floor

There is a balance to be had between carrying out the duties of a manager and spending sufficient time on the shop floor. One way to ensure this balance is right is for managers to see their role as that of serving employees. The culture of service has to include managers as well. In many ways the role of a manager is to remove the obstacles which will allow staff to do their jobs effectively.
For most staff members, it is their direct boss who makes or breaks their day and their working experience. People leave bad bosses, not bad firms.

4. Change the conversation

If you are looking for something different in your business, it means doing something differently. If you are looking for staff to display different attitudes and behave differently it means having different conversations with them. They way to instigate different conversations is to ask different questions. An ‘I have time for you’ management culture creates an ‘I have time for you’ culture with customers. Too frequently in firms, the only time managers speak with staff is when something goes wrong. We all like to receive positive feedback, so letting staff know when they are doing things right, embeds their positive behaviour and learning. Richard Branson famously said that his customers where not his number one priority - his employees were.

5. Create new habits

The power of habit is enormous. Get into the habit of doing something well and it becomes automatic. Once people are aware of their ineffective unconscious habits, they can work on them consciously. This awareness is vital to an improvement culture. Measurement helps highlight changes in behaviour and habit. Here's how the John Lewis Partnership in the UK does it (and they were named Britain’s best retailer.):
• All stores participate in several mystery shops each year.
• Have an incremental approach to change. Change doesn’t come like a steamroller. Awareness is raised and consequences explored.
• Complaints are compared with appreciation/ positive feedback each month. The ratio for the John Lewis Partnership currently runs at 1 to 10 (complaints to compliments).
• Customer focus groups are held where customers are asked to discuss anything they want.

6. See the customer as part of your business

When you picture your business in your head, the customer is probably not part of the image. Customers are seen as outsiders. Our mental construct is of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In fact, it doesn't take much thinking to realise that the boundary between the organisation and the customer is a false one and that the most successful firms see a continuum, with the customers an essential part of the organisation, not outsiders.
To listen to the customer in their frame of reference, not yours is a very rare skill. The customer’s frame of reference means what is important to them, seeing the world through their eyes. By listening to the customer in this way you will be including them in the definition of your business.

We will have come across the phrase ‘how you treat your staff is how they will treat the customer.’ Just as customers ‘volunteer’ to enter your store, staff ‘volunteer’ who they are at work, what attitude they display. A happy workforce and satisfied customers goes hand in hand. Follow the above six points and you will be creating a true win/win scenario.

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