How to create Service Intelligence
Our solution is based on a strategy – a series of well–considered interventions designed to activate and support the organisation to actually deliver on all those advertised promises and well-meaning intentions. A strategically-presented process designed to equip individuals and organisations with the intelligence necessary to deliver service that eliminates competitors. And finally, one where the professional skills and standards required are generated by employees themselves.
Once you’ve made the decision to activate your brand with service excellence, you need to look to existing attitude and behaviours. These measurements and observations provide a benchmark, and they inform the training design. By observing and listening, you may uncover unidentified issues that act as strong barriers to effective customer service. Once they’re identified, they can usually be resolved, freeing up resources for real service.
At this stage, ‘sneezers’ (to borrow Seth Godin’s word from The Purple Cow) are drawn into the process. They are carefully selected people and volunteers who will ‘sneeze’ the positive messages to others in the organisation, positively ‘infecting’ the organisational climate. It’s important to start raising awareness before the training starts, and then to launch the customer service campaign in an appropriate way, getting “buy-in”. The strategy must however be sincere, and staff should not see it as ‘yet another’ publicity campaign.
Training must be personally engaging, and as experiential as possible. The training sets the tone for what’s expected of your staff. If they found the training a drag, it’s likely they’ll find customer service the same. Training should also not create undue stress on employees or your business functions. When staggered over a period of time, employees have space to start implementing their new techniques and attitudes between training sessions. This organic approach allows problems to be addressed as they happen, and as the employee becomes more conscious of what they are doing.
It’s important, too for workshops to include a cross section of employees attending together. This allows for different perspectives and generates organisational empathy. I addition, it almost always results in stronger internal relationships and networks. For examle, in one instance, two groups of young and ambitious engineers were competing with their counterparts in another department. The competition was considered healthy at the time, but it soon emerged that it resulted in long delays for the customer and duplicated costs for the business. This revelation also solved a host of related customer service issues.
The customer service issues that people face are varied and best solved by those that face them. Workshops allow employees to share their challenges. This sharing generates solutions, organisational intelligence and reduces the most common problems almost immediately. In one instance we found that most of the calls to an IT call centre were from employees who had forgotten their passwords. Instead of their usual bored or irritated response, they decided to tackle this proactively. In subsequent calls they resolved to take the time to explain how passwords work, why they are used and how to manage them. It worked, and password resets dropped dramatically. Call centre management also learnt that it’s more valuable to measure effectiveness of service by monitoring quality rather that the quantity of calls processed.
Training alone doesn’t shift attitudes, even if solutions and processes come from the employees themselves. The shift happens when there is consistent support and monitoring. Like a good advertising campaign, employees must be repeatedly reminded of customer service as product. Once again, this must not be some remote and institutionalised reminder, but one that recognises and celebrates successes and sets new goals.
As part of the support process, departments and managers often design their own incentive and reward schemes. These schemes work especially well because they know best what motivates them. Support also offers opportunities to resolve sticky and persistent issues and to reinforce individual growth through coaching and assessment. Finally, the shift in attitude must be measured, which, contrary to popular belief, can be done.