February 15, 2010

Measuring your Serving Competency on the Inside

BE DiFFERENT Axiom:

If you can’t dazzle someone on the inside, you won’t likely dazzle them on the outside. Translation” employees need to dazzle one another if they in turn are to be able to dazzle a customer.

Organizations are a mosaic of customer - supplier relationships. Marketing serves Sales; Engineering serves Marketing and Marketing/Sales/Administrative functions serve the Customer Service Organization.

If external customers are to be dazzled, the delivery process needs to operate seamlessly and all delivery units in the organization need to dazzle each other; providing their piece of the service delivery chain and going the extra mile for their internal customer. If one link in the chain fails then the chain breaks and the external customer is ‘de-dazzled’. If on the other hand every link not only plays their expected part but also goes the extra mile for their internal customers, the service provided to the external customer will most likely blow them away.

How do you know what level of service quality is being provided?

I repeatedly advocate in BE DiFFERENT or be dead the constant measurement of the service quality provided to customers. The use of Customer Report Cards should be prevalent. Service stories should be told. And service heroes should be honored.

We need, however, to take this a step further and apply the Report Card process to measure internal service quality. Sales should rate the level of service Marketing provides them and Marketing should rate Engineering. Every internal customer-supplier relationship needs to fall scrutiny to dazzle measurement.

Its really not that difficult to do and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Pick six deliverables Sales expects from Marketing, for example, and have Sales rate on a 1-5 scale how effectively and consistently Marketing delivers each.

Have monthly joint review meetings to discuss the results and strike action plans to address any shortfalls.

Include internal service quality in the bonus compensation plan. I assure you that if part of Marketing’s bonus is based on the Report Card from Sales, the marketing folks will definitely pat attention to Sale’s needs, wants and desires.

The payoff: the service delivery process gets better and better over time; internal customers get dazzled.

And, the external customer both reaps the rewards of having a delightful service experience and returns the favor with continued loyalty.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
The Serving Customers Model
Serving Customers NOT Providing Customer Service
The Four Steps to Dazzle Customers
Hire Human Being Lovers
Recover from Your Blunders
Kill Dumb Rules
Bend the Rules

Posted 2.15.10 at 10:31 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 12, 2010

BE DiFFERENT Service Strategy

It’s all very well to say that you intend to compete and WIN by providing unmatched dazzling customer experiences, but exactly what does it mean?

What does it look like when your strategic intent is being successfully executed in the field? What behaviors do you witness? What customer feedback do you get? What service quality metrics are relevant?

Your Service Strategy is the call to action for how you intend to deliver the ultimate in serving customers.It is intended to breathe life into your service vision by specifying the exact deliverables you will produce and the results you expect. It is the promise, if you will, you intend to deliver on in the service world.

Lack of a Service Strategy clouds the issue. People are not clear on how to behave, on the results expected and on the measurements that are relevant.

A BE DiFFERENT Service Strategy reflects the two components:
- Core Service - the basic good or service you produce, without which your business doesn’t exist…. WHAT a person GETS when they do business with you.
- Service Experience - the experience they enjoy when they are in touch with you…. HOW they FEEL when they do business with you.

Here’s and example of a Service Strategy my team developed for a business organization I lead:

“We are easy to do business with. We care.
We provide and support innovative quality solutions.
We make promises and always keep them.f we fall short of our strategy, RECOVERY will be out #1 priority”

Core service elements are covered - solutions are provided (not products); promises are kept.
The Service Experience is addressed - a caring attitude is expected; Recovery is invoked when a mistake is made; systems and processes are created to make it easy for people to transact business.

Workshop this Strategy with all teams in the organization. Define their required behaviors. Define the appropriate measurements. Bake it into their performance plan and bonus compensation.

You will see your Service Vision come to life!

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
The Serving Customers Model
Serving Customers NOT Providing Customer Service
The Four Steps to Dazzle Customers
Customer Contact: A Moment of Strategic Opportunity

Posted 2.12.10 at 07:24 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 9, 2010

Do you speak ‘Customerese’?

When it comes to deciding whether or not your organization is REALLY customer-focused, obsessed, intimate, centric, or whatever other description you wish to use, you simply need to listen to your internal language.

Do the people in the organization speak Customerese? Does the customer vocabulary reflect the customer-serving philosophy of a BE DiFFERENT culture?

When it comes to truly existing for the customer, language speaks to intent and behavior and makes a difference; in the BE DiFFERENT garden, a rose is NOT a rose by any other name.

Off the top, i can think of a number of customer-intended words that are used in a variety of businesses. Do any of them resonate with you?

Passengers… readers… donors… callers… golfers… players… patients… calls… transactions… students.. cruisers… skiers… riders… pensioners… retirees… are common references made to the entity that generates revenue for your organization, be it for-profit or not-for-profit.

Question is, do these references shout out reverence for these wonderful people that create meaningful work for us? I don’t think so. They appear in most cases to be labels that talk to the activity that they engaged in rather that a unique person who has needs, wants, and desires that should be served. In fact this vocabulary actually gets in the way - it side-tracks us - from our behavior to serve and create dazzling experiences for people who return the favor with their continued loyalty.

Referring to a customer as a ‘call to be processed’, for example, suggests that the right behavior is to deal with what the person wants and then get rid of them as quickly as possible. A ‘student’ is there to learn what you teach them; a ‘patient’ receives the medical treatment decided by the medical practioner and the donor gives money to the charity asking for it.

All of this customer slang language describes the customer on the receiving end of organizational behavior rather than on the front end shaping what the behavior should be.

BE DiFFERENT organizations put the customer in the control position and exist to serve them in a way that respects their individuality, delights them with the service experience provided to them and honors them for deciding to do business with them as opposed to the other choices they have.

There will be some that say it really doesn’t matter what you call them and that it is merely semantics. Ask a student if they feel like a customer to the education system and is able to get a personalized approach to learning; ask a patient if their Doctor makes them feel special with a dazzling bed-side manner or ask a passenger on an airliner if the service staff ‘exists’ for them. I rest my case.

Customerese will not on its own create a customer-inspired organization, but it is a step in the right direction.

Remove any industry-speak language in you vocabulary and start referring to the objects of your affection as CUSTOMERS. Tell your employees why you are making the shift; explain the BE DiFFERENT cultural drivers behind your actionsand use the change as an opportunity to declare the customer-sering behaviors you expect to see.

Oh, one other thing, be ready for intense push-back. Some Doctors, for example, like ‘patients’ because it sustains their superior position. Be tenacious, hoever, and don’t relent. This is the right thing to do and your customers will thank you for it.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Customerize your Language
Serving Customers Model
Serve Customers Don’t Service Them
The Four Steps to Dazzle Customers

Posted 2.9.10 at 12:30 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 6, 2010

The BE DiFFERENT Strategic Game Plan

Thus far in the series of how to create a BE DiFFERENT strategy for your organization we have dealt with answering these questions:
- HOW BIG do you want to be? - your growth and financial targets;
- WHO do you want to SERVE? - the customers you want to focus on to deliver your HOW BIG numbers;
- HOW will you compete and WIN? - the way you intend to uniquely deliver what your chosen customers desire.

The final step in the process is to seamlessly articulate the answers to these three questions into your Strategic Game plan - a compelling and succinct expression that leaves no doubt where the organization is going and how it intends to compete and arrive at its destination.

Here’s an example of what a Strategic Game Plan could look like:

“We will grow our top line sales revenue by 3% over the next 12 months (HOW BIG) by focusing our scarce resources on the retired couples segment of greater Seattle (WHO to SERVE). We will compete and win by providing personalized transportation services to assist them in getting around the city. (HOW to WIN)”

There you go. Specific. Simple. Understandable. Compelling. Your strategy elevator speech.

I find that the Game Plan is extremely valuable in explaining to employees where the organization is going, and painting a picture of what the strategy looks like when it is being successfully executed.

Rarely does a strategy session start with the objective of creating an expression of strategy that captures the minds and hearts of the warriors you will be counting on to win…. the Strategic Game Plan statement does.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
HOW BIG do you want to be?
WHO do you want to SERVE
HOW will you compete and WIN?

Posted 2.6.10 at 08:55 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)