Be Different or be dead

May 24, 2010

6 important people programs for a successful customer service strategy

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6 important people programs for a successful customer service strategy.

The people programs component of your business plan makes customer service plans successful. in fact the relationship between HR programs and the ability to deliver a service strategy is critical.

Why are people programs so important? Because programs built for people have an automatic influence on how they behave on a day-to-day basis which, in turn, has a profound impact on delivering dazzling service experiences to customers.

Here are six critical people programs to effectively implement your service strategy.

▪️ Recruitment - people that love other humans are critical to building stand-out service experience. Re-shape the career postings to look for these people; morph the interview guides to explore this attribute in potential candidates.

▪️ Recognition and reward - imprint these programs on the behaviors and outcomes demanded by your service strategy. Employees need to see when the right stuff is happening; seeing others get the plaudits will drive this home.

▪️ Leadership development - develop servant leaders; establish a strong thrust to get people asking “How can I help?” rather than “Do this!”

▪️ Mentorship - encourage connectivity with others in the organization that personify the skills and competencies valued to deliver mind-blowing service.

▪️ Union working agreement - this is HUGE… the terms and conditions of the Agreement must facilitate not impede the execution of your service strategy. Seniority and other parochial expectations have nothing to do with dazzling customers.

▪️ Internal communications - ensure all employee communications is heavily focused on talking about service - successes, failures, service ’heros’ and customer feedback. Keep service alive with the people that make it so, 24X7.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.24.10 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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May 4, 2010

How to make salespeople build excellent customer relationships

Source: Pexels

How to make salespeople build excellent customer relationships.

Sales must turn away from the traditional product flogging practice to building deep intimate relationships with customers.

The challenge becomes one of jarring sales loose from years of “product love” into a world where relationships rule.

Here’s some leadership hints to get you going:

— First, declare to the sales organization that you intend to move to a relationship-building (RB) performance management structure in 36 months. Discuss why the product-only method won’t work over the long terms and that sustainable competitive advantage requires the change.

— Set out year 1 changes: immediately sales performance management and bonus compensation will be based 80% on product revenue; 20% on measured RB competency.

— Then advise them that year 2 will look like: 50% product revenue; 50% RB competency.

— Then tell them that year 3 will move to 30% product; 70% RB.

— Of course you can decide on the distribution that fits your own circumstances, but I suggest that the shift away from the product approach be bold. If not, your aspirations to change won’t be believable and sales will continue to exhibit past behaviours.

Establish a customer report card to measure the RB performance of each salesperson by following these 9 steps.

1. Define 6 RB behaviors you expect each salesperson to demonstrate. Could be: listening, empathizing, follow up, consultation etc. The behaviors chosen must line up with the business plan and values for your organization.

2. Weight each behavior as some may be more important than others.

3. Decide on a rating system for each behavior. I used ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘average’, ‘good, and ’ as the rating categories. It worked well.

4. Set year-end objectives for each RB behavior. A typical would get a target of 80% ‘good/excellent’ ratings.

5. Get the executive to sign off on the targets to ensure consistency with the game plan of the organization.

6. Engage customers to rate their sales person on each RB behavior. Do it monthly. Encourage written comments. The more customer commentary to explain the numerical ratings the more useful the overall process will be in terms of understanding the behavioral changes necessary.

7. Issue performance results monthly.

8. Require each salesperson to create an action plan to improve the RB behaviors below target. A meeting with their manager will present the opportunity for coaching.

9. Celebrate the “most improved” salesperson in relationship-building. Make it matter to everyone. Eventually have it dominate the sales recognition and reward program.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.4.10 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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April 10, 2010

How cost cutting can be done without losing customers

Source: Pexels

How cost cutting can be done without losing customers.

When operating margins get squeezed, organizations go on a cost cutting rampage often without reflection on their strategy. This approach is a disaster waiting to happen.

Here are some guidelines for collapsing your cost envelope without being sorry later for your actions:

1. Avoid considering activities that impact how you serve customers — Customer serving functions and people are definitely NOT in the ‘low hanging fruit’ category.

2. Examine quick hit opportunities to simplify business processes — Cut out unnecessary steps that impair effectiveness. Less complex processes will drive expenses down.

3. Eliminate layers in your organization that ‘manage’ and do not directly contribute to the output of the organization.

4. Throw out low value-add positions— Any ‘or’ jobs such as ‘co-ordinator’, ‘administrator’, and ‘facilitator’ should be considered for elimination. You need doers not people who work with the output of others.

5. Cut the crap — Anything that does not directly serve the strategy of the organization should be hacked. This is essential in good times; it is critical in challenging times. Training programs, for example, that don’t support the strategy (customer service, marketing and sales) directly should be stopped.

6. Look at temporary positions— Consider keeping only those that are in the serving customers value chain.

7. Mass media advertising.— Should be eliminated in favor of targeted “me marketing” programs.

Incent your leaders to remove non-strategic costs. Change the bonus compensation plan to make it matter for all of them.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.10.10 at 01:00 pm by Roy Osing
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March 20, 2010

How to execute brilliantly in 6 simple steps

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How to execute brilliantly in 6 simple steps.

The anchor of any execution plan is your organization’s business plan; it informs and drives every tactic and activity that people are engaged in. I see too many organizations executing a number of tactics with no strategic plan or context to give them meaning.

Before describing what ‘good’ execution looks like, make sure you have a strategy to lean on.

If not, go back to square one and create one. In addition, when creating your strategy, spend significant time on thinking through implementation.
Avoid the trap of spending 80% of your time on the essence of your strategy and 20% on execution.

Reverse your focus and spend 80% of your time on executional planning.

6 steps to one-of-a-kind execution:

1. Get your strategy in focus

Your strategy needs to be specific and clear to drive the specific top priority executional elements throughout your organization.
Aspirations will kill implementation.
A vague strategy results in a diffusion of executional energy and lack of results. The Strategic Game Plan will serve the purpose very well. Use it.

2. Define the top three things that will drive 80% of your business plan

An intimate understanding of your strategy is required. It’s not a matter of having a relevant Action Plan list of twenty things to work on.
You need to purge the relevant but less compelling actions; focus on the critical few only.

3. Get every function - marketing, sales service, operations etc. - in the organization to determine the critical three things THEY must do to achieve the top 3 organizational priorities.

Make this task non-negotiable. If every department in your organization doesn’t have direct line of sight to your overall strategy, people will tend to march to their own drummer and effective execution doesn’t happen.

4. Build departmental priorities into everyone’s Personal Performance and Compensation Plan

Make it real tough for any individual in the organization to deviate from the strategic imperatives of the firm.
Pay people ONLY when they further the Strategic Game Plan. This motivation will create behavioral synergy and progress.

5. Cut the Crap

Eliminate non-strategic tactics and activity and make room for the things that need to be executed in the Strategic Game Plan.
Execution around the new strategy gets impaired when people continue to do the old comfortable stuff. Assign a Cut the Crap champion to make this happen.

6. Plan on the Run

Learn from how you are implementing your strategy and tweak your execution plan as you go. Execute > Learn > Adjust > Execute >....

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.20.10 at 01:00 pm by Roy Osing
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