How to Get Your Managers and Employees to Follow Through With Outstanding Service

Whether you are an organization of 25 or 5,000, one of the greatest obstacles to a well run team is getting your managers and employees to consistently treat your clients and customers right.

Poor Customer Service Training
Far too often, the customer service training program that is completed gets mediocre results. The employee of the month program seems to die a quiet death. The motivational posters urging employees to excel in being a team player and delivering excellent service appear to be useless. What is the missing link that will bind these and other reinforces together to create the changes you want?

Reinforcement
Consistently using a system for providing positive reinforcement to your managers and employees when they "do right" is the golden key. Remember, having a system and not using it is no better than not having one at all.

Performance Results
First identify the behavior and results you want to see. Both you and your employees need to be tuned into the same channel for the kind of customer service you want delivered. Their perception of what good service is can be quite a bit different from your perception.

Positive Reinforcement
Make sure you positively reinforce any improvements you see in behavior. One way to do this is tell the individual directly. It might sound like, "Sally, you did a good job in handling that last customer's concern. By asking the right questions and listening, you were able to help him resolve the issue he was experiencing. That's the kind of service we want to deliver".

By telling Sally that she asked the right questions, listened and was able to resolve the customer's issue, reinforced her behavior of using the right questions to resolve the concern.

Inspect What You Expect
As the saying goes, "never expect what you don't first inspect". If you want the right behavior from your employees, be sure to inspect it as they do it. This way you can help them make the necessary adjustments. It is vital that you continue to periodically reinforce the right behavior. How often do you continue to periodically reinforce the right behavior? A good rule of thumb is a lot in the beginning and intermittently after that. Three of the most powerful ways to reinforce behavior are:
1. One-on-one verbal "atta boys or atta girls"
2. Praise the individual in front of others.
3. "Talk behind their back". Praise the individual when he or she is not present (word of your praise will usually get back to them by way of the grapevine.)

In conclusion, identify the type of service results and behavior you want, and be sure to systematically reinforce it. Be consistent and persistent and your managers and employees will follow through with quality service you want them to provide.

For more inforamtion on Tom Borg's consulting and training services call him at 734-404-5909 or visit his website at: www.TomBorgConsulting.com

How Effective Meetings Can Enhance Communication and Performance Management

I was doing a brain storming session with a client recently and an issue they were having with the inaccuracy of their website was identified. Several office managers complained that no one was asking for their input, and as a result, the organization had a website that was improperly informing their customers about new services that were being provided.

Publics Relations
Good public relations begin at home. Happy staff equals happy customers. Meaningful and regular staff meetings can be a very powerful tool in helping your company meet the needs and expectations of your customers. As situations come up, mini-meetings and brain-storming sessions that quickly solve problems can also be used very effectively. Regular meetings held with a purpose can keep the lines of communication open.

Employees Feel Stymied
Often employees feel stymied in their ability to communicate their feelings and viewpoints to management. The staff feel like second-rate people because they are never given an opportunity to be heard. What most organizations lack is a structure to insure that the meetings are held on a regular basis.

Meeting Preparation a Must
To insure that the meetings are effective, it is important that some preparation be made before each meeting. What are the challenges that need to be addressed? What is being done about the issues that were discussed at the last meeting? What is going right? Why? How can things be made even better? By asking these kinds of questions, you are building a framework to give communication within your company a place to grow and develop.

Result Oriented Meeetings
By holding meaningful and action-oriented meetings, you make it easy for your employees to communicate with each other as well as with management. This can enhance performance management in any organization. Many times, it's not a "generation gap" that prevents teamwork within a company, but a "communication gap." By following through with a plan for communicating, you are insuring a clearer, more effective form of constant communication in your company. As a result, by keeping miscommunication to a minimum, you will have a happier and more productive group of employees.



Tom Borg is president of Tom Borg Consulting, LLC. He is a business consultant, speaker, trainer, coach and author. He works with small and mid-size businesses and organizations and helps them develop their most valuable asset – their people!
Visit his website at: www.TomBorgConsulting.com or email him at: TomBorgConsulting.com