How to Get Your Managers and Employees to Follow Through With Outstanding Customer 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.

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?

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.

Indentify the Correct Behavior

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.

Provide 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.

By Tom Borg

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!