Service Leadership!

When I first read about Ron Kaufman’s workshop a few days ago, the words “Service Vision and how to articulate this vision…” caught my attention, and I immediately decided to attend the workshop without any second thoughts, as I was thinking of something very similar for my business at that moment. I felt this could be a perfect opportunity to learn more on servicing our many internal and external customers at inlingua. After attending the workshop on Friday, I felt it was worth the investment in time and effort. Meeting Ron for the first time, I saw what an amazing speaker he was, with tons of energy and passion. A man on a mission to uplift the quality of service standards worldwide. What I also liked was the way Ron made it highly interactive and at every opportunity helped us review the culture building activities at our organizations and inspired us to embrace a new and uplifting service culture. Even though it is difficult to capture in a few words, the numerous examples and case studies that he shared, just a few basic points shared here to serve as a future reference to myself and my service partners.

Service is when someone takes action to create something of value to someone else.

Service Excellence is taking the next step UP to create more value for someone else.

Service Excellence Culture exists when everyone in the organization puts this to work every day.

Six  Levels of Customer Service

• Criminal service is really bad. It’s service that violates even minimum expectations, customers are angry enough to call you and complain about.
• Basic service is disappointing. It’s the bare minimum that could be provided and once the service is rendered the customer may not be disappointed enough to complain; However, he will remember not to call you for that kind of service again.
•  Expected service is nothing special. It’s the average, the usual, the norm. The customer might come back to you, but only if no better options exist.
• Desired service is what your customers hope for and prefer. They’ll do business with your organization again because you do things for them just the way they like it.
• Surprising service is something special, like an unexpected gift. It gives your customers more than they expected. This makes you an organization that customers enjoy and will come back to again and again.
• Unbelievable service is astonishingly fantastic. This is the level of service your customers can’t forget, the legendary treatment they will tell all their friends about.

We first need to identify our current level of customer service and continuously look for ways to step UP the stairs. The stairs here is like a down escalator. If we do not try and step UP two steps at a time, we would go down the stairs, especially, since the competition is also looking for ways to raise their own standards. So look for ways to surprise your customers at some point of the service by offering them something that they value. For e.g., in a restaurant the food, ambience, service etc., could all be expected, however, if the music is really special then customers would come back.

How do we UP our service and build an uplifting service culture?

By involving Service Leadership at the top, integrating Service Culture throughout the organization and engaging in continuous Service Education as a fundamental necessity.

1.      Service Leadership –

• Choose and declare service as top priority
• Be a great role model – walk the talk
• Build a service language – talk the talk
• Measure what really matters
• Enable and empower your team
• Remove the roadblocks to service
• Sustain focus and enthusiasm

2.     Service Culture – The 12 building blocks of service culture are: Common service language, Engaging service vision, Service staff recruitment, New staff orientation, Service communications, Service recognition and rewards, Voice of the customer, Service measures and metrics, Service improvement process, Service recovery and guarantees, Service bench marking, Service role modeling. The entire organization needs to be aligned with a common service culture and the same needs to be implemented and integrated within the process by continuous education. More tips on –

https://oldwebsite.ronkaufman.com/articles/article.culture.html

 3.     Service Education – 

• Be Flexible – Educating the entire staff to be sensitive and flexible to customers’ needs helps, instead of just training the front line staff to follow the process. Service excellence sometimes calls for doing things a little differently than normal. Bending rules occasionally to deliver can leave a very positive impression. Look for rules that can be changed or adapted when required. Of course some rules like safety, security, integrity, legal compliance, health should never be bent. But when you can be flexible, perhaps you should. For e.g., when a guest has to leave the hotel very early, serving them breakfast even before the restaurant opening time, could leave a very positive impression.
• Fix your Perception Points – Customers form their opinions through a series of “perception points;” every moment as they see, hear, touch, feel, smell or taste your products, people, packaging, places, promotions, policies and procedures. Your entire business is vulnerable at the lowest point in that chain. Find them to improve customer service quality. For e.g., the chef may be world-class, waiters polite and the restrooms sparkling clean, but if you are served by someone with strong body odour, the chances that the customers come back would be low. More on –
  https://www.upyourservice.com/learning-library/customer-service-perception-points

•  Words you chose to use – Every word and phrase you choose conveys mood, tone and meaning. Remember, customers and colleagues come in every possible stage of enthusiasm, anxiety, understanding and confusion. From the customers’ point of view, which words and phrases sound positive and helpful, appreciative and respectful, inviting and secure? Which words sound cold and confusing, overly technical or even condescending? Make a list to improve customer experience.
• Appreciate Customer Complaints – Each person who brings a complaint is representing numerous other people who had a similar issue but didn’t bother to tell you. From that perspective, complaining is an act of customer loyalty. Somebody who is disloyal would simply go to the competition or hurt you. More on Customer complaints- https://www.travelmarketreport.com/business?articleID=7308&LP=1

• Step UP at every point – It isn’t just great products that guarantee business success. Apart from an excellent product, a company must have a good and rapid delivery system to ensure faster reach, have an uplifting customer service mindset, and should build stronger partnerships with their most valuable clients, suppliers and employees. More – https://oldwebsite.ronkaufman.com/articles/article.partnership.html

• Styles of Service – Constantly look for creative ways forward and become “Service Champions” and motivate and inspire the customers instead of just directing or educating them. The 5 styles of service are:

         1. Direction: Explaining in clear and real terms. For instance an IT specialist might just give what commands                  needs to be typed to fix a glitch.
         2. Production: Resolving an issue quickly and efficiently, and not just directing the customer to fix it themselves.
         3. Education: Being patient educators and teaching/tutoring the customers while helping them resolve      something.
         4. Motivation: Provide verbal responses that make customers feel right by saying “that is a good choice” etc.
         5. Inspiration: Create a real person-to-person connection with your clients by caring about their well-being. This    starts with a sincere, “How are you today?” and ends with, “Thank for you this opportunity to serve you.”

One of Ron’s favorite example is of Singapore Airlines. He often cites examples of how they consistently deliver exceedingly good customer service and how the staff take pride in being part of this airlines even though the pay isn’t all that great. Their commitment to customer service, training and support to the staff, consistent internal and external communications, rewards and recognition programs make them the best and allows them to win frequent awards for the best service, besides being profitable since the very beginning.  More on their success story could be found on  https://oldwebsite.ronkaufman.com/articles/article.sia.html

Coming back home after the workshop, I tried to gather more on the customer service principles and found some very good information on the web. Apart from the links shared above, Ron’s website https://www.upyourservice.com is also very informative. He is certainly a man on a mission and loves to entertain his audience while at the same time educating them. Loved his animated presentation style. His unbelievable energy and passion towards service commitment also sets him apart. May he succeed in his mission in uplifting the service culture worldwide. After all, like he says, service is the currency that keeps the economy moving!

  Savitha Reddy

 Savithareddy123.blogspot.com