Voices.  Hang on.  They are still there! Someone – a man – is in the hall shouting something.  I hear a female voice make some kind of reply – further away.  Bang!   I look at the clock.  Still not quite five!  Voices again. Bang!!

I paddle over to the door and peak out the peephole.  There is a bag trolley in the hall.  The door across the hall has the security bar closed so the door won’t close completely.  Suddenly the door opens and a man, in mid conversation, emerges with a bag.  He is having an argument over his shoulder with a woman in the room… seems that she can’t find something and is complaining to the man.  Unfortunately the man is in a hurry to get away and he is not too shy of sharing this fact with the entire hotel. Bang!  The door slams against the security bar.  He puts the bag on the trolley and re-enters the suite.  Bang goes the door behind him.

I can’t believe that someone could be so insensitive to the other guests at this time in the morning.  Then I hear a child’s voice.  Turns out she is not happy either.  From what I can gather, she wants to go to the fast food restaurant for breakfast but the man reminds her – and the rest of the hotel – that they don’t have time.  The man re-enters the room.  Bang goes the door.

I return to bed.  The noise continues for a couple of minutes until the commotion moves down the hall leaving an eerie silence.  I think about what I have just seen and heard and I still can’t believe how people can demonstrate such bad manners.  Worse still, this couple were teaching the little one the acceptability of being selfish and rude. Did this couple really want to burden their child with rude manners that could negatively impact her for the rest of her life?  I am sure that if they thought about it they would rather provide lessons on how to get along with – and be appreciated  by – others.  Yet, there it was – How to be Obnoxious 101.  It couldn’t have been a clearer or more comprehensive lesson if they had tried.

In a funny way, this rude awakening proved to be a valuable reminder for me.  Sometimes, through our actions or words, we are teaching our teams to behave in ways which are polar opposites to the desired behaviour.  We forget sometimes that as managers we are in a fish bowl and everything we do or say is analyzed by our team for consistency and often used as a model for their own behaviour.  We have to become more conscious of our actions and words and constantly ask ourselves, “What are we teaching our staff through our actions right now?”  It reminded me of a meeting I had with a client recently.  We were talking about the important role that personal presentation has on the customer’s perception of service quality.  We both seemed to agree that it was critical that our teams represent our companies in the most positive light and one critical aspect was their grooming and attire.  I mentioned that I had been speaking with one of the technicians in the parking lot and that he had not shaved in a few days and was looking a little “rough”.  I commented that this fellow was not the only one I had observed with a few days growth.  The client looked at me sheepishly and said, “I guess that I don’t often shave every day either.”

What are we and/or our management teams teaching our staff members?  As the ambassadors of our business, they deserve the best from us so they can perform their best for us.

I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

“Action will delineate and define you.”

– Thomas Jefferson

The post Rude Awakening to a Valuable Reminder appeared first on jimbaston.com.

As we know, the name RATER[1] is an acronym with each letter representing the first letter of one of the five key dimensions of service quality.  They are:

Reliability: Our ability to provide what is promised, dependably and accurately

Assurance: Our knowledge and courtesy, and our ability to convey trust and confidence

Tangibles: Our physical facilities and equipment, and our appearance

Empathy: The degree of caring and individual attention we provide to customers

Responsiveness: Our willingness to help customers and provide prompt service

To help our customers experience each of these dimensions when working with us, we need to ensure that our employees act in ways that allow our customers to experience these dimensions.  Today we will look at creating Assurance for the customer.

We suggested last time that you consider assembling a group of representatives from the company’s stakeholders – technicians, dispatch, sales, management and other customer facing personnel to brainstorm specific actions each stakeholder can take to help the customer experience that dimension when working with us.

Assurance can be defined as confidence or certainty in one’s abilities.  This confidence in us comes when the customer believes that they are getting excellent service and advice and that they are in the best of hands.  The interesting point here is that most customers have no way or really knowing if they are truly in the best of hands and receiving excellent service and advice.  They really don’t know if our technicians are technically better than our competitors or if the advice we are providing is the best they can expect from anyone.  Because most customers cannot truly assess these things, they look for tangible evidence that gives them clues.

Therefore, as you and your team draft the list of ways to interact with the customer to reassure them that they made the right decision when they chose you, consider what tangible evidence your team can give that will assure them of the quality and reliability of the service they are receiving.  There are many areas to consider.  Here are just three:

1. Appearance

1. Do your employees dress like the professionals they are?
2. Are reports well organized and concise?
3. Are work order descriptions clear and complete?
4. Are your invoices concise and easy to read?

2. Organization

1. Are your technicians organized in the way they work?
2. Are incoming calls handled professionally and efficiently?
3. Do your salespeople know who to go to for technical information?
4. Is your dispatch professional and competent

3. Work area

1. Do your technicians work in a neat and orderly manner?
2. Do they clean the work area when completed?
3. Do they clean (and even paint) the equipment they are responsible for?

As you develop your list, consider every customer touch point as an opportunity to demonstrate to the customer that they are right to put their confidence in you.

Next time, we will consider the “T” in RATER (Tangibles) and examine how we can transform the customer experience through the tangible objects customers observe.

What level of assurance are you providing your customers? I’d love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Until next time,

Jim

“There is no truth. There is only perception.”

Gustave Flaubert

The post Transform the Service Experience through Assurance appeared first on jimbaston.com.

This follows the first in the webinar series that took place on Tuesday, January 29^th, 2013, where I presented on Defining the Service Experience.  We focused on the five key steps that technicians can take to transform the service experience that you create for your customers.  The five key steps our technicians can take are:

1. Understanding what builds trust in a business relationship and using this knowledge to proactively create higher levels of trust through every customer interaction
2. Recognizing how customers assign value to intangible services and delivering that service in a manner that clearly communicates this value
3. Understanding the unique service proposition of your firm and looking for opportunities to communicate this to each customer
4. Recognizing and discussing opportunities for services that will help the customer achieve their business objectives
5. Turning challenging situations into positive opportunities.

The third and final webinar later this month is entitled Maintaining the Service Experience and will focus on our role as managers and how we can create and maintain momentum for change.

For more information on webinars 2 and 3 of the Transforming the Service Experience Series, click the links below:

Tuesday, February 12^th: Creating the Service Experience

Tuesday, February 26^th: Maintaining the Service Experience

Note:  This webinar series is open to everyone.  Non CMCEF members are welcome to attend.  Each webinar will commence at 11:00 AM EST and is scheduled to be one hour in length.  The cost to attend each seminar is $50.00 and we will recap at the beginning of webinars 2 and 3 so you can join the series at any time.

Once you’ve attended the webinars, I would love your feedback! And as always, please feel free to leave a link back to your own blog if you have one via the commentluv feature here on the site. If you are reading this blog post via email, you will need to locate this post on my website by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find the comment section.

Until next time,

Jim

The post Creating the Service Experience Part 2 – CMCEF Webinar Series appeared first on jimbaston.com.