14 years ago, I was a Customer Service Manager in a small, privately owned company.  Of course it was not small to us. My team of 10 supported $12 million each year in sales, but in 1993 we still had no voicemail.

You may remember those days (or perhaps you are too young). Receptionists answered the phone. You gave a clear, detailed message so the person you needed to reach had the facts and could call you back with a solution. The receptionist filed her nails while you spoke writing only your name and number when you finally gave it. Not exactly the “world class customer service” I had hoped to offer our clients.

Because the receptionist did not work for me I had no authority over her abrupt manner. She was a local hire. Probably someone’s friend’s niece like many of the folks we employed.  I wasn’t allowed to teach her how important her contact with our customers could be to the company’s bottom line.

So instead, my creative approach was to ask her to transfer all client calls directly to Customer Service. She was thrilled to have fewer names and numbers to write on those little pink message pads.

And the training of my staff began. Please understand that they were locals too.  If asked, half my team would tell you they chose their job because the bus stopped right out front.  Now they would be handling every inbound client call.

We drilled on empathy, caring tones, thorough note-taking, and commitment to making sure the clients felt heard and helped. My team rose to the challenge. The sales staff started to get complete messages detailing the client’s issues.  They got fewer messages in general because my staff was able to handle many of the client’s immediate needs without involving the sales rep at all. And they got more sales. A quick increase in repeat business.

All because customer service took over reception duties.

I was brought back to old times today. I called a business and reached “customer service” according to the woman who answered the phone. I asked for the President who was at lunch.  But in this company no one asked if they could help me.

“Do you want his voice mail?” was all she offered. And I was stunned. Although I wasn’t an angry customer calling with demands, isn’t it customary to at least ask about the nature of calls to the President?  Shouldn’t someone that answers the phone with the words, “Customer Service” care even a little about the customer or the service?

So I ask you today, to share your thoughts about voice mail. Is voice mail making it harder for companies to provide real service to callers?

Technorati Tags: customer service, voicemail, reception, training, quality

What would you think if I told you that American Idol’s Simon Cowell has a lot to teach most businesses about effective coaching? “My opinion”, I must add quoting the master of mean. And an educated opinion as is Simon’s.

Although I haven’t signed my $100 million deal with Sony Entertainment, yet, I have studiously observed thousands of hours of coaching and customer or prospect interactions. And I know for a fact that most business coaches are not causing performance improvement well enough. I can’t help but wonder if Sony’s customer care or sales organizations are as effective at developing top performers as their favorite talent scout, Simon.

To be clear, I am not referring to the nasty comments about age, appearance and intoxication levels. Those are made for TV, we all know this. In business, anyone hurting the feelings of others for a laugh should be fired.

Instead, I refer to the 4 clear and concrete standards Simon Cowell imposes on every auditioner every time.  That’s what a good coach does - sets high standards and evaluates performance against the standards over and over again.

It’s always the same 4 components:

1. CONTENT - in AI, the content is the song choice. He expects singers to credibly tell a story that will help audiences to know and like them. In business, content includes positive word choices, messages of reassurance, and explanations of solutions or products. Shouldn’t we all coach to content?
2. DELIVERY - in AI, this is about stage presence. Does the performer know how to connect with the audience and sell the message? We ask telesales people and service pros to do this all the time using the phone as their mic. In retail, we coach to eye contact and body language. Good content with lazy delivery will make no one a success. Delivery is a key standard for all business behavior.
3. PERSONALITY - in AI, this is the “star factor”. The ability to reveal unique bits of who they are so viewers feel they can know and trust them. That’s the reason for the video clips and backstage peeks. Boring, stupid, or forgettable people don’t make it. Personality doesn’t compensate for consistently bad content and poor delivery, but break out stars can be made on personality in music and in business. Just ask Madonna or the top salesperson in your company.

4. ACCURACY - in AI, accuracy is about vocal skill. This is the only category Randy and Paula know how to comment on and neither does it well. Randy’s “pitchy”  was never concrete enough. Pitch too high? Too low? Wrong key? What on earth does be mean? Paula commits the worst sin of all in this one category. “You were ahead of the music, but so what”. Imagine telling an employee they were inaccurate but it doesn’t matter because they were adorable? Simon’s feedback has real value. He focuses on the melody, the composer, and making the song sound better than the memorable original.  In business, accuracy may be less glamorous - applying company policies and entering data - but people do not keep their jobs if their accuracy is poor and they don’t become a pop star if they can’t hit the notes.

So how can business take a page from Simon’s coaching playbook? It’s simple. Set high standards in these same four concrete and important categories. Consistently coach to one or more of these areas every time, every employee, every week. Find the coaches who use hip, throw away comments to preserve employees egos but aren’t correcting what needs to change - and teach them a new methodology. Everyone worthy of working for your company should have stellar performance as the goal. And your coaches must be there to help them achieve it.

Technorati Tags: simon cowell, american idol, randy jackson, sony, caras training, coaching

Recently, Starbucks announced their new “interactive community” called My Starbucks Idea. In 2 days they had tens of thousands of hits at their site. Some obvious recommendations, such as the introduction of a loyalty program, have 50+ comments and variations per entry. There is no doubt that the Starbucks community of consumers wants to be heard. In fact, I had to laugh at all the people taking their valuable time to write and complain about how much of their valuable time it takes to wait for coffee with 11 ingredients… (AdAge has a few opinions about customer posts as well.)

For those of you with service or sales experience, the posts at Starbucks will hold no surprises. After reading 200 comments from the 13 categories, I can state with total confidence that there is no new information here. Use your imagination and every CSat survey or customer complaint you have heard in any job, anywhere, and you already know what people are writing about.

So, if the customer demands are not new, this means the solutions are not new either. But they do have heightened urgency. Now that Starbucks, like many retailers, is inviting consumers to ask for stuff, these retailers are obligated to give at least some of what was asked for. Even though it involves the same “best practices” we’ve been talking about for years, it will feel like a win to the consumer.

So how do the consumer demands translate to real action at the retail level? Three simple things:

1. Get the on-site manager out from the back office and focused on coaching people to a higher level of quality. Including:

• Stopping the gabbing between employees and getting them to give full attention to customers.
• Demonstrating how to engage customers with a smile and eye contact.
• Routinely watching and tasting to be sure barristas make each coffee as taught so customers receive the product they want.
• Creating contests that will polish staff’s speed and accuracy skills so they can do more in less time.
• Opening up another line when more than 3 people are waiting. (Okay, so they’ll need more registers for this - but I had to include the thing that bothers me the most. Get rid of some merchandise and make counter space for checkout… USA Today has an interesting article that talks about “cutting the clutter”.)

2. It’s not just the local management that needs to put more skin in the game. Get the corporate trainers into the stores to observe and correct. If things don’t look, sound or taste their best, then trainers need to design in-store activities to improve the performance level. Shutting down for 3 hours for training is an expensive and exciting event - as widely reported by every US news outlet. Take a look and listen to the video interview from Elliott Masie called “Venti Learning with Foam” to hear what other corporate trainers thought about Starbucks’ 2/26/08 program.

Here’s the bottom line: events are rarely enough to develop skills unless they are reinforced at least once a week for a few months. Well-designed in-store activities run by top barristas or skilled managers will get genuine learning transfer at a much lower cost.

The customer-friendly dialog we are seeing and hearing about is all wonderful. Empowering consumers and making them feel heard is helping marketing departments worldwide to write better copy and design superior campaigns. What it is not doing, yet, is improving the real world customer experience. But it can.

3. When leadership steps out from behind the writers’ desks and onto the front line they will be showing genuine support for the faces of their business. The faces who make or break their business.

It takes hard work to get more results, not hard copy.

Let leaders in Operations, Marketing, Distribution and Finance go into stores and observe, demonstrate, and re-train to get the product they expect - hard skills and soft skills alike. Let them “walk the talk”.

Bond top line to front line.

Satisfying consumers requires the same investment now as it has always required. Though only the few truly great companies in the world are doing it.

Invest in the thousands of employees who have entrusted their rent money, car payments or family meals to you. Three small but essential acts. Then quality, consistency and profits will soar.

Technorati Tags: starbucks, retail training, customer service, leadership, coaching, quality assurance,