Down Home Hospitality: Customer Service for Cowboys

Learning Outcomes Create a service culture. Employ customer service recovery techniques. Learn strategies for delivering difficult information or news.

Perception How would your customers describe your organization? What are the behaviors that help perpetuate this description? How do you want customers describing your organization?

Culture Change So what needs to change in order to achieve the ideal description?

What is culture anyway? The explicit and implicit aspects, traits and norms of an organization. The do’s and don’ts. An organization’s personality.

Four Aspects of CultureInvolvementConsistency AdaptabilityMission

Involvement- Engagement contributes to a sense of responsibility and ownership, leading to loyalty. Consistency - Shared beliefs and common values will enhance internal meaning and a sense of organizational identification. Mission - A shared sense of purose, direction and strategy coordinates members toward collective goals. Adaptability- The ability to receive and interpret environmental signals to promote changes that lead to survival and growth. Denison’s Organizational Culture Model (1990)

Adaptability: Customer Focus What drives your business? Are customers a priority? –If so, do they know that? –Do your employees know that? Would you want to be a customer of your organization? Would you want your grandmother to be a customer of your organization? Are employees at all levels in your organization empowered to make things ‘right’ for a customer? –If so, what that looks like. –If not, why not?

What do customers know anyway?

Customer Credo Competence—How well do we know what our customers need us to know? Collaboration—How effectively do we engage our customers in meeting their needs? Responsiveness—How quickly do we meet our customers’ needs?

Measuring the Moment Measured by the moment of the transaction. Two components of “the moment” Results—Were my needs met? Relationship—How was the interaction? Dissatisfaction relates to one (or both) of those components).

Results Was I able to deliver what the customer asked for or expected?

Was I able to motivate the customer to continue doing business with us? Relationship

Analyze current services and offerings for gaps in needs. Analyze current systems for cumbersome processes. Regularly collect customer feedback. Incorporate customer feedback. Measure something. Formalize process improvement. Improving Results

Apply empathy liberally. Apologize. Take it on, not in. Agree with the truth. Check on your level of authority. Use authority to improve, not to override. Focus on the ‘yes,’ not on the ‘no. Ask for minimum goal or willingness. Improving Relationships

Eleven Things to Avoid Saying 1.Pay now! 2.You don’t know what you’re talking about. 3.Because those are the rules. 4.That’s not your business. 5.What do you want me to do about it? 6.Calm down! 7.What’s your problem? 8.You never… or You always… 9.I’m not going to say this again. 10.I’m doing this for your own good. 11.Why don’t you be (more) reasonable?

Eleven Better Responses 1.I’d like to talk with you about how important this is. 2.What do you think about what I just said? 3.I agree that “the rules” can be hard sometimes. 4.I can’t share every detail with you, but would it help to understand the context? 5.How can I help you deal with this? 6.I appreciate how hard this is. 7.What do you anticipate the impact of this to be? 8.On specific occasions, I’ve noticed that you… 9.It is frustrating because we have had this conversation before, I need to know what specific actions you will take in order for us to move on… 10.There are benefits to moving forward in this way. 11.Can we schedule a follow-up conversation after you’ve had some time to think about this or talk with others about it?

Difficult Interactions Tammy Talker—won’t stop talking; goes on and on…and on and on… Silent Sam—won’t give you the information you need; is unavailable. Rude Ralph—speaks in a way that is difficult to listen to and engage with.

Tammy Talker Set expectations. Ask questions to identify the goal/outcome. Interrupt after seven seconds. Give a time limit. Breathe and listen.

Silent Sam Be clear about needs and goals. Clarify how communication will benefit him/her and the goal. Give information ahead of time, when possible. Set aside a specific and agreed upon time to communicate. Ask someone else, if possible.

Rude Ralph Set boundaries. Empathize. Tie communication process to his/her ideal outcome/goal. Escalate, when necessary. Terminate communication.

Summary Culture eats strategy for lunch every day. Words and actions must be consistent. Our behavior impacts the behavior of others. Practice makes more practice and finally…almost, sort of, close to perfect! Or at least better.

Now Ride into the Service Sunset!