Diary of a Customer Service Revolutionary

Retail Record: Refund Policy

2006-03-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Retail Record: Refund Policy

Retail Recorder writes of a customer who became possessed by the devil when she learned that the store would not return her $100 as easily as they took it.

While I do not condone the behavior of crazy people who take their anger out on clerks, I do sympathize. Company policies can bring out the worst in us. We know that they are written to make life easier for the business, not for its customers, and we resent that.

And I sympathize with people like RR even more. Companies that craft such policies put their people in a position where they have to take the flak, while the people who made the policies sit in their comfy chairs, far far away from the battle.

Maria Palma & Glenn Ross

2006-03-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

Made a couple of new allies in the past couple of weeks, two customer service bloggers whose blogs I'd been reading:

Maria Palma is one of most prolific bloggers I know. I subscribed to her feed and learned pretty quickly that if I don't check it daily I'm bound to miss something. After thirteen years of customer service, she felt it was time to share her knowledge. She'd worked for big companies like Nordstrom's and Sears, for small businesses, and for herself. Maria smells a customer service revolution brewing. I hope she's right.

Glenn Ross stared his Customer Service Experience blog in August 2005. Glenn's worked in the business and nonprofit sectors for more than 25 years, mainly in positions dealing directly with customers. One of his responsibilities is to provide customer service training to the employees of his organization. Glenn lives in Texas and has one wife, two kids, two cats, and two dogs. He enjoys being with his family, reading, blogging, and cycling. Here's a link to his module in my lens of customer service feeds.

Second workshop for managers

2006-03-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

Conducted our second workshop for managers on 03.01.06. Asked the participants to recap what they learned, make five commitments, and assess the training. Results below.

(A) What did you learn today? (B) List at least five specific things that you will do to execute the Customer Service Program at your store.

(A) Hire friendly people and teach them to sell. Find solutions to customer problems. Great customer service is a decision that is made daily. (B) Hire friendly people, train more, provide solutions, investigate complaints, recognize, reward.
(A) Empower team members to make decisions, communication between team members and managers is crucial to overall performance of the store, respect others (B) Hold my team members accountable, train them on the guidelines they could use to assist a customer without involving a manager, properly train/cross train team members, address problems and provide solutions to in a timely manner.
(A) Communicating directives quickly down to the team members, having potential employees walk the store half hour before interviews, Concentrating more on the 70% of team members who can be swayed either way. (B) Introduce all team members to the CSP Forum. Answer the phone by the third ring, 10ft strongly enforced, talk to cashiers and front end about how to accommodate customers with special situations, reintroduce LEAP.
(A) Understand better the framework of CSP. As a whole, it seems everyone had similar answers. Individuals can make as impact on the entire store with regards to CSP. Soft skills training is available on internet. (B) Immediate feedback. Take some soft skills training modules. Use TM guidelines for handling issues. Use the CSP standards for new hires. Recognize TMs more for great service.
(A) I learned that most of managers attending this training knew what customer service stands for but did not know how to make it happen and maintain it. I also learned we were in the lowest ranking vs. our competition. (B) 100% execution of the star program. Utilize the guidelines 100%. Educate more TM's regarding the importance of customer service. Utilize the LEAP program. Keep the CSP board 100% updated.
(A) Finding and training the right employees, cater to customers emotions and treat them with respect, be genuine, variation is evil (B) Treat team members with respect. Use more positive reinforcement. Take ownership of each customer to make them happy. Be more active in the CSP star program. More one-on-one training with each TM.
(A) Work on business ethics with team members, CSP framework, return guidelines, CSP standards (B) Same in first line, and Performance management training
(A) Better ways to encourage and empower our team members. Pograms to better incentivize our team members. (B) Schedule an all store meeting to regroup and establish unity in the team. Start putting techs and service writers on score cards for goals and expectations. Encourage and post guidelines for CSP "point" system. Hold weekly briefing/training sessions with tech shop. Ensure all new hires know expectations at time of hire.
(A) How to tell customers what we can do rather than what we can't do. How to hire the right people - hire the smile, train the skill. Make sure we have a positive store environment that can be transferred onto customers (B) Treat the store as my own and protect assets to ensure the company's future. Make sure all team members know that I am here to work for them. Make sure to investigate all customer complaints. Make sure I acknowledge customer complaints.
(A) I learned about proper training procedures, as well as new hire processes. I learned how to deal with various customer issues. Over all this was a very handy workshop that I will be able to utilize at the store (B) I will definitely implement the Nordstrom way of hiring. Find the nice guys/gals and get them into our store. The training on how to sell will be next. I will have associates grow the business as well as the money in their pockets. I will implement the "how to get a star" system so that associates improve customer service as well as put extra $$$ in their pockets. I will start holding associates more accountable with more than just sales, but training and CSP. I will hold more open forums in the store for training, it helps empower the associates
(A) I learned more about the focus of the CSP program and our customer service as a region. There was a lot of good general information about customer service I found to be useful (B) I will be quick to reward excellent customer service as I observe it on the sales floor. I will give my sales team members their sales goals and help them achieve them. I will ensure all new hires are aware of the CSP expectations at time of hire. I will ensure all team members are aware of the CSP reward program. I will make sure my team members are current on the product knowledge to better assist the customers.
(A) Customer service is key, good morale makes a happy work environment. (B) Empower my team members. Create an environment where team members can express themselves. Team build/activities. Observe and correct, reward my team members' interaction with customers. Teach my team members about systems and the numbers.
(A) Respect your employees/LEAP with your customer. Be honest with everyone. Communicate well. Drive with common goals. Lead by example. Empower your employees. (B) Portray core values and lead by example. Empower team members to make basic decisions. Build trust between management and employees by working alongside them.
(A) Keeping a positive environment/positive, communicating with TM and managers being on the same page with the other stores as far as return policy, empowering TM to make a decision with out calling a manager, earn $25 for 5 stars, hiring the right people as far as customer service and some knowledge in sells (B) LEAP, 10ft rule, training TMs in customer service, empowering TM to make good decision

What did you like about the training? Why? (B) What didn't you like about the training? Why? (C) Suggestions for future training.

(A) It was good to have conversations with the other managers of the region to understand their views on customer service and come to common ground. The presentation was well organized and flowed very well. (B) None (C) I think the presentations would be better communicated if we were to break out into groups and present on every item given. It is good to hear an individuals point of view but I believe if we brainstormed before the presentation could be better articulated.
(A) Got to meet my fellow managers in the region, exchanged some good thoughts, feel a sense of involvement. (B) A lot of reading (C) Insight from other managers on how they handle customer/TM issues. Helpful hints on what they've done to make their job easier.
(A) I liked the open forum. It got a lot off my chest and felt like I learned so much. I can go back on the floor with a lot more confidence with my new knowledge. This is just the stuff I needed to convey the message to my associates (B) The Parking!!! (C) Hold these at stores with better parking. Everything else was perfect.
(A) I like the open discussions and forums. I think this was very informative. (B) A room with more circulation to ease the heat and allow us to be lively after lunch. (C) Ethics, employee training, group discussions for presentations.
(A) Everyone has something to contribute, I was able to take a little of everything from other managers on what they would do on certain situations (B) Stuffy room - better air circulation (C) More group work
(A) Interaction between GMs and warehouse managers, tech and assistant SMs. Too often we are paired with our peers and don’t get a full range of options (B) The previous group pretty much wrote the curriculum and we didn’t really have to think for ourselves. Blank slates would allow for better comparison of our levels of management. (C) Cookies as a mid afternoon pick me up. CD's of program take-always for us to take with us. Powerpoint to use back at our store as training tool for example
(A) Interaction with fellow managers. Good place to learn and gripe. (B) A little dry (C) Jazz it up a bit, bigger room
(A) It was very open to discuss your thoughts. Instructions were clear. It was easy to know what to do. It was nice to exchange thoughts and ideas with other managers (B) It's a long way to SF (C) None
(A) It was good since we collectively brought many problems that we face everyday and discussed possible solutions (B) Getting there was extremely difficult. People kept on yapping about very common problems that they had with one associate. We also failed to address staffing which directly affects the level of customer service that we were able to provide (C) Have people come with comments that would help , not just troubles with one associate, which was a waste of time.
(A) The presentations were a good idea to make sure that everyone was involved. It allowed for some feedback from the other managers (B) It seemed that some points lead off into some random tangents which does help cover some points that may have been missed but also leads to a lot of wasted time. (C) A shorter session might be just a bit more effective. It is a lot of info to take in.
(A) Group interaction, open discussion, laid back feeling of class. (B) Could us some refreshments during class (C) Needs to happen more often, would like to see some TMs (hourly) in the class as well.
(A) Lots of participant involvement - various opinions, data to back up points. Tangible resources given to go look into afterwards (B) Not enough breaks (C) Manager Seibel services training, team member training.

M's to do: (1) More group work, inc group discussion of reading assignments, then group presentation. (2) Keep participants on topic. (3) Bigger room in SF. (4) More breaks. (5) Snacks

First workshop for managers

2006-02-17T05:06:00.000-08:00

Things have been moving at such a pace that I haven’t had time to keep this diary up to date. I’ll have to fill in the details later, but here’s a quick recap of unwritten episodes: Shortly after our launch meeting with the store managers, the head of CompX’s training department asked my old boss (KT) if he could recruit me into the company task force that was charged to improve customer service throughout the chain. KT referred him to my new boss (CN), adding that I would be an ideal choice for that group. CN agreed, and I joined the task force mid-Feb. We’ve had several vigorous and productive meetings since then, and will be submitting our plan to the executive team by the end of next month.

In the meantime, we’ve been executing our own program in the region. CN sent a note out to all the stores, launching the website in which we recognize people who get compliments from customers. He said he looked at that site even before he looked at our sales numbers, because the number of compliments from happy customers is better than any metric in showing how well we are doing, and in predicting how well we are going to do. He also said that he uses the site as an HR tool – happy customers, he said, come from happy people, and he could tell from the site how well our people, as well as our customers, are doing.

Fast forward for now to the first workshop I conducted for managers on 2.15.06 Wednesday. I’ll share my presentation later, after it’s gone through a few rounds. Judging from the comments of the participants (below), it’s pretty good, but there are several things I can do better. At the end of the workshop, I asked the managers to write down what they’ll do with what they learned when they get back to the stores, and I’ve excerpted some of their commitments below as well.

(A) What did you like about the training? Why? (B) What didn't you like about the training? Why? (C) What areas did we miss or should have spent more time on?

(A) Where and how to access information to help make this an important part of our store. Tools for new hires and associates to give them a base to what is expected of them at work. (B) Everyone was not participating as much as I thought they could have been. (C) Drew a blank
(A) I liked working out some of the grey areas that we all have to deal with every hour. I think empowering our staff to make decisions will have a big impact on our customers and staff. (B) Driving to the regional office. Why? I need a new car. (C) None
(A) I liked the layout how each category led into the next. It had a very nice overall flow (B) I would have liked to have heard more feedback from the rest of the group. Most of them were very quiet. (C) I would have liked to have seen a little more time spent on hiring and follow-up, going over errors to prevent from having to give write-ups - maybe training.
(A) Laid out outlines that were basic and good. To research other avenues to learn more about customer service and how important it really is. (B) A little longer than maybe needed to be. (C) More examples of what we should exactly train our employees
(A) I liked that it wasn’t boring. Brushing up on old skills. Also learning new ones. (B) Nothing (C) I think we could've spent more time on accountability and how to talk to the associates. Some managers can scare employees and make them uncomfortable.
(A) Covered a lot of ground. I can appreciate M's intelligence. Very intelligent meeting (B) Time consuming - core essentials could be covered in 1/2 the time. (C) Specific topics with individual interpretation
(A) I liked that we got a lot of information that will be useful. For example about the questionnaire. The flow chart that you did was very helpful. (B) There wasn’t really anything that I didn’t like about the training. (C) I was hoping we could talk a little bit more about recovering from mistakes.
(A) It was informative as to what we should be doing when you hire someone. Also that we should be letting team members know how well they are doing. (B) It could have been more involving. Some modules that are more interactive a little too long. (C) none
(A) I liked that this region can focus on something so important that includes everyone's participation and requires teamwork (B) Nothing - it was just a lot to take in and process (C) On how to develop and train ourselves to be better trainers and customer service experts.
(A) It was a good training because it opened my mind to the company strategy. It was nice to have an open discussion. I was happy about going through the whole program and having each subject explained. (B) Work group possibilities (C) Support, accountability and liability.

M's (My) to do: (1) Pace of learning - note at the outset that some will think it's too slow & too little, some too fast & too much - those who are more experienced should share what they know, to make time go faster for them, and slower for those who need time to catch up. (2) More participation - give homework before the workshop so they're prepared to discuss; review what they submit so you'll know who to call upon when they don't volunteer; for large groups, break into smaller groups to discuss what they prepared. (3) Walkthrough of training sites, show where to get more information, e.g. Complaints & Recovery Module. (4) Sneak preview: Give more detail on Associate & Leadership Development blocks of Framework so they have a better idea of future training. (5) Future training: develop "Performance Management" block of Framework, inc how to hold performance discussions, how to administer write-ups; develop Recruitment block. (6) For future Standards surveys, instead of self-assessment, ask participants to rate their overall store and management team.

What are you going to do about what you learned, when you get back to the store?

Make sure all associates know how important customer service is, and that they provide customers with best service possible. Do more training on products and customer service skills. Make sure associates are stacking (multiple customers). Hold everyone accountable for their actions. If an associate is written up, make sure to provide them with the tools they need. Hire more qualified people, friendly and honest.
Try to make customers happy and give them a good experience, so they are repeat customers. Read up on some articles to help improve our understanding. Hire the right people. Put customer compliments and positive reinforcement in associate files, not just write ups. Print out customer service Entry Form so customers can use for compliments. Have weekly training to remember how important customer service really is.
Discuss parts of the Standards and six components of the customer service program in daily briefings. Paint the bigger picture of the strategy. Use the Framework as a guide. Provide recognition and coaching in support of our culture. Build systems of empowerment to enable decision-making by frontline associates. Use Standards as a guide for hiring.
Read what M sends out. Develop myself further by reading some books. Change my customer service behavior by putting it into my daily life, not just at my job. Enforce and empower with a passion. Strengthen the sense of pride in the store.
I learned that our region is serious about improving our customer service. I will sell the customer service program to my fellow managers and to our associates. I will make my store's customers feel the difference.
Work to get all associates on the same page, and on empowering my team. We have a lot of work to do to make ourselves different from our competitors.
I'll make sure that each of my sales associates knows the customer service program by heart, and understands that we control the service that the customers receive. We'll talk about the empowerment guidelines - they'll help me spend more time on sales.
Communicate the program up and down the ladder. Show respect for associates. Review customer service materials on the website. Accountability - provide feedback. Responsibility - principles, honor, ethics.
Apply a higher standard on new hires. Listen to associates more, and praise them for good behavior. Let cashiers make more decisions. Look for ways to do better. Encourage associates to get on the same page as the shopper. Get more feedback from customers.
Put up my compliment boards. Speak to my store manager about guidelines to empower our cashiers. Very excited to launch the program in an all-store meeting next week.

Discussion

2006-01-31T19:13:00.000-08:00

Everyone said they got through the survey all right, although it did take around 30 minutes to complete. Most of them rated themselves more highly than I would have done, but that was expected. These store managers mainly rose up from sales after all, and you don’t go very far in that profession if you don’t think highly of yourself.

The first part of our discussions had to do with the training. They like the idea that they wouldn’t have to send people to the regional office, but CN did not think people would be able to pay attention for several hours, staring at a computer screen. So we agreed to have day-long seminars, on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month, at two different locations, more or less central to a cluster of stores. We agreed to start training the managers first. One of the GMs (LQ) suggested that we not train new hires immediately. He thought they’d get more out of the training if they’d been in the stores for a while. Brand new, they wouldn't even know what questions to ask. That made sense to me, and we agreed to give them 30 days in the stores before we put them through the day-long seminar. They do go through a computer-based customer service course during their one week of training, and I felt that that would be enough to give them initial guidance.

We also considered possibly training a manager at one of the farther stores, and maybe let them do the training on their own. I’d rather do the training myself, until I’ve got it down to a formula. And we'll need the right person – someone with credibility (who can lead by example), and who can teach. CN thought NJ, one of the managers there, could do the job.

We spent several minutes on the star pins, and didn’t get to resolve it, since it required some calculus. It was not a problem when we had our old name badges, which had wide lanyards. The new badges were not stickable. We had to either drill pinholes through them, or attach something to them to which the pins could then be attached. How many holes? The pins came in denominations of 1, 5, 10, and 15. Someone said 5 holes should do it. CN asked, what if they get 19 stars? OK, never mind then. CN suggested roman numerals, but we couldn’t figure out how many holes the romans would need either. Let’s run that by the stat people in HQ.

KS suggested that we have people wear buttons to encourage customers to give feedback. I balked at that, saying that soliciting feedback would be, well, soliciting. We agreed that employees should not be allowed to solicit compliments for themselves, although we should encourage them to solicit compliments for others, e.g. by asking customers at the registers if everything went well. We felt that this would encourage team spirit, as well as let customers know that we do care about how we do. LQ noted that the bulletin boards at the front of the store, where compliments will be posted, will themselves be silent solicitors, and everyone agreed.

I noted that the pre-conference survey indicated that there were some serious reservations about the empowerment plan. KT had given everyone a $200 blank check. CN cut that back to $100. Even then, several of the GMs felt that their stores were not ready. A couple said it would be a disaster to give their front line people so much authority. We agreed on a tiered system. Everyone was given a $10 leeway. Leads were given up to $50. Managers, $250. The senior manager in the building could decide on anything above that. I thought that $10 was a joke, but if the store managers did not trust their own people with more than that, it would have been risky to insist – we had just recently put some people in jail for little thefts that added up to thousands. Anyway, it was a start.

We didn’t have time to get into guidelines on how to deal with common situations. Although I felt that we should have guidelines within which our people could safely bend the rules, I figured that this was not the proper forum, and I could get into it later, possibly during the training sessions. CN said he didn't think we had to spell it out. He said “I have only two guidelines: collect the data, and make an intelligent decision”. I thought it was nice that he felt we could keep it so loose, but I wasn’t sure it was actionable. It’s like “exercise good judgment”. But what if people don’t know what good judgment is, or what if their judgment is poor? If we hired people with good judgment, why would we have $10 limits?

Our final discussions had to do with accountability. I felt that complaints should be formally investigated, and that the results should be documented in what we call performance plans. CN said he did not like write-ups. To him they meant that managers failed – failed to hire the right people, failed to train them. He’s inclined to put things in writing only when he’s about ready to fire someone. I countered that we should not think of them as write-ups, they’re called performance plans, and we should treat them as such – a way to help improve performance.

One of the GMs saw through that and said no matter what you call them, people think of them as write-ups. KQT, a GM who is also a friend of mine, asked “What’s wrong with that? We identify a very important area, customer service, that needs to be improved, and we document violations of our values. If the problem doesn’t recur within 30 days, we toss the paper. But we need the paper for when we fire. This is California, you can’t fire people without paper. You need paper to cover your ass". We agreed to leave the decision (on whether or not to document) up to each GM.

The meeting adjourned for dinner. Some GMs went up to me and said “good job” and such. While we were gathered around waiting for the food to be served, CN said "I’m just so happy that you’re part of the team". So I got the impression that I didn't bomb.

During dinner, CK, the GM of our flagship store, remarked about how good our server was. Lizz had been our server all day, and she was extraordinary. Her manager tried to pull her to another function, but I said no. CK said "we should give her one of our star pins". So when she came back with the drinks, we all gave her a round of applause, and CK handed her a pin. She said she was touched. She had been listening to my presentation, and thought it was great that we had this star program. She said they gave out wings at work when they get customer compliments, and it really does matter to them. Amazing how that works.

We had a good dinner, laughter all around (the drinks may have helped). On the way out I asked CN if I could work from home the next day. He said “tomorrow’s Saturday, but if you want to work anyway, you can work from home”. It was a long week and I’d forgotten what day it was.

Launch presentation

2006-01-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

I quickly suppressed my “oh crap” reaction to CN’s introduction, and jumped right into my presentation. Since I have a tendency to ramble, I scripted my presentation to keep me on point. There were 52 slides, and each paragraph below corresponded to one slide, more or less.

I’m going to present to you today our proposal for a comprehensive customer service program for the region. By the end of this session, I hope to get your commitment to execute this program 100%. CN is already sold on the program [as you could tell from his intro], but there is no way that we can make this happen unless you are 100% on board. So if you have any questions or objections, please let us know now.

Why is it important that you’re on board? This is an article from the Gallup Management Journal. [read]. I highlighted this last paragraph: “Store managers have the biggest impact on a store's success because they determine what the customer sees, and how the team performs.” And that’s why this program will happen only when you are all 100% on board.

Strategic advantage

First, let’s talk Big Picture. Why should we do this? I’d like to answer that question within the framework of strategy.

What is strategy? Now I could have just made things up, but out of respect for your intelligence, I actually went and did a little research. So to answer this question, I called up my old friend …

… Michael Porter, at the Harvard Business school.

Michael, or Mikey, as I call him, is the world’s leading authority on competitive strategy. So Mikey says “M, competitive strategy is about being different. A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve.”

So how can we be different?

Well here’s one way way: We can be the worst. This is a recap of a survey that was published last month. As you can see, we came out dead last.

And we made the news again this week, when this quarterly survey got published, and it was announced that of the Top 100 companies, CompX was the worst, with a satisfaction score of 67%.

But that’s not the kind of “Different” that I was looking for. What I’d like to know is, What can we do better than our competitors?

Can we have lower costs than [Competitor 1]? Can we have a wider selection than [Competitor 2]? Can we have more locations than [Competitor 3]? Can we sell hot products that no one else carries? I think the answer to all of these questions is “no”.

And anyway, we really can’t control any of that – not as a Region.

What we can control is service, and it’s also in the area of customer service that we can make a huge difference.

In the book Retailing Management, Michael Levy & Barton White maintain that we can gain strategic advantage through customer service because it’s difficult to do, and therefore difficult for competitors to copy. It’s difficult primarily for two reasons:

(1) It’s hard to control the performance of the employees who provide the service. A sales associate may provide good service to one customer, and poor service to the next.

(2) Customer service is not tangible. You can’t touch it, you can’t hold it, and you can’t pull it from the production line before it gets to the customer.

And yet it’s critical that you do control the quality of your service, because 73% of customers say that when they got excellent service, it was because of the store employees. And when they had bad experiences, 81% said it was because of bad employees.

The difficulty is compounded when you have a multi-unit operation such as we do. In addition to variability within stores, you also have variability among stores, even neighboring stores.

Can we do this?

Our objective is to become the best in customer service. If not in our industry, then at least in our communities. Now we all know that it’s BS to set up a goal that we cannot achieve. So the next question is: Can we do this?

First the bad news. Michael Porter says that competitive advantage grows out of a whole "system of activities", and by that he means something like this: Southwest Airlines’ System of Activities that allowed it to bring American, United, Delta, and most everyone else to their knees.

But we don’t control the whole CompX system, and there are many things that the company can do to tick off our customers that we really can’t do anything about.

Now the good news is that, again, we get to control at least 73-81% of the entire system.

And the even better news is that in this area that really matters, our competition is still very weak. As you can see from this slide, although we’re bad, our competitors are just about as bad. We’re all clustering around the bottom here.

Here’s another survey. This one’s from the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. Again, you will note from this chart that our two main competitors rank below the retail sector average. So when I say that we will be the best, it really isn’t much of a stretch.

How do we get there?

Our customer service program has six components. Standards, Hiring, Assessment & Training, Recognition, Empowerment, and Accountability.

Standards. We have defined specific behaviors that we expect to see executed consistently in each store. These are stipulated in the one-page document called “Region x Standards of Customer Service Behavior”, that you went through line by line when you did the survey before this meeting. When executed consistently, these standards will not only improve customer loyalty, they will strengthen employee engagement, raise your productivity, and have a positive impact on our personal growth.

Hiring. These standards will be used in our hiring process. All applicants will be made aware of these standards, and they must commit to live up to them before they are hired.

Assessment & Training. Each employee will go through a day-long seminar on our customer service program. To get this done quickly and cost-effectively, we will use long-distance training over the internet.

This form of training doubles up as an assessment process. They’ll be taking the survey that you took, but not all at once. The behaviors will be discussed, they’ll be asked to rate themselves at the end of each discussion. The results are collated and will serve as a basis for follow-up training.

As one follow-up to this training, participants will conduct 3-minute customer service presentations during our daily morning/evening huddles. The customer service managers will schedule the presentations and assign topics.

We’ll also maintain a Customer Service website and a blog, so our employees have 24/7 access to some of the best readings on customer service. They can make their comments through the blog, and in that way participate in the development of our principles and behaviors, and thus get some ownership over the program.

Recognition. We're launching a recognition program, whereby employees are encouraged to catch others in the act of providing outstanding customer service. Employees are awarded these pins by their store managers for engaging in outstanding customer service behaviors. Five pins equates to $25. We're keeping the incentives small and symbolic, because we don't want this to be about money, but about pride.

Awardees will be recognized in a weekly bulletin, which will be distributed throughout the region. This will be included in their personnel file.

These bulletins will also be posted on at the front of the store. Here’s an example of a wall that we designed for the purpose.

Empowerment. Robert Spector, who wrote the book on Nordsrtom, had this to say about empowerment:

Customer service is all about empowering your front-line people to give great customer service. It’s giving people on the front line the freedom to make decisions. That’s the key.

So we will eventually give all Team Members the power to take care of customers instantly, without even calling a manager, up to an authorization limit of $100. Each accommodation will be documented and justified after the fact.

So we don’t give out rope to hang ourselves, the key to this process is that we must develop guidelines within which our employees can play. The principle here is that policies are there to protect the company from dishonest, abusive, or criminal people. We’re here to protect good customers from the policies.

The sixth component is Accountabilty. This program is not just about doing nice things like recognition & empowerment. It also requires that we take action when our principles are violated.

Each customer complaint will be investigated. Where there are opportunities for improvement, these complaints will be used in training discussions. These discussions will be documented and included the personnel file. Failure to improve will be grounds for termination.

If that sounds a little harsh, maybe it is, but here again is the reality: to be able to gain and sustain a competitive advantage, it is absolutely necessary that we control the quality of service. To quote that famous Six Sigma mantra: Variation is Evil.

And that’s the program. Any questions at this point? Are there any questions or suggestions about the standards that you reviewed when you took the survey?

Launch meeting

2006-01-14T09:30:00.000-08:00

I'll go back to the back story when I have time, but right now have to post the most recent developments, before I forget.

Had our launch meeting yesterday. My new regional manager (CN) was there, as were 10 general managers. NS, from whom I’d expected the most objections, was out of the country. That was unfortunate, because I was really looking forward to a lively debate. Not that the debate wasn’t lively, but I think I would have been challenged more aggressively had NS been around.

I hadn’t expected this, but CN introduced my presentation. I took notes, and will try to quote him verbatim:

“When I first brought M [Me] on board as my assistant last month, we had a 3-hour meeting, where we discussed the practices of his old region and of ours. They did a lot of things that I liked, but what I liked best of all was their customer service program. I thought it was flat out awesome. KT [my former boss] got kudos for that program from the divisional vp, and we talked about it in our divisional meetings. I wished I had someone who could organize something like that for me, and now I do.

“The program that M put together is impressive. It’s not just about bits and pieces, like how to handle complaints. It goes deep, and covers the whole thing from A to Z. I love it, and if we can get everyone to do this – Wow! We’re going to execute this program with huge intensity. Your support is not optional, and I’m expecting you to back it 110%.

“Back when I was a GM, whenever I got a complaint, my attitude was ‘I own it’. I’m the guy, I’ll resolve it, the buck stops with me. Nine times out of ten, the customer was right, and there was something I could do, even if it was outside the policy. Instead of fighting with the customer, I fought for the customer. And when I could not accommodate, I explained my reasons in a way that they would say ‘Okay, I’m not happy, but I understand’.

“Some of us are only nice to customers who are nice to us. But if that’s your attitude, you’ve lost 20% of your sales. Our job is to be the bigger person.

“When I had to make a decision in favor of a customer that was contrary to policy, I always asked myself ‘What’s the risk in this?’ If I can return a product to the vendor, even if it’s outside the return policy, what do we as a company have to lose? Nothing. On the other hand, we gain the customer’s continued business. So you have to weigh the policy against the cost of lost business.

“What really pisses me off is when your people tell customers to call the regional office without trying to resolve the problem. ‘You don’t like the policy? Go call that number.’ In 30-50% of the complaints we get, the GM never even talked to the customer. That’s BS. The buck stops with you.

“I will never look favorably upon you if you get a lot of complaints. You may have the most sales, but if I get all these complaints about your store, I’ll know you have a problem.

“Customer service accomplishes a lot of things. We haven’t done it well in the past, but we’ll change that starting now.

“I’m putting M in charge of this program. If a complaint gets past you and into my office, the buck will stop at M. He thinks the way I do about customer service, and I trust him 100%.”

. . . . . . . . . .

Typing those words now, I’m even more grateful than I was yesterday. That’s a lot more support from a new boss than one could reasonably expect to get. But yesterday, my immediate reaction was “oh crap, I’m never going to be able to live up to such a build up”.

[My other new boss (9 months old) woke up earlier than usual, and is very demanding. I'll have to continue this another day.]

Introduction

2006-01-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

I’m writing this diary in case I need to remember. We started this revolution almost a year ago, and I have a feeling that this year is important. We’ll either be able to pull this off, or we won’t. Either way it might be useful for me (and maybe you) to have a detailed and candid account of what we did and didn’t do right.

Since this is my first entry, I should probably fill in the back story. I’ve worked with this national chain (Company X, or CompX) for ten years. It used to be highly regarded, but it’s not any more. I think it’s because we’re not very good at taking care of our customers. It’s not that we don’t want to. We say we have a customer focus, we have a customer service training program, we make it easy for customers to give feedback, whether via 1-800 numbers, or our website. I mean, we do kinda care. But it’s not a huge priority. And I don’t think we’d know what to do, even if we did decide to make it the priority.

All this doesn’t make us bad. Well, maybe it does, but we’re not much worse than everyone else in the retail sector (some are a lot worse than we are).

But I don’t want to work for a company when the highest praise I can give it is “we’re not much worse than everyone else”. I had a choice: I could either leave, or I could do something about it. I decided to do something. I like the people I work with, that’s the main reason I stayed. Although I feel no loyalty to the company, I do feel loyalty to them. I felt I owed it to them to try to make things better.

And I also feel that I owe it to myself, and to my family. I want to be part of something good. I want to be proud of where I work. I want to provide for my family, and have a good time while I’m at it. And I want my kids to be proud of me. I want them to know that when I go, I’d left the world a better place, even if it’s just a tiny part of a big world. And I hope that when they get older, they too will feel some obligation to give something back to the planet that bore them.

So last year, I spoke to my boss, KT. He’s a regional manager, and I’m his assistant. One of the reasons he made me his assistant was to handle complaints for him. My predecessor, bless her, was not much of a “people person”. I used to hear her arguing with customers, and just shook my head in amazement. I didn’t say anything, didn’t feel that it was my place to say. KT eventually lost his patience anyway, and took advantage of one of CompX’s many reorganizations to reorganize her out of the job, and me into it.

Having been in the front lines of CompX for many, many years (8+ by then), and having worked in strategic management in a previous life, I just knew that we had to do a better job taking care of customers. But I didn’t go out and just say it. I felt I had to establish some credibility first. After a few months on the job, KT started telling people things like, “you know I used to have to deal with dozens of complaints a day, but ever since I gave CS the job, you know how many I’ve had to deal with all these months? Two.” I figured I earned the right to speak up.

I told KT that we have to do something about customer service. Since it’s not a focus for the company, we’re going to have to do something about it ourselves. He asked me what I had in mind. I said I thought the first step was to establish the standards. What do we expect of our people? How do we want them to behave towards our customers? I wanted to start with behaviors, and not with fuzzy things like vision, mission, or even values, because I did not want this to be about words, I wanted it to be about action. Values are very important, but you can’t measure them. You can do that with behaviors.

I said I wanted to define those behaviors, but I didn’t want to dictate them. I wanted the people in the stores to be involved. I suggested that I hold a series of conference calls, brainstorm with the teams, consolidate my findings, and report back to him.

KT told me to go ahead.