Uplifting customer service

For years you’ve tried to improve your customer service. You’ve trained (burning through too many initiatives to count), but the results never seem to stick. You’re sick of reinventing your company. Morale has never been lower, and frankly you doubt your exhausted employees have the wherewithal to learn new scripts and processes.

Therefore, when Ron Kaufman, author of the New York Times best-seller Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues and Everyone Else You Meet (Evolve Publishing, www.upliftingservice.com), suggests making 2015 the year you hardwire uplifting service into your culture, you might be tempted to shrug him off. That would be a mistake.

Once you hardwire your culture this way, Kaufman says, you’ll see a huge leap in customer delight. Best of all, the results won’t fade because you can’t bring joy to customers without also bringing joy to employees—and joyful employees want to keep doing what they’re doing.

“When you align your culture around the intention to uplift and inspire others, so many of the other problems you have fix themselves,” he says.

This revolution must begin with leaders committing to Kaufman’s Seven Rules of Service Leadership.
 

Rule 1: Declare service a top priority.

“Declaration is so powerful,” Kaufman says. “It’s a human linguistic act that creates a new possibility or a new situation.”

Kaufman likes to tell the story of NTUC Income in Singapore. In 2007 the company was perceived as “traditional and conservative.” When new CEO Tan Suee Chieh came on board, he set out to revitalize its image. He publicly declared in a full-page ad in the local paper that uplifting service was a priority in his plans for “revolution.”

Within three years, NTUC achieved the highest industry levels of customer satisfaction in the country, dramatically changed the market’s perception of the brand and took the No. 1 spot in key segments.
 

Rule 2: Be a great role model.

A senior executive from Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic Corp.) was visiting one of the company’s manufacturing plants overseas. Employees rolled out a red carpet for the occasion. In the middle of the inspection, the executive walked slowly but deliberately off the carpet toward one of the factory’s largest machines. Seven hundred workers watched in amazement as he bent down, reached under the machine, picked up a paperclip and tucked it into his suit pocket. Then the executive quietly returned to the red carpet and continued the factory tour.

“He simply modeled an expectation, and right away everyone in that factory had an amazingly higher standard for maintaining cleanliness in the plant,” Kaufman says.
 

Rule 3: Promote one service language.

Everyone in a company must speak a common service language. When NTUC’s Tan made his declaration, it was initially met with skepticism. Some middle managers weren’t using the new language, which centered on the phrase “Service alive!” Tan had them attend the service training classes employees were taking, and he joined each class at the beginning and the end. Then, leaders launched a service improvement contest requiring managers to work closely with staff to implement what they learned. Soon the managers were promoting working together using the common language.

“Here’s the point: Leaders cannot delegate the implementation of a common service language,” Kaufman says. “You must demonstrate your understanding and commitment with observable and admirable actions.”
 

Rule 4: Measure what matters.

When it comes to service, you can measure complaints, compliments, expectations, levels of engagement, relative importance, recent improvements and customer satisfaction.

However, Kaufman suggests using different measures. “You must focus everyone on the measures that matter more: the leading indicators of new ideas and value-creating action steps rather than the lagging indicators of share price, profits or survey results.”
 

Rule 5: Empower your team.

In theory, we all understand that improved service is unlikely to happen inside or outside of an organization without empowerment. Yet many leaders and employees seem to fear it.

Kaufman says, “Empowering others in pursuit of uplifting service cannot and should not be decoupled from the responsibility to properly enable those you empower.” This involves teaching, coaching, mentoring and encouraging.

Empowerment also requires removing the fear of making a mistake, he adds.
 

Rule 6: Remove road blocks.

In Uplifting Service, Kaufman writes about an experience he had while dining at a luxury resort in California. The waiter said a special menu spotlighted several of the chef’s signature dishes. However, Kaufman’s guests were vegetarians and had nothing to choose from on the menu, and Kaufman had been craving a salmon salad. They asked to order from the regular menu. The waiter suggested ordering room service instead.

“In trying to spotlight the chef’s menu … the waiter wasn’t given permission to serve,” he says.

“What roadblocks to better service lurk inside your organization?” Kaufman asks. “What prevents your people from taking better care of your customers?

“Service leaders ask these questions and remove the roadblocks they uncover,” he says.
 

Rule 7: Maintain focus and enthusiasm.

It’s not difficult to declare service a top priority. What’s challenging is keeping service top of mind when other issues clamor for attention. It’s not hard to use a new language for better service; what’s hard is using that language until it becomes habit. It may not be hard to track new service ideas and actions, but it can be difficult to keep your team focused on them.

“The sustained commitment to keep focus and enthusiasm high, to put these ideas into action, must come from you,” Kaufman says.

A commitment to uplifting service is fulfilling on a business and a personal level.

“When you commit to empowering and being a role model for people in all levels of your organization, you make their jobs easier and more enjoyable. You make customers’ experiences more positive,” he says.

Ron Kaufman is founder and chairman of Up! Your Service, www.upyourservice.com, which helps organizations upgrade service performance.