What is an organization’s “culture?”   It is simply a critical mass of the attitudes and behaviors of its people and groups. The fifteen statements below each reflect an important “cultural” reality impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty.  They have shaped our customer service program’s success.  Do they shape yours?  How is your customer culture?



1.   T / F:  In our organization we operate under the assumption that customers view customer contact persons as “the organization” and representatives of what the organization means to them personally.

 2.   T / F:  We communicate regularly the importance of realizing everyone in our organization has customers: external (“paying”) customers and internal (work group/ inter-work group) “customers.”

 3.   T / F:  We design our processes and train our people around 2 things customers want to know: (1) Do you do what you say you will? (2) How do you handle problems?

 4.   T / F:  Realizing that organizations choose, consciously or unconsciously, to be financially driven and/or customer-driven, we make decisions remembering that organizations working from a short-term, financially driven philosophy are not as effective in service situations.

5.     T / F:  Since front line persons make most customer service decisions on a daily basis, our top management understands their key role and allows them to inform the organization about customer needs.

6.     T / F:  We promote the status of front line customer contact people to a position of value and respect—they are not considered the least educated, trained and paid.

7.     T / F:  We allow our customer contact personnel, not management, to control the quality of the service product.

8.     T / F:  Management believes in the importance of good service and actively supports it.

9.     T / F:  We measure customer service results in a way that leads to greater focus on the importance of individual efforts.

10.    T / F:  We emphasize that customers perceive service to be “good” when positive individual interactions occur—crucial encounters that can be considered “moments of truth.”

11.    T / F:  “Customer first” behavior is rewarded and encouraged to be repeated.

12.    T / F:  Customer service skill training is wall-to-wall.

13.    T / F:  Our corporate culture supports continuous improvement of customer service processes.

14.    T / F:  “Customer first” attitudes, along with results communicated continually to all employees in simple terms create a climate for quality customer service in our organization.

15.    T / F:  Corporate goals, policies and procedures reflect a “customer first” mind set, while we foster a rewarding service-focused climate.

YOUR CUSTOMER CULTURE STRENGTH…

 13-15 “TRUE” — You are likely experiencing customer (and employee) loyalty and advocacy.

10-12 “TRUE” – Do you have good customer satisfaction scores, but customer loyalty is strained?

Less than 10 “TRUE” — Are you struggling with customer satisfaction, loyalty and brand reputation?  Do you have low employee morale and high employee turnover?



By: Bob Davis-Mayo

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What is customer service? Have you ever stopped to really think about this question? We have trained literally thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in customer service. No matter who the person or what the organisation, the answer to this question is always generic. They will say: “Customer service is about giving customers what they want” or perhaps “it’s about satisfying customers” some times they will say that it is about “making customers happy.”

While at first glance these answers may sound correct, nothing could be further from the truth. Say for example that you ran a restaurant. If a customer were to enter your restaurant and ask for some office supplies would you be able to give the customer what they want? Would you be able to satisfy a customer who was looking for some jewellery if you worked in a hardware store? No, it would be impossible. The best that you could do would be to politely tell the customer where they can go and get Jewry. Obviously, customer service is not about giving customers what they want, or even satisfying customers.

The same is true for the way we give customer service. When we ask the question: what is the most important thing for good customer service, almost everyone we ask will answer: smile. While this may be good in some cases it is not appropriate in all cases. Just imagine if a distressed mother came up to you and told you that she had lost her 2 year old child in your store. Imagine how she would respond if you were to smile at her? Or imagine if a customer told you that he/she slipped while climbing the stairs or escalator in your store and as they explained their excruciating injuries you smiled back at them.

The truth is that customer service is not about practicalities, it’s about principles. The practicalities may change but the principles stay the same. Staff are not meant to smile all the time, to give customers everything they want, or to satisfy all their needs. Staff are meant to promote the organisation and its values. If you want to increase the impact of your customer service teach staff to represent your organisation and its unique traits.

When we teach customer service training modules we first focus on what the organisation values, what it’s all about and what does it want customers to see. Once we have done this, we move on to how to serve in light of these values. This is a very easy way of getting staff to change the way they serve, it produces better results and is a lot more fun to teach.

Here is something you can do to help your staff engage in effective customer service. Take a black/white board and draw a very basic house. Ask staff to take a piece of chalk or the white board marker and to take turns to turn this basic house into your organisation/company. They may add pictures or words to the basic drawing. Some will add words like: quality, professionalism, friendliness, service, money, speed, or simplicity while others may draw things like customers and staff.

Now ask staff this simple question: in light of this picture, what does a good customer service representative do? The participants will now find it easy to see what customer service is really about in your organisation. They may say for example, in light of us being a friendly company we should smile. Or perhaps they will highlight the organisation’s professionalism and explain that it’s professional to stand up straight and to dress appropriately.

Instead of teaching staff practicalities teach them principles and the practicalities will follow naturally.

We have a free, 2 hour course which you can download and run with your staff to help them improve their customer service, just visit www.griffin.ie.



By: Stephen Milford

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