I believe that people generally are good and want to do good. Why, then, is customer service often so bad?

Answer: People are generally good. The secret to good service is three little letters: R.O.I.

People are motivated by return on investment. As a service provider, it “costs” you in terms of time, physical effort, and emotional labor to provide good service. In return, you enjoy benefits ranging from financial compensation, a sense of accomplishment, improved self worth, etc. So the trick to improving service quality is to minimize the cost and maximize the reward.

To help minimize the cost, you can streamline processes or install systems/tools that reduce the physical effort and time. You can also manage customer expectations in order to reduce the amount of emotional labor required. (In other words, make it easier to dazzle customers.) Please note:  I didn’t say “lower” expectations; just be clear about what you will and won’t provide. Market segmentation and brand building are proven, effective strategies.

Maximizing the reward can, of course, mean growing the total reward—truly raising company revenues or profitability. But it also means helping each service provider perceive that he or she is getting a larger share of the total. That includes both direct compensation—such as commission or bonuses for customer satisfaction improvement—and indirect compensation—such as truly believing that his or her personal investment in delivering better service leads to retention, referrals, reputation, and revenue (share of wallet). Perception is important, because many reward indicators lag so far that service providers would become discouraged if they didn’t have faith in eventual reward.

If you would like to maximize R.O.I, give us a call Toll Free: 1-877-884-0051

Every time I'm asked to help out with an employment relationship problem, both the cause and the solution are usually a lot simpler than you might imagine. When an employee is unhappy with their boss, I ask them to honestly answer these three questions:

If the answer to any of these is "no", you've uncovered the problem. If you don't have confidence in your boss's competence, respect for his or her character and rapport with his or her personality, your career is going nowhere...and your life is probably somewhere between unhappy and downright miserable.  And, two out of three is never good enough.

If your boss is nice but incompetent, you're in trouble.  If he or she has the ability to do their job but is cursed with an unfortunate personality, or no moral compass, you're in trouble. 

Now, because life's a 2-way street, put yourself in your boss's shoes for a minute and ask the same three questions in reverse. Does my boss have...

Once again, if the answer to any of the three is "no", you're in trouble.  

So, whether you're the employer or the employee, if you're in a bad match-up, what's to be done?  Well, once again it's not that complicated.  Either the problem can be fixed...or it can't.  If it can be fixed, develop a realistic plan to fix whatever's missing.  If it can't be fixed move on...or get used to being frustrated and miserable.

AND LASTLY .... IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF THE PROBLEM CAN BE FIXED OR NOT, give us a call!
Toll Free: 1-877-884-0051