Self Worth and Customer Service
Self Worth and Customer Service
Do your employees feel good about themselves? Do they have a strong self worth and good self image or do personal problems pull them down?
An employee who feels good about themselves will be more productive. Will show up for work. Will love their job. I suspect a huge percentage of the workforce have personal problems that dramatically affect their work performance. The vast majority of people reading this newsletter are in leadership positions. Most of you have the ability to motivate yourself regardless of the problems you encounter. When adversity strikes you have the ability to keep yourself pumped up.
Many employees live from pay check to pay check. They never save or invest for the future. Some of the problems that affect these employees on a daily basis are financial, but many others are emotional.
However, employees with a lot of self confidence and a positive attitude are the most productive. To keep your employees on a high, you need to constantly be working on building their self image and self worth. Too many employees do not believe in themselves. Marriage problems, girlfriend and boyfriend problems and financial problems slow people down. The typical employee cannot separate these personal problems from their work.
In the hiring process you can be more careful. Look for people with lots of enthusiasm and energy. People who feel good about themselves and genuinely like people. If possible steal these people from other organizations.
Last week I was in Oregon visiting my brother. We stopped at a restaurant about 9 PM and we were the only ones there. This cute little seventeen year old girl was our waitress. She was always positive. Her typical response was, "no problem." She was fast, honest, really nice and I was thinking, "thank God most employees were not like this because I would be out of business." If I lived in this area I would actively try to recruit her. She comes from a divorced family. She will be a senior in high school next year and then plans on going to Harvard. She is probably paid $7 hour plus tips.
With the employees you have there are several solutions. First you need to use learning programs for your workforce that build self image and self worth. These programs will help your employees feel good about themselves. The secret of "Feelings " our flagship program is this is the core we focus on, Personal Excellence. All of our products have this built into the design.
No school offer classes on self worth, self esteem and self confidence. (NOR customer service.) There is little chance your employees will learn this on their own. If you want productive and customer driven employees you need to introduce something new and fresh every 4 - 6 months. I don't care how good the training course is, you are dealing with humans. We tend to forget much of what we learn. You cannot graduate from college or high school by taking one course. You need fresh new material every few months if you want employees who feel good about themselves and love customers.
Money will not improve performance. Employees need recognition, attention and love. Your managers and supervisors need to be good coaches. Great cheer leaders. Catch employees daily doing great things. Then reinforce these actions. In many fields , perhaps yours as well, your customers main contact is with your front-line entry level staff. These often are people who do the same thing over and over again each day and can easily lose sight of the fact that the customer is only experiencing the time with them for the first unique time. Frequently , as in healthcare for example , they only deal with patients before they experience the success of the clinical interaction when the patient / customer is happy and thankful for the " service ' that they received.
For world class customer service to take root, prevail and become the standard at your enterprise it will take on-going and spaced repetition of best customer service practices and protocols and well trained front-line supervision to assist their staff in staying in-touch with the vision , mission and values of your firm and their own personal contribution to the team's success.
Building a firm that is known for its world class customer service is akin to the story of the three different men carving out stones one who says he is working on a stone , the second reporting that he is shaping a stone into an even , smooth rectangle and the third that he is building a cathedral.
For quality service the first time and every time you need a firm where every employee is fully engaged in building a cathedral.
If you would like to learn about how your organization can create a quality service culture that will stand the test of time please contact us.
Communication Strategy is a New York City based Organizational Development , Quality Customer Service Culture Development, Employee Engagement and Learning consulting firm with affiliates throughout the United States.
We can be reached via e mail : info@communicationstrat.com or by telephone : 212 362 5215
Contact: David Hellman (David@communicationstrat.com)
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