Six tips for launching a customer service overhaul

October 30th, 2012

Uplifting Service book You know you’ve got unhappy customers so you’ve decided it’s time to do a complete service overhaul. You’ve spent hours with your C-level executives crafting a strategic plan and making sure your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed.

The idea is to roll out the new plan in one area of your company—for example, your call center—and get things under control there before you move on to the next department. Over time, as you get your strategy perfected and everyone buys in, you’ll surely reap the benefits.

Makes sense, right?

No way to start a revolution

Sorry, says Ron Kaufman, but that’s no way to start a revolution. When you’re transforming a company culture to be more service-focused and effective, you have to move more boldly and get the message out to everyone more quickly.

You don’t have time to let culture change drip down to the masses or bubble up from the bottom in one or two departments. You must cascade your transformational effort in a much wider and deeper effort from the beginning.

It’s like getting a rocket into orbit

“Creating a superior service culture throughout an organization is like getting a new rocket into orbit,” says Kaufman, author of the New York Times bestseller Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet(Evolve Publishing, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-9847625-0-7, $24.95, www.UpliftingService.com).

“You need a massive and focused effort at the beginning to overcome the gravity of old attitudes and behaviors. And soon after your first new service successes, you need another enormous booster to keep momentum going and get into a sustainable orbit.

“The effort is well worth the results,” he adds. “When people at all levels and departments throughout an organization step up together—at the same time—to deliver better service, then full engagement occurs and the culture ‘tips’ into a new and better direction.”

“Companies sometimes receive push back from employees and even high-level leaders,” he explains.

“Without the right framework for building an uplifting service culture, as laid out in my book, a company’s transformation will slow to a halt and nothing much will change. Good customers will leave, and often high-performing employees will head for the door.”

And that’s where Uplifting Service comes in. Rather than sit back and wait for others to “go first,” the book enables and empowers employees—whether they’re in the C-suite or a cluttered cubicle—to change the game from their level and position and follow the path to an uplifting service transformation.

Kaufman outlines a few lessons learned the hard way that will help you keep your efforts to uplift service on the right track.

Don’t start only with customer-facing teams. Starting your service transformation with customer-facing team members might seem like the obvious move. But if your objective is to build an uplifting service culture, this approach can be very problematic. Because your people in “customer-facing” roles interact with customers daily, they already understand that service is important. They know that upset customers complain. They know happy customers are easier to serve. What they don’t know is how to fix the behind-the-scenes issues that often affect the customers’ perceptions.

When you provide new service education, greater encouragement, and more recognition for customer-facing teams like sales, installation, repair, or customer service, they will be inspired to serve better, smile wider, and strive even harder to delight. But at some point, they will start to wonder how they can give customers better service if their colleagues do not give them better service.

“When launching an uplifting service program, it would be much better to include or begin with internal service providers: production and design, hardware and software, warehousing and logistics, facilities, finance, legal, IT, and HR,” explains Kaufman.

“When these internal service providers make things easier, faster, more responsive, or more flexible for your customer-facing employees, they’ll be surprised, delighted, and better able to serve your external customers. Let those on the inside inspire those who are serving on the outside with better service first. It’s a proven win-win situation.”

Launch at all levels. Starting from the top with an uplifting service initiative makes sense. When high-level leaders speak up and role model with commitment, it’s easier for everyone else to follow—and take the lead at their own levels. However, a top-down approach on its own can leave your leaders in an uncomfortable position.

When those at the top make the earliest efforts, they must wait for the cascade to see practical results. But a cascade does not happen overnight—and this lack of quick and observable impact can cause some leaders to get impatient and question whether the outcomes will happen at all.

At the same time, though, you must beware of launching from the bottom up without support from the top—the classic mistake of stand-alone “frontline service training programs.” It won’t take long before a motivated frontline service provider bumps into a supervisor or manager who does not share the understanding or the passion.

Don’t forget the middle. Companies often decide to launch from the top down and from the bottom up at the same time. But doing so puts a great deal of responsibility on the people in the middle. In the top-down cascade, middle managers and supervisors must translate the messages in action, connect company objectives to frontline concerns, and make uplifting language appear practical and useful.

In the bottom-up bubbling of new ideas and action steps, the middle plays three culture-building roles: praising team members who do a great job, raising good suggestions for higher-level review, and spotlighting roadblocks that require leadership action for removal.

In both instances, you’re asking a lot of your managers and supervisors, says Kaufman.

“But starting in the middle won’t work either,” he adds. “When leaders are not prepared to lead, and frontline employees are not prepared for action, then asking middle managers to start the journey alone is a formula for pure frustration.

“It’s best to prepare well and start with attention to all three.”

Arm your leaders with helpful service hints. Most people who reach high leadership positions are experts in their industry. But rarely are they experts in building or leading a service culture. That means if you are one of the passionate and committed service heroes inside your organization, you may need to help your leaders lead. That means creating opportunities for them to walk the walk, talk the talk, and model uplifting service.

“Invite your leaders to participate with you in customer meetings and focus groups,” suggests Kaufman.

“Ask them to help you recognize the company’s top-notch service providers with a visit, a handshake, a photograph, and a short speech.”

Go for easy wins first. The principles of uplifting service are so empowering and the practices so effective that some leaders push their teams to solve the most difficult and complex service problems right away.

That’s a mistake to avoid. Warming up a machine before you go full throttle is good practice. Warming up your service team with a series of “early wins” is good practice, too.

“When planning a sequence of service problems to tackle, take a gradual approach,” advises Kaufman. “Build momentum with early wins on easy issues. Let your team taste the pleasure of uplifting service success. Highlight achievements and celebrate the compliments you earn. Restrain the urge to work on your toughest problems first—their day to be conquered will come.”

Watch out for stuck-in-the-mud team members. Some hard-nosed managers will challenge a new program by sending their most cynical and problematic employees. Their view is, “If a new program can work on these tough nuts, then perhaps it has some merit.”

“But the opposite approach will work much better. What you want in the early days of your journey is good feelings, good results, and good gossip. That comes more easily from participants who want to participate and are eager to succeed.

“There is an old saying that ‘A rising tide lifts all boats,’” says Kaufman. “This is also true when building an uplifting service culture—except for those who are stuck in the mud.

“When transforming an existing service culture, you have to get everyone involved in new, swift action to make the change really happen,” says Kaufman. “What you need is a service revolution, not gradual evolution. A timid program with small starts and scattered efforts won’t work. You need a bold and uplifting revolution that gives everyone a role to play, and counts on everyone to make the future—a better future—into a service reality today.”