Key Elements of a Positive Customer Service Culture

Managers often talk about the importance of establishing a customer service culture. Unfortunately, employees often do not know what that means because they do not receive training to help them understand their role in the process. This article outlines four key elements of a positive customer service culture.

1. Make internal customers a priority. Internal customers or employees are crucial to the success of any organization. These people are the lifeline of an organization and provide services (e.g. human resources, accounting, security, products, and support services) to one another that allows them to provide the best possible service to external customers. If employees do not feel valued, they likely will not take ownership and responsibility for their role in making sure that external customers receive the exemplary service that they deserve. Some simple ways to help ensure employees feel valued include, ongoing customer service skills, product and service training, up-to-date service technology (e.g. computers, databases, and communication equipment), inclusion in communication, empowerment in decision-making, competitive salary and benefits, opportunities for advancement and overall respect for what they offer and contribute to the organization.

2. Treat external customers as crucial to organizational success. The reality of today’s globally competitive business environment is that your customers often lack loyalty. The differentiating factor for successful companies is the stellar customer service that they offer their customers. Pricing and product differentiation are easy to match in many instances. Competition is often only an Internet search away. For these reasons, every employee must own responsibility for making every person with whom they come into contact feel “special” and valued. This is especially true when interacting with customers via faceless technology (e.g. online chat, telephone, text or email).

3. Provide ongoing employee training. Many managers view training as a luxury or expense to be cut rather than a crucial piece of the complex customer service puzzle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strong customer service skills training is crucial for employees at all levels of the organization. Such training should certainly include at least the following topics:

Operation and functioning of any service technology used.
Organization history.
Organizational product and services familiarization.
Interpersonal communication skills (e.g. verbal, nonverbal and listening skills).
How to interact with all types of customers from differing backgrounds (e.g. gender, culture, race, religion, and various abilities).

4. Establish effective organizational communication channels. Successful organizations have multiple strategies for communication up to and down the strata from executive levels to frontline employees. If everyone in the organization does not know the mission, vision, and values of the organization, they certainly cannot be expected to embrace and personify those elements. If you read about exemplary organizations, you will often find that the people at the top of the chain of command regularly solicit and listen to ideas and suggestions from employees at all levels of the organization. You will also discover that frontline employees know where the organization is headed because they are:

Included in communications via newsletters.
Accessing intranet information postings.
Receive regular updates and attend products, services, and skills training.
Participate in periodic (e.g. quarterly) group meetings with executives. In the later sessions, the executives typically update employees and elicit input, questions, and complaints, then have managers immediately act upon valid points identified.

Ultimately, successful service organizations create an environment in which providing stellar customer service is a strategic initiative. Both internal and external customers are valued for what they provide to the company. They are key elements of a positive customer service culture.

To learn more about making positive impressions on current and potential customers, get copies of Customer Service Skills for Success and Please Every Customer: Delivering Stellar Customer Service Across Cultures.

Elements of a Service Culture

by Robert W. Lucas

Elements of a Service Culture

A positive service culture is crucial for organizations that want to remain competitive and build brand and customer loyalty.

Many elements define a successful service organization. Some of the more common are:

Service philosophy or mission: The direction or vision of an organization that supports day-to-day interactions with the customer.

Employee roles and expectations: The specific communications or measures that indicate what is expected of employees in customer interactions and that define how employee service performance will be evaluated.

Delivery systems: The way an organization delivers its products and services.

Policies and procedures: The guidelines that establish how various situations or transactions will be handled.

Products and services: The materials, products, and services that are state of the art, are competitively priced, and meet the needs of customers.

Management support: The availability of management to answer questions and assist frontline employees in customer interactions when necessary. Also, the level of management involvement and enthusiasm in coaching and mentoring professional development of employees is crucial in creating a positive service culture.

Motivators and rewards: Monetary rewards, material items, or feedback that prompts employees to continue to deliver service and perform at a high level of effectiveness and efficiency.

Training: Instruction or information provided through a variety of techniques that teach knowledge or skills, or attempt to influence employee attitude toward excellent service delivery.

Source: Customer Service Skills for Success by Robert W. Lucas

About Robert C. Lucas

Bob Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

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Characteristics of Organizations with Strong Customer Service Cultures

by Robert W. Lucas

Characteristics of Organizations with Strong Customer Service Cultures

Many organizations struggle to gain and maintain strong customer and brand loyalty. However, what they often fail to do right is to create a service culture that nurtures and supports customers.

The following are some common characteristics for leading-edge customer-focused organizations that you might use to help create a positive customer service culture in your own organization.

They have and support internal customers (for example, peers, co-workers, bosses, subordinates, people from other areas of their organization) and/or external customers (for example, vendors, suppliers, various telephone callers, walk-in customers, other organizations, others not from within the organization).
Their focus is on determining and meeting the needs, wants and expectations of customers while treating everyone with respect and as if he or she is special.
Information, products, and services are easily accessible by customers.
Policies are in place to allow employees to make decisions in order to better serve customers.
Management and systems support and appropriately reward employee efforts to serve customers.
Reevaluation and quantitative measurement of the way business is conducted is ongoing and results in necessary changes and upgrades to deliver timely quality service to the customer.
Continual benchmarking or comparison with competitors and related organizations helps maintain an acute awareness and implementation of best service practices by the organization.
The latest technology is used to connect with and provide service to customers, vendors, or suppliers and to support business operations.
They build relationships through customer relationship management (CRM) programs.

For additional ideas and strategies for building a strong service culture, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

About Robert C. Lucas

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

Customer Service Culture Quote – Jerry Fritz

by Robert W. Lucas

Customer Service Culture Quote – Jerry Fritz

Effective customer service cultures are driven from the top down in organizations where everyone takes ownership of interacting positively with customers and giving 110 percent in an effort to stand out from the competition.

Customer service cultures are made up of numerous elements (e.g. employees, quality products and services, effective service training, policies that address customer needs, wants and expectations, and physical service environment).

The following quote by Jerry Fritz helps define the importance of customer service cultures.

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.” Jerry Fritz

For ideas and strategies on how to create and maintain a positive customer service culture in your organization, get a copy of Customer Service Skills for Success.

Learn All About Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas Now…

Understand Why He is an Authority in the Customer Service Skills Industry

Robert C. ‘Bob’ Lucas has been a trainer, presenter, customer service expert, and adult educator for over four decades. He has written hundreds of articles on training, writing, self-publishing, and workplace learning skills and issues. He is also an award-winning author who has written thirty-seven books on topics such as, writing, relationships, customer service, brain-based learning, and creative training strategies, interpersonal communication, diversity, and supervisory skills. Additionally, he has contributed articles, chapters, and activities to eighteen compilation books. Bob retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1991 after twenty-two years of active and reserve service.

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.

In my book Customer Service Skills for Success, I define customer service as “the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business.”

What is Service Culture?

by Robert W. Lucas

What is Service Culture?

An organization’s service culture encompasses its products and services, employees and the physical appearance of its facility, equipment, or any other aspect of the organization with which a customer comes into contact. Managers in successful organizations are keenly aware of the importance of all these elements and continually assess the impact that each has on service delivery.

Since customer service is made up of many facets, each of which affects its customers and helps determine the success or failure of service initiatives, care should be given in identifying what customers want, need and expect, Once these things are known, a company should carefully create a response to address those elements.

Too often, organizations over-promise and under-deliver because of their cultural and internal systems (infrastructure) do not have the capacity to support successful customer service initiatives. An example of this would be an organization where management has its marketing department develop a slick piece of literature describing all the benefits of a new product or service provided by a new corporate partner. Then, a special toll-free number or Web site is set up to handle customer responses, but no additional staff is hired to handle the customer calls and current employees are not given adequate information or training to do their job. The project is likely doomed to fail because adequate service support has not been planned and implemented in advance.

Unfortunately, an organization’s structure gets in the way of quality service. Many companies are top-down–oriented or product-centered and typically view customers from the standpoint of what company products or services they use. In such organizations, upper management is at the top of their hierarchy and customers as a final element or afterthought. Such companies often have stockholders who demand higher profit margins and lower expenditures, and to whom senior management must answer. Leaders in such companies often lose sight of what really drives their business…the customer. In an era when a competitor is only one mouse click away; this can be a road to disaster. A way to combat this dilemma is to flip the organization and put the customer as the focal point. Everything that the company does should be driven by needs, wants, and expectations that are identified through customer feedback. There should also be checks and balances built into the system so that when a product or service is provided, there is a means to gauge response and satisfaction immediately from customers.

On the opposite end of the customer-provider continuum, successful organizations are customer-centered or customer-centric and focus on customer individual needs. In such organizations, managers realize that without customers, they can close the doors and everyone can go home. Typically managers in such companies recruit and hire the best, train employees frequently and are vigilant regarding assessing customer needs, wants and expectations. Quality initiatives are evident in everything the company does and provides and customers are in the forefront of employee efforts.

To learn more about service culture and other aspects of effective customer service, click here.

About Robert W. Lucas – Customer Service Professional

Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors by Robert W. Lucas at Amazon.com.