8 Surprising Ways to Fix Customer Service Problems

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Lorna Barrow

Learning Solution Specialist

Transformational Speaker

Founder - Impact Training & Dev. Services

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S E R V I C ES E R V I C ES E R V I C ES E R V I C E

Customer Service Inside Out:

The Problem With Customer Service &

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Customer Service Inside Out: The problem and 8 ways to fix it

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Impact Training & Development Services. ©2010

The Problem

I’m not even touching your frustration with customer service. Since you tolerate it, it

serves you right! And moreover, since you tolerate it, that prevents business owners

and managers from rushing to me for Customer Service Training.

What I want to talk about is what I see as the problem with customer service from the

inside of a business before it even gets out to the customer.

Whenever my phone rings and the voice on the other line asks: “do you do customer

service?” I begin a slow nail tap on the nearest solid object, regardless of how recently

I’ve had a manicure. “Yes, I certainly do.” “Well! I have some front line staff…” at these

words, to hell with the manicure, my nail tapping accelerates until it’s keeping pace with

the speed at which a blackbird flaps his wings.

When will Senior Management and (Small) Business Owners understand that front line

staff only contributes to the customer satisfaction levels they don’t create service

quality. The quality of service is determined by business owners and senior

management of companies, in other words, at the top. This has always been and will

always be the case. Otherwise, it has to be a canine case of the tail wagging the dog.

Yet, in almost all but the smartest businesses, front line staff shoulders the blame for

poor customer service while top management goes out to lunch at a fancy restaurant to

release the stress of having to face these “trials and tribulations.”

The quality of the customer service which is delivered by the front line staff usually

mirrors that which they receive as internal customers. So when top management:

• reneges on promises

• displays poor human relations and industrial relations practices

• lacks confidentiality

• ignores complaints

• disregards opinions

Your message is clear: The internal customer is not important. Unfortunately, this is the

feeling and attitude which the staff transfers to the external customer. The same ones

that lead you to lament, “These people just don’t care!”

Well, STOP BLAMING FRONT LINE STAFF and start addressing the following:


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1. Know your Customer Service Proposition

In other words: What level of customer service are you prepared to deliver and how will

you deliver what you have decided that you want to deliver? For the most part,

management usually knows that they want to deliver “excellent customer service” or

that “the customer is our #1 priority.” No problem.

The problem resides in understanding what these statements really mean and what is

required to make them a reality. For example, many people talk of being customer-

driven. Is this before or after you have made a profit? You see, there is a cost to being

customer-driven that you might not be able to pass on to the customer, in the short

term.

Being customer-driven requires you to …continuously create predictably positive

experiences for customers, through needs understood and promises kept, every time

they visit you or use your services. This is achieved through dozens of simple things

done right, every single time.

It also requires systems, resources, policies, procedures, etc, that support your claim.

Many customer-driven businesses actually drive customers away by having operating

procedures and policies that exist for the convenience or the protection of the business

and not for the service of the customer.

So really ask yourself: What is my customer service proposition? How will I recognize it

when I see it? What systems and resources do I have in place to achieve this?

For example if you decide that yours is a full service business where no effort is spared

in pampering the customer, then you need an abundance of highly trained staff

supported by the right salaries and incentives. If you want to offer a completely self-

service store then you need effective signage throughout that store.

But whatever you do, don’t promise a level of service that you have not yet learnt how

to deliver and then blame your front line staff.

2. Understand Your Customer

Who are your customers? Traditionally, businesses either sold to the classes or masses.

For example if they were selling a Mercedes, they appealed to the classes and if they

were selling a car of lesser standard, they targeted the masses. But now the masses


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know class and something called a “vigilante” customer has emerged. This customer

wants value, service, convenience, choice and lots of attention.

Understanding who your customers are and what they want, will help you to create the

customer service quality standards that will determine the quality of the customer

satisfaction which your front line staff delivers.

A good way to find out what the customer wants is to: ta-da-ta-da-ta-dummm, ask

them! This seems so obvious but yet hard to do.

A small retail store that was smart enough to do this got the surprise of their life. The

customers wanted clean bathrooms, organised checkout counters, tidy dressing

rooms, music that was not so loud, the store to smell like a clothing store and not a

restaurant, shopping space and shopping baskets. When they decided to conduct the

survey, it was only to confirm that they were already offering superior customer

service.

So, go ahead, develop a profile of your “best” customer group and build your customer

service proposition around this profile. Doing so will result in an overall business

strategy that is highly effective and results-oriented. If you choose not to do this, your

alternative is a weak customer service strategy that leaves you no choice but to blame

the “lazy” front line staff, one more time.

3. Measure Customer Satisfaction

Now that you know the customer and understand what they want, how will you know

that you have delivered the quality service they want? Measure it! Yes, measure how

effective you are at satisfying and surpassing your customers desires.

Customer satisfaction can best be describes as: the state of mind that customers have

about a company when their expectations have been met or exceeded over the

lifetime of the product or service. When you achieve this state, you develop loyal

customers who buy your products again and again.

It makes sense then, (to me anyway!) that if you can collect and measure data about

what satisfies the customer, you can then “develop” products and services to meet and

surpass these expectations. In this way, you can use the data as a strategic weapon to

drive the business and make the money you had in mind when you started the business.


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Dismiss the idea that financial results alone indicate your success in satisfying the

customer because that is absurd. A better approach would be to use some version of

the Balanced Scoreboard methodology.

Service quality can be measured ... and it's vital that you do so. Only by measuring the

factors that increase customer satisfaction and reduce the costs of poor customer

service quality, will you be able to truly move ahead.

As a guide, many studies have shown that the two most important qualities desired by

customers are reliability and responsiveness ... but don't leave it at that. Ask your

customers what they want from you.

Take the time to measure those aspects of your business that are important to your

customers. And listen to your front line staff, they are a great source of solutions to

satisfying the customer needs, after all, they interact with them every day!

4. Don’t Neglect the Internal Customer

Most businesses, especially retail, are built on the on the skills, abilities, attitudes,

commitment and dreams of their people. Coaching, motivating and generally getting the

best performance from the staff should be a main priority for top management.

What about training? A top resort one asked me to submit a proposal to train their

restaurant and front office staff. Whatever combination of topics-time-methods I

proposed, the money charged was too much. Yet they charge their clients exorbitant

prices and were unhappy with the customer service delivered by their staff.

You have to include training as a major strategy for achieving your goals. Unless you are

engaged in on-going training, you’re not even close to achieving the high standards you

have set.

And to those who asks me: What happens when I train people and they go? I ask you:

What happens if you don’t train them and they stay?

Another major player in the process of achieving your goals is how you reward above

average effort. Most incentive systems reward based primarily on sales. Why not have

your pay system reward exceptional service as well?


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In addition, generally, staff performance tends to improve as it gets closer to pay day. If

your staff is on an incentive programme, try paying as many levels as you can weekly.

This is sure to keep productivity high.

And don’t forget issues such as allowing staff to make decisions on matters within their

control, performance appraisal, orientation of new staff, the internal communication

system and even how you hire. All these things, however they are done, reach right

down to the customer.

5. Mind How You Hire, Really

When I ask most small businesses to describe their hiring process, their attitude is:

hiring process? Which planet you said you were from again? At that point, I stick my left

hand out and say: Hi! I’m Lorna Barrow! Never mind how I look, I’m no relative of Super

Woman. If you don’t have a hiring process, creating solutions to your “people”

problems will be that much more difficult for me.

Look, what most companies are trying to do is to get their employees to provide

superior quality service. This is more a function of attitudes and values, than of skill.

These are what the people bring to the job when you hire them and the likelihood of

successfully influencing them in the short term is quite frankly, very low.

That's why it is absolutely critical that you hire the right people in the first place. In my

family, we have established several small business and we all have the same approach:

hire for personality, train for skill.

So how do you improve your hiring process? Try the following simple steps:

i. Develop a profile of your ideal candidate based on your service quality

proposition. There are several ways to do this and if you don’t trust that you

have the skill, get help from an HR Professional.

ii. Learn how to interview (or outsource the process) and only interview those

candidates that match your profile.

iii. Give yourself a choice; interview at least 3 – 4 persons for the position and

use some type of assessment to reduce your subjectivity.


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iv. Interview the prospective employee(s) at least twice.

v. Check references. Check references. Check references

The better you get at this process and back it up with a well designed orientation plan,

you bring your business that much closer to achieving its customer satisfaction goal.

6. Examine Your Approach to Training

Many times people hire Impact Training & Development Services because they have

heard of our excellent reputation for delivering training that makes a difference.

www.itds-training.com

Against all that we advise about their approach to training, they believe that we want to

“make too much money ‘offa’ them” and so they insist on quick fixes. Then they

complain that nothing has really changed as a result of the training and with mounting

frustration, they finally declare “training just doesn’t work with these employees

nowadays!”

Well, that’s not really true. Training plays a valuable role in your company, and when

you’re customer-driven, then that role is invaluable. But your results will be directly

correlated to your investment. If you “nickel and dime” the effort, you will get nickel

and dime results. However, if you understand and commit to the premise that your

business is worth the investment, your payback will also be significant.

Training is designed, not only to generate new skills and ideas, but also to develop the

confidence within your employees that will enable them to challenge the status

quo, question complacency and discover improved methods of operation.

Therefore, when building awareness and initiating customer service training programs, a

good approach is to begin with senior management programs and work through middle

management before communicating with the front lines. This is critical because

management personnel must provide support as soon as the front lines become

involved in the training process.

This is exactly why our Customer Service training programme is a two-part process

which uses the PRIDE model to train the management team to manage in a customer-


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driven environment and then train the front line staff to deliver superior customer

satisfaction. www.itds-training.com

7. Lead By Example!

A business owner once said to me that his employees were like children. I readily agreed

with him and pointed out that that was because he was behaving like a parent – telling

them to do one thing while he did another.

When it comes to delivering service quality, nothing is more important than the attitude

and commitment of senior management. Even good employees with the best of

intentions cannot overcome poor management support in the area of customer service.

Becoming truly focused on the customer includes sharing decisions and empowering

employees. It requires commitment to a process that will change the role of

management dramatically, expand responsibility and decision-making out into the

workforce and diminish the emphasis on purely bottom- line performance.

Leading by example is such a powerful tool and necessary pre-requisite for the

business involved in moving towards true service quality improvement. You must walk

the talk, consistently. The moment the staff sees management wavering in its course,

they will regard your efforts as nothing more than just another "flash in the pan”

So spend time on the “floor.” Serve the customers. Work at the cash register. (You can

work the register, can you?) This not only demonstrates commitment, it also lets you

know firsthand what is going on.

8. Let your employees have fun on the job!

Yes! I’m talking to you! And it’s not funny, I am serious.

Nobody motivates today's workers. Believe me, if it doesn't come from inside, then it

doesn't come at all. Fun helps to remove the barriers and allow people to motivate

themselves...and having fun creates the cooperative effort we all desperately need in

these tough times.


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When the workplace environment is not relaxed, employees view their work as dull and

meaningless, which leads to a mediocre effort at best. It's been proven time and again

that happy employees produce more ... and to be happy, most need to have fun.

By “fun” I do not mean those structured once-a-year family day picnics and Christmas

parties. I’m talking about letting your staff have fun every single day. It starts with

“lightening” up your own attitude and allowing your people to laugh, celebrate and feel

good about themselves and their accomplishments.

You need to make superstars of the front line if you want to dramatically increase your

sales and profits. You don't need to be funny to have fun. Just lighten up your attitude

and let those around you take more control of their environment.

Today's employees demand the right to enjoy their work, and your job is to make sure

they do. If you're one of those old-fashioned autocratic managers, it's time to accept the

new realities:

Get serious about having fun!

As I leave you…

I want to remind you that excellent customer service starts long before your front line

staff serves the customer. It starts when you the business owner or senior manager

decide that placing customer service over profitability will result in greater profitability

in the long run.

It continues when you are 100 % committed to service quality and consistently channel

the resources to the areas that guarantee that your front line can really impact the

bottom line.

Therefore, I truly want you to use these 8 points I have given you as a springboard to

really look at your customer service delivery from the inside out. I know that when you

do, you will want to transform your business into one that moves the customer from

“regular” to “loyal.”

When you’re ready for that, contact me at [email protected] Boy! Am I

waiting to help!


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About the Author

Lorna Barrow is a Learning Solution Specialist specializing in

providing training and development solutions through her business

Impact Training & Development Services (ITDS) for organizations

and individuals in the Caribbean.

Lorna is an entrepreneur and small business owner whose pension

plan is to establish and manage 7 businesses and share her

knowledge with other small business owners.

Her home base is the beautiful Caribbean island of Barbados from

where she connects with the rest of the world. She believes that you

owe it to yourself to consciously create the life you want rather than

living the one you believe you inherited.

Along with serving her clients, Lorna goes to the gym at least 3

times a week, hikes on Sundays with the Barbados National Trust,

teaches leadership skills to the 8 – 11year group at Phoenix

Academy and leads her mastermind, Visions Unlimited.

Now she has seriously put “fingers to keyboard” to bring you many,

many wonderful resources which you can use to make life easier,

happier or even wealthier.

Lorna Barrow can be found in cyberspace at www.itds-training.com

or e-mail [email protected]. When you are on

earthspace you may prefer to call (246) 234-8360

Impact Training &

Development Services

At ITDS, our Customer

Service consulting is a

complete approach.

We ensure you have or

can implement the

systems to deliver the CS

quality level you want.

Next we train your

supervisors to manage in

a CS environment and

then we train your front

line staff to deliver the

customer satisfaction

you want them to.

You are at the core of

our solutions!

www.itds-training.com

solutions@itds-

training.com

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8 Surprising Ways to Fix Customer Service Problems