In: Operations Management
Creating a World-Class Service Culture
Briefly describe what you believe to be the top 10 characteristics of a service firm that exhibits world-class service culture.
The top 10 characteristics of a service firm that displays world-class service culture are:
1-Culturally consistent employee selection (hiring) practices.
Sustaining a great customer service culture is significantly more conceivable if employees have a natural predisposition to serve. While there's no finished guarantee that every employee will satisfy their potential and advance the company culture, great companies understand that giving explicit traits greater load than understanding and even abilities when making hiring decisions is the opportune place to start.
2-A commitment to ongoing improvement via customer service training and retraining, from orientation (on boarding) onward.
Training can take many shapes, from the initial inspiration and guidance that new employees get at the hour of orientation, to the Customer Service Minute, to increasingly elaborate training sessions, workshops, and all-hands keynotes with a customer service theme. All of these are ways that great customer service cultures are maintained.Further, it guarantees that they continue to develop.
3-A culture of empowering every employee to take the initiative in service of their customers.
Once employees are appropriately chosen, situated, and trained, they expect strengthening to thrive. All of these prepared to-be-great employees can't accomplish their best work, or contribute to the greatness of a service culture, until they're given the force and leeway to do as such. And all great customer service cultures do give employees such force and leeway.
4-Employee control over how they carry out their duties.
Companies should give extensive guidance and training, yet they don't exorbitantly content or regiment employees in how to carry out their interactions with customers. Employees are not, in other words, simply interchangeable machine gear-pieces, nor are they serfs to be abused exclusively for their labor. They are completely dimensional human beings who are both expected to and supported in making full and one of a kind contributions.
5-A common language.
Southwest Airlines creatively spells words, for example, "luv" in its mission statement and internal records. This kind of common language, however it may appear to be goofy to outsiders, is valuable in bringing a company together and making everyone who works at a company feel like they're part of the "in swarm."
6-Legendary stories.
Tales of over-the-top customer service are valuable in making a point to imminent, incoming, and even long-tenured employees about what an organization's culture consists of and what it places a value on. Each story fills the same need: to show what is valued in the company's culture and the lengths to which employees ought to be happy to go as far as investing empathy, assets, and creativity.
7-No "not my job."
There's an understanding within a company cultures that every employee will contribute any place required, regardless of an employee's particular job description and level in the organization.This can manifest itself daily, as it does at Disney parks, where employees ("cast individuals") from each and every degree of the organization can be found interrupting whatever else they may be doing to get stray trash any place they experience it. This pitching in outside of an employee's daily functions can come up primarily on special occasions, the days or peak hours when help is expected to handle additional volume.
8-Pride.
An employee ought to advance the company on his own initiative, and at his own expense.This is what makes working amazing.
9-Humility.
The same companies that display such pride are also, paradoxically, humble in ways that keep an organization both decidedly attached and open to learning and development. The customers could give a few inputs through remarks, that uniformly would include a component of humility and eagerness to improve, rather than patting themselves on the back for the positive coverage I've given in the distributed piece.
10-Support for customer-focused innovation.
Having a really great customer service culture doesn't simply happen and it can't be conveyed in a flashy decorating move or as a dry mission statement that no one actually reads. Rather, it requires an orchestrated effort and a profound commitment to improve.