7- Creating a Service Culture

Introduction:

What does an organization’s service culture entail? The answer is that it varies depending on the organisation. No two businesses function similarly, have the same goals, or employ management that achieves the same outcomes. A culture encompasses a group’s or organization’s values, beliefs, customs, rituals, and traditions, among other things. Your company’s service culture is influenced by its policies, procedures, actions, and inaction. Other aspects may be unique to your company or industry. The latter factor is critical to your and your company’s success. As a service provider, you and the organisation will lose if you take a position only to get paid without buying into the service culture and supporting the organization’s aims. To be successful in the service sector (or any other business, for that matter), you must take ownership of your tasks and duties and demonstrate a dedication to doing your best every day. Furthermore, you must maintain a cheerful mindset even while you are not at work.

Consider how often friends disparage their bosses, organisations, products, and services. Did their enthusiasm for their profession make you want to visit their establishment or apply for a job there? In any situation, what you do or say around others conveys a strong statement about you, your degree of professionalism, and your organisation. If you cannot support your employer, you should resign and seek employment elsewhere. To do less is to be unjust to yourself and your company. Remember that it will lose clients if the organisation loses money due to negative word-of-mouth PR (what you and others say about it). As a result, income will be reduced, and money will be available to pay wage increases and perks to employees.

Creating a Service Culture:

Your products and services, the physical look of the organization’s facilities, equipment, or any other feature of the organization with which the client comes into contact are all part of the culture. Unfortunately, many businesses are either top-down (with upper management at the top of the hierarchy and consumers as a last aspect or afterthought) or product-centred (with consumers viewed solely through the lens of which firm products or services they consume). Successful businesses are customer-centric or customer-centered, and they prioritise individual requirements.

A company’s service culture has several components, each of which impacts the customer and influences the success or failure of customer service activities. Organizations frequently overpromise and underdeliver because their cultural and internal systems (infrastructure) are incapable of supporting customer service goals.

Consider the following scenario: Assume that management has requested that the marketing department create a nice piece of literature outlining the advantages of a new product or service offered by a new business partner. Then a dedicated 800 number or website is set up to manage consumer answers. Still, no more staff is hired to answer the calls, and current service providers aren’t given enough information or training to accomplish their jobs. The project is likely to fail because proper service support has not been planned and delivered.

In the past, businesses constantly adjusted their product and service lines to attract and retain customers. This has frequently been their principal method of ensuring consumer pleasure. Many big corporations have become more customer-centric in recent years, emphasising the importance of client connections. They recognise that retaining current consumers is less expensive and more strategic than pursuing a revolving door strategy of always attempting to gain new consumers to replace those lost to competition. As organisations aim to indicate their focus on their clients, advertising efforts typically reflect this increased understanding.

Management Areas of Maintaining the Service Culture:

It contains the following points:

• Creating a customer service environment that matches your customers’ demands and focuses on client retention throughout your business.
• Having and enforcing a customer service charter that outlines the quality and standards of service that your customers can expect from you.
• Ensure that your company’s policies, practices, systems, procedures, facilities, and employees are all actively working to provide exceptional customer service.
• Make your customer service strategy a part of your broader business strategy and plans.
• Establishing a structure and culture that promotes high levels of employee satisfaction and compensates employees for providing exceptional customer service.
• You should ensure that you have systems in place to get regular, reliable feedback from your clients on their needs and your service.
• Encouraging quality service and ongoing development in your company’s operations.
• This necessitates a continuous review of the underlying causes of service difficulties and adjustments in procedures that contributed to them.
• As a natural companion to best-practice customer service, ensure your organisation always complies with fair trading regulations.

Elements of a Service Culture:

There are various elements which make an organisation successful, as follows:

• Service philosophy or mission: The direction or vision of an organisation 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 define how employee service performance will be evaluated.
• Delivery systems: The way an organisation 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, competitively priced, and meet customers’ needs.
• Management support: Management must be available 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.
• 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 various techniques that teach knowledge or skills or attempt to influence employee attitude toward excellent service delivery.

Twelve Strategies for Promoting a Positive Service Culture:

1. Find out your company’s vision. By better understanding the organization’s focus and asking yourself, “What is the added value and results for me?” (AVARFM), you can strengthen your own commitment to the organization’s success. For example, when a new policy is adopted that mandates you answer the phone by the third ring, this is an example of AVARFM.

A “mystery caller” system is in place to monitor compliance.

Rewards are also offered to any employee who meets the three-ring requirement. Compliance now has a cause or added value associated with it.

2. Assist in everyday customer communication about the company’s culture and goals. Customers have specific goals in mind. It is useless for the company to have a vision if you do not assist in communicating and demonstrating it to customers. Many companies use slogans and posters to promote their vision throughout the workplace or service area. Although these methods reinforce the message, regularly providing excellent customer service is more effective. Customers will sense your commitment to serve them by your attitude, language, look, product and service knowledge, body language, and communication style.
3. Exhibit ethical behaviour. Ethical behaviour is founded on societal, organisational, and employee principles. These values comprise various views, ideologies, perceptions, experiences, and a sense of what is suitable and unsuitable (inappropriate). The client’s values and how he or she perceives your behaviour often impact how successfully you demonstrate ethical behaviour, and the consumer frequently holds you and your organisation to high standards. As a result, you must be conscious of your words and actions so that you don’t accidentally send a poor ethical message to your customers.

How do you know which values are most essential to your company?

They are frequently stated in an employee handbook during recruit orientation. They’re sometimes engraved on a plaque on the wall, potentially as part of or next to the purpose or philosophy statement. The reality test, or “where the rubber meets the road” regarding your organization’s values, occurs in your and your organization’s day-to-day operational actions.

From an ethical aspect, it is frequently up to you and your frontline colleagues to assess the issue, listen to your customers’ needs, scrutinise your company’s policies and procedures, weigh all choices, and make the “correct” decision. This decision is morally and legally correct and fair to your customers and your company. The Insider, a 1999 film starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, epitomised ethical dilemmas. The film is based on the true story of a tobacco industry insider who exposed his company’s public denial of smoking’s hazardous side effects. Even though he stood to lose everything, including his life, the guy acted out of conscience to aid others. Another film, Erin Brockovich, showed what might happen if unethical behaviour is not recognised and remedied quickly by a company. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was shown in the film dumping poisons into the soil and water in Hinkley, California, for years. They then covered up the pollution, even though many nearby inhabitants suffered significant health problems and died as a result. The corporation even paid some residents’ medical bills to convey the impression of being a good corporate neighbour.

While working for a tiny legal firm, Erin was able to piece together the information, and a class-action lawsuit resulted in the highest class-action lawsuit settlement in history at the time, as well as severe harm to PG&E’s reputation.

4. Recognize and develop your customer service abilities. Review your interpersonal and customer service skills; capitalise on your strong points and work on your weaknesses. You position yourself as a resource to the client and an asset to the organisation by regularly improving your knowledge and abilities related to people, customer service, and products and services supplied. If you want to understand more about yourself, visit www.mhhe.com / customer service for a list of other websites offering behavioural-style surveys.
5. Learn everything there is to know about your company. You are likely to receive a variety of queries about the company as the first point of contact with clients. Questions about the company’s history, organisation, policies & processes, systems, goods, and services are common. You may present a more educated, helpful, and confident image that adds to total customer satisfaction by being well-versed in the numerous parts of the organisation and its functioning, related industry subjects, and your competitor.
6. Demonstrate your dedication. You are the organization’s representative as an employee with customer contact chances and obligations. Many frontline employees (and many managers) make the mistake of demonstrating a lack of commitment or support for their firm and a sense of impotence when communicating with consumers. The pronoun “they” is a typical example when dealing with customers. This can be regarding management, rules, or processes, such as “Mrs Howard, I’d want to assist you, but our policy states…” or “Mrs Howard, I looked into your request, but my manager (they) told me we couldn’t.”

Taking ownership or responsibility for an issue by informing the customer what you can do, rather than what you can’t, is an alternative to utilising “they” language. Customers aren’t concerned with internal politics or procedures; they want their wants met. It is unjust and irresponsible to try to involve customers in issues that are beyond their control and do not affect them. Positive words and effort on your part can help you avoid dragging the consumer in unnecessarily. Here’s one strategy: “Mrs. Howard, I apologise for the trouble caused by our blunder (policy or omission). What I can do to assist in the resolution of this matter is ”

7. Collaborate with customers. Customers are the reason you have a job and your company is still going strong. With this in mind, do everything possible to foster a positive, healthy customer-provider connection. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Here are a few simple methods:

• Be open and direct in your communication.
• Smile to give out a good vibe.
• Pay close attention to what’s being said, and then answer appropriately.
• Facilitate scenarios where client demands are addressed, and you succeed in win-win circumstances that help the organisation achieve its objectives.
• Rather than focusing on a one-time service or sales opportunity, focus on building a long-term relationship with consumers.

8. Always consider your customer’s best interests. Consider this: “What kind of service would I expect if I were my customer?” Then, go about providing that service.
9. Treat your vendors and suppliers as though they were consumers. Some customer service representatives view vendors and suppliers as salespeople whose sole goal is to serve them. In fact, every interaction with a vendor or supplier presents a perfect opportunity to tap into a pre-existing network, potentially extend your customer service base, and improve support to current customers.
10. Make resources available to others. You can construct a support system of resources by developing solid interpersonal ties with coworkers and colleagues across the business. Customers occasionally ask for information, products, or services your company does not provide. You will have performed a service by being able to lead clients to alternative sources, and they are likely to recall that you indirectly assisted them.
11. Work with your customers rather than against them. Customers have the unique luxury of being in charge. The cliché “It’s a buyer’s market” has never been more true in recent history, and many consumers know it. To take advantage of this circumstance, many businesses have grown more inventive and proactive in attracting and retaining clients.

Albertson’s, a prominent national supermarket founded in Colorado, created a series of commercials proclaiming “Albertson’s—your it’s shop” and emphasising that the company’s efforts were centred on customer happiness. Similarly, your efforts should give the impression that you are collaborating with customers to serve them better.

12. Follow up on the service. One of the most crucial aspects of customer service is providing follow-up. When a service encounter or a sale is completed, the service does not terminate. There are several options for follow-up to ensure client satisfaction.

This can be accomplished through a formal customer satisfaction survey or a telephone call-back system, as well as an informal practice of sending thank-you cards, birthday cards, special offer mailings, and other low-cost, low-effort initiatives. Consider new strategies for following up, and then talk to your boss about implementing them.