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Great Service Starts with Mastering the Basics …Not Mastering the Basics – “Turn
the cup over if you don’t want coffee.”
A colleague of ours was at a banquet with a client a couple
nights ago. Early in the dinner, before salads had been served, one of the wait staff came by and
offered coffee to the client. The client declined, suggesting he would wait until after dinner. The
waiter then snapped, “Well, turn your cup over if you don’t want coffee!” Appropriately
reprimanded, the client returned to his conversation with our colleague.
I suspect that somewhere along the line the banquet
server had been trained that if the coffee cup is turned up it means the guest is ready for coffee. And,
if it’s turned down, that means no coffee. So, he probably figured he was doing his job pretty
well. Unfortunately, neither my colleague nor his client felt too great about the experience. The
banquet server missed one or more basic concepts of service delivery: seeing the situation as the
customer sees it, having empathy for the customer, the customer is always right except in those cases in which the customer
is wrong (this not being one of those cases) and/or your guests are not paying to be at the dinner so that they can get your
lecture on dinner etiquette!
An understanding of those basic aspects concepts would suggest that the server could have just said, “Yes,
Sir” and moved on to the next guest (remembering, of course, to come back and serve Mr. Big Client coffee after dinner). What
should have been a simple transaction with no effect on the future purchases of guests, threatened to drive them away forever. Unfortunately, service and
treatment like this is not uncommon. Recently, my wife and I were having dinner with a couple of friends
in a restaurant billing itself as a 4-star quality experience. One of our dinner companions ordered
a very lovely looking (and tasting!) version of chocolate mousse pie. The waitress delivered the dessert
without utensils and quickly turned and walked away. Our companion was left with only her coffee spoon
to eat the pie. (Strike 1!) So, we waited. And waited. And,
waited for the server to return near enough to our table for us to be able to flag her down. Unfortunately,
it was near closing time for the restaurant so our server was on the far side of the dining room re-setting tables for the
next day, so she was not exactly attentive to our needs. We assumed that her after work plans were
far more important than our needs for a fork! (Strike 2!) When our companion was finally able to ask for a fork, rather than
just get the fork quickly, efficiently and with a smile, the server was prompted to exclaim, “A fork?! Most
people eat dessert with a spoon.” (Strike 3, you’re out!) Now,
the dessert was actually pretty darn good – good enough to motivate a return visit. But, our
collective memory of the place will always be tainted with our memory of the server’s rebuke. Both restaurants – rather
than creating memories for its food, or attentive service or great ambiance – became places that you get lectured by
the staff…not the kind of memories that get guests to come back. Heck, we get enough of that at home from our teenagers! Questions to consider: What
are the “basics” of service delivery in your organization? How are those “basics”
built into your training programs and reinforced by leaders? How well do your frontline service execute
on the “basics?” To what extent do they look at the world from the customer’s point-of-view? What
education/information do they need to help them get it? How do you know what your customers think
of the service they are getting? What’s your recovery strategy when things go awry? Delivering the basics well
may or may not lead to great customer loyalty. But, mastering them will at least keep you from driving
customers away. Labels: Creating WOW, customer service, loyalty, quality Pitfalls in Succession Planning and Talent Management Succession Planning
and Talent Management have become hot topics in the Human Resources and Human Capital Management world over the last few years.
And, for good reason – effective leaders continue to be one of the most precious resources in any business. Effective
Succession Planning/Talent Management processes offer the hope that the organization can sprout an endless supply of the leadership
talent necessary to deal with rapidly changing, chaotic business environments. The stakes are huge -- done well,
the talent management process makes a major contribution to the success and sustainability of the organization. (One client
of ours first instituted a succession planning/talent management process in their organization about five years ago. That
enabled them to identify leadership candidates who have since helped the organization successfully grow over 30% per year.)
Done poorly, or not at all, the talent management process can cause significant harm in organizations of any size and in any
industry. (A more recent client is only now starting to put a process in place. Partly as a result, the client has had the
wrong leaders in the wrong roles and the company’s business has shrunk each of the last several years.) In addition
to enabling or preventing success, the Talent Management process sends powerful signals about how to succeed in the organization
– those results, behaviors and values become embedded in the organization for the long term. With that in
mind, here are some of the key pitfalls we’ve seen organizations fall into in their Succession Planning and Talent Management
process: 1) Not having a Succession Plan or Talent Management process at all. As much press as Succession Planning
has garnered lately, and as headline grabbing as some of the failures have been, we continue to be astonished at the number
of organizations that have no process in place for identifying and developing the talent they need. 2) Not identifying
the key business and organizational issues the company faces. Many Succession Planning processes are just designed to fill
empty spaces in the organization chart. Done correctly, the Succession Planning/Talent Management process must be "future-oriented"
and develop leaders who can operate effectively in the future. 3) Not translating the key business and organizational
issues into the capabilities and competencies required for success in the future. So, the organization ends up with leaders
perfectly skilled for a world that doesn’t exist any longer. 4) Building only a partial profile of the capabilities,
competencies, personal characteristics and values necessary for success in a specific job role. Values and fitness for a specific
job role count. Merely evaluating candidates on their technical/function skills or past performance is probably the number
one reason leaders flunk out. 5) Accepting “he’s a good guy” as a valid assessment of a candidate
for a future promotion. (Or its common corollary – “Hey, I worked with this guy at the last place I worked. He’ll
be great here.” Often from someone who is already not so great here!) Effective talent management requires rigorous,
data-based assessments of the performance and potential of the candidates relative to their ability to perform well in a specific
job role in this business and within the value set of this organization. “He’s a good guy” is not exactly
“data-based!” :) 6) Confusing “performance management” with “talent management.”
Performance management is a “looking back” process. Being successful in the current job is a critical hurdle for
candidates for promotion, but it’s not a predictor of future success in a different job role. Talent Management is a
“looking forward” process. Candidates need to be assessed relative to their capabilities to fill the future role,
not the past role. 7) A lack of straight talk – not being frank with candidates about their strengths and
weaknesses. Or, holding a different conversation about a candidate upwards with your boss or bosses – “This person
is really challenged by these issues.” —than the feedback you provide the candidate – “I ranked you
as my number one person.” 8) Not creating accountability for developing future leaders – the most simple
and basic requirement is that every leader must have developed at least one “ready now” candidate for his/her
own job before they can be promoted. 9) Whiffing on the development planning and execution part of the Talent Management
process. Common pitfalls include not providing sufficient development opportunities to enable candidates to address their
needed improvement areas, not specifically tying development activities to Succession Planning/Talent Management process outputs
and not executing, tracking or following up on development plans. 10) Not using the output of the Succession Planning
process to fill jobs or to build the candidate pool for filling jobs. We’ve seen organizations build elaborate talent
management processes to identify and groom their leaders. Then, they ignore the results because “Joe’s a really
good guy. Let’s promote him.” 11) Over-relying on the output of the Succession Planning process to
fill job openings. The Succession Planning process should produce a pool of candidates to fill open positions. Blindly plucking
someone from the pool and inserting him/her into the job is not a good idea either. The candidates in the pool need to be
fully vetted for the position at the time it opens up. 12) Not measuring the process or the outcomes of Succession
Planning and Talent Management efforts. The process must be measured and the data used to improve the system over time. 13) Adopting a “check-the-box” mentality toward Succession Planning or viewing the process as a one-stop
process. “Ok, we did that. The Board/CEO/my boss is off my back. Let’s go back to running the business.”
Regularly assessing the issues facing the organization, translating those issues into the capabilities required for success
and then building succession and talent management plans to develop those capabilities play a critical role in the overall
performance management cycle of the business. They need to become a regular part of the business review process and/or have
their own operating processes (like the Session C process at General Electric). As always, we invite your comments…What
succession planning/talent management pitfalls has your organization bumped into? How did you overcome them? What practices
have you adopted that really enable the process to be effective? Labels: leadership, performance, Performance Management, Succession Planning, Talent Management Creating WOW! Part 2 Hertz, Boston Logan Airport This is
a major shout-out to my new best friend, Brian, and his team at the Hertz (http://www.hertz.com) facility at Boston Logan
Airport. I’ve been a pretty loyal Hertz customer for most of the last 20 years. Friends and colleagues often question
the sanity of paying extra for Hertz car rentals versus many of their competitors. Here’s why… …My
family and I were traveling in the Boston and Southern New Hampshire area for part of our spring break trip. On the plane
after dropping off the car, Heather discovered that she had left her glasses in a storage tray in the car we had been driving.
And, we discovered that we had also left behind a hat and a pair of mittens in the same storage tray. I’ve been renting
cars for over 20 years. In that time, I’d never left anything of substance behind, but always assumed that if I left
it in a car that would be the last time I ever saw the article. We called Hertz as soon as we got off the plane
to see if the items had been found. The representative searched for us, but couldn’t find them. However, it was late
on a Sunday night so he suggested that we call back the next morning and talk to “Brian” who handles lost and
found among other responsibilities. Monday morning I called Brian and left a message. Figuring this experience
would be like most others with major corporations, I didn’t expect to hear back from him for a few days, if at all.
Our first surprise then came when Brian called back within about 10 minutes. The good news was that he had already found the
glasses and the mittens. The bad news was that the hat was missing. We were elated to know that the glasses had been found.
Then came surprise number 2 – Brian asked if we knew that one of us was also missing a Palm Tungsten T5 PDA. The shock
to us was that we didn’t even yet know that the PDA was missing. We had him check a couple entries to verify that the
PDA belonged to me. Then, came surprise number 3 – Brian said he could ship the items back to us immediately if we could
give him a shipping company account number. I was out of my office so I told him that either I could call him back with the
number or he could pull it out of the contact file on the Palm handheld. (Sure, I thought. Who is going to want to do that?)
Within seconds Brian pulled up the number, confirmed that it was the right one and said that everything would be shipped for
delivery the next day. Sure enough, it all showed up Tuesday afternoon. Epilogue to the story (Surprise #4): About
a week later, the hat that apparently had not been found showed up unannounced in a separate package in the mail. Brian and
his team stayed on the hunt long enough to find it. We, of course, were delighted on many levels. Brian and his
team saved us hundreds of dollars and countless amounts of hassle by finding the glasses, the Palm and the other items. His
courtesy, energy and enthusiasm on our behalf far exceeded what we expect and get from most service people these days. And,
his initiative in finding the items in the first place, making getting them back to us by finding the shipping company account
number and staying on the project until all the items were returned was truly astounding. In all, Brian’s
effort added up to a phenomenal WOW! experience that earned our loyalty to Hertz for at least the next 20 years! Questions to consider: How many “Brian-type” employees work in your organization? What are they doing to create
WOW! experiences for your customers? Where does your organization fall short? To what extent do people have the latitude to
WOW! the customers? To what extent do they believe it’s their responsibility to do so? What’s the value of a long-term,
loyal customer to your organization? What are you doing to ensure you create more of those type customers? Labels:
Creating WOW, customer service, loyalty CREATING WOW! Part 1 Jaspers Restaurant, Plano, Texas, lunching with
a client. My client had a challenge – he had dined there the previous evening with another person, paid
cash and had forgotten to get the receipt. In doing so he had broken Cardinal Rule #1 of business travel – don’t
ever forget the documentation! No receipt, no reimbursement! So, he resolved to get a replacement receipt while
we had lunch. Uh, sure. Let’s recount the key fact… he paid cash! So there was no credit card number to research.
I figured the odds of getting the new receipt while we were still there for lunch were roughly the odds of me a) winning the
lotto, b) finally convincing Angelina to dump Brad for me and c) actually riding the Kentucky Derby winner this year. In short,
zero. So, here’s what actually transpired… 1) When we entered the restaurant, he asked
the hostess if there was a way to get a duplicate receipt… she said she would get a manager to help him. 2)
Within two minutes, the manager approached us at our table to understand the situation. 3) About four minutes later,
a very courteous person who I assume to be the restaurant controller approached the table and collected all of the details
of the previous night’s dinner. What time were you here? How many people in the party? Do you have a rough idea of the
cost? Do you recall what you ordered? Our client gave reasonably accurate, but somewhat fuzzy responses to all the questions
– halftime of the football game, 2 people, about $90, salmon and a pasta dish. 4) Less than 10 minutes later,
she was back, receipt in hand. 5) Then, just to make sure we were totally blown away, the hostess approached us
to make sure everything got sorted out. The three of us at lunch all vowed to return to Jasper’s again…
soon. (I went back two days later with another group of people.) And, how was the food you might ask… good,
but not memorable by itself. You can get great food at a lot of places. But the WOW! effect – what created the memorable
experience – was driven by the responsiveness, attentiveness and ability to completely customize the experience for
our colleague. What are your opportunities to create WOW!? And, are your employees in a position to take advantage
of them? Labels: Creating WOW, customer service, quality The Internet Marketing Driver: What's an RSS Feed? By Popular Request... Two
weeks ago, I couldn't spell "RSS Feed." Now I'm telling people to set up one from the WhiteWater Consulting
Group blog so they don't miss any posts. So, why the big shift and why should anyone be interested? In simple
terms -- i.e., those that I can understand -- RSS feeds are a great way to get content from all over the Internet customized
to your specific needs and interests. It's like being the publisher of your very own version of the New York Times. Many
Internet sites now have easy links to set up RSS feeds that send the information you want directly to you. For
more information about RSS feeds and how to take advantage of them, check out this link written by my good friend and absolute
web marketing guru, Glenn Gabe: The Internet Marketing Driver: What's an RSS Feed? By Popular Request...Then, after you've checked out Glenn's post, come back to "Leadership in the Midst of Chaos,"
and subscribe to our feed. Labels: RSS New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders By now, almost everyone
is back at work after an extended holiday period. Many people set some New Year’s Resolutions. Lose weight. Get in shape.
Live within your budget. Get organized. Learn to sail, or dive, or paint.
Maybe, some of you set resolutions for
themselves as leaders. With that in mind, here are some that we hope might be on the list:
1. Energize
People
In the spirit of John Wayne, the role of leadership is to “get the herd moving roughly west.”
The real question, though, is do you get the herd moving by dragging them kicking and screaming or, to paraphrase Lao Tze,
do you have to run to catch up with them? Resolve to:
create an environment in which “roughly west”
is clearly defined and so compelling that you must run to catch up with the herd.
educate people and build visible scorecards
so they know what direction to go and they know whether they’re making progress fast enough.
give people the latitude
to make decisions and take action so they willingly drive themselves West.
Then if someone really can’t keep
up or chooses to head in the wrong direction, resolve to cut them from the herd!
2. Deal with Reality
The essence of leadership is to define the gap between where the group or organization is right now and where it needs to
be at some point in the future (tomorrow, next month or next year) and then engage the organization in closing that gap. The
process starts with defining today’s reality with real data – What do customer’s perceive of the value they
receive? What processes are working or not working? Where does financial performance need to improve? What’s it really
like to be an employee in your organization?
Too often leaders assume they know those answers without any real
data or evidence. So, get real data, as blunt and as harsh and as uncomfortable as it might be. And, make sure everyone else
has the same data – so they can play a role in moving forward.
3. Look at the world from the customer’s
point of view.
That organizations only achieve and sustain success because customers perceive value in their
products and services is not a major revelation. Everyone knows that. Nonetheless, we continue to be amazed at the number
of leaders who have no feedback loops in place to understand what customers value, what they don’t value, changes they
would like to see made to remain loyal customers, what drives their repeat purchases, what drives them away or what new competitors
they are either considering or actually doing business with.
We recently helped two clients evaluate existing businesses
for purchase. In both cases, revenues in the businesses had hit revenue peaks months ago and had been declining ever since.
Neither of the current business owners could identify why revenues were decreasing, why customers were defecting or how their
current customers felt about doing business with them.
Regardless of whether you own the business, are a leader
at any level in the business or only provide service internally, resolve to never let this happen to you.
4.
Differentiate Between Performance
Nothing is more discouraging or disrespectful to high performers than leaders
who don’t correctly identify who’s performing, who’s not performing and then to differentiate rewards, recognition
and responsibility based upon that performance.
Nothing saps the energy out of an organization or a work-group
faster than treating everyone the same. And, leaders are absolutely fooling themselves if they think people don’t know.
In most cases, the co-workers know better than the leaders who’s contributing and who is not.
So, resolve
to get the right goals and measures in place, identify who’s hitting and exceeding targets and who’s not and then…
5. Hold the Tough Conversations
Ok, most of us avoid them like the plague… we have millions
of years of genetic programming that cause us to avoid tough conversations – when performance doesn’t meet expectations,
when behavior falls outside acceptable boundaries, when co-workers or peers aren’t pulling their weight, when our boss
is being a jerk.
And, as a result, people don’t get the feedback they need to perform like champions. People
who deserve a low rating on the performance appraisal get rated a 3 because either a) we don’t have real data or b)
we want to avoid the conflict. And it sucks the life right out of the organization. As leaders, we might feel better in the
short-run for avoiding the conflict, but the long-term consequences can be disastrous.
So resolve to hold the tough
conversations…now!
6. Challenge my Thinking
Every year hundreds management books are
published outlining techniques leaders can employ to motivate their employees, energize their organizations, better manage
their time or, even, listen more effectively. And, most of them contain great stuff…but they also mostly miss the mark.
The real key to improving leadership effectiveness is for leaders to challenge their own underlying thinking –
their mental models, assumptions, beliefs and perceptions about the world and the people around them. Rather than read the
next book on “firing up your team” the real issue should be setting aside the assumptions about what motivates
(or de-motivates them) and just ask them. Rather than assume that your customers are satisfied because they aren’t complaining,
find out what they really think (see Resolution #3). Then, take action, not because you read it in the latest best-seller,
but because you now understand what people need or what your customers want. Think about what you think about people
– if you see people who just aren’t capable of doing what you expect, they’ll probably perform that way.
If you see people who have a ton of untapped potential, resolve to tap into…and then, they’ll probably perform
that way!
And, paradoxically, read more! Let what you read challenge your current thoughts about leadership, management
and creating value for your customers. Find new role models that think differently from you, or who have had different experiences.
Tap into their experience to expand your own. Get curious about how things work in other organizations. Don’t blindly
copy, but try to understand how others succeed and what might apply to you and your organization.
We
invite your thoughts and comments. What New Year’s Resolutions have you adopted as a leader?
Labels:
change, leadership, performance, results
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