Customer Service And CX Are Not Just For People On The Front Line
Customer service is not a department. It’s a philosophy that everyone in an organization must embrace. It’s the same with customer experience (CX), which most people view as a strategy. However, both customer service and experience must be rooted in a company’s culture. Everyone plays a part in the customer’s experience, regardless of how deep they are inside of the organization.
My friend Kelechi Okeke, a certified customer experience specialist in Lagos, Nigeria, recently wrote an article about the potential breakdown across different teams and departments when attempting to create a customer-focused culture. The goal is for the entire organization to work in unison, eliminating breakdowns due to disconnects in messaging, not aligning with the culture and just being so “siloed” the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I contributed a few ideas to his article and thought I would expand on them and share them with the Forbes audience.
When an organization chooses to be more customer-focused, the decision rests with leadership. The mistake is that the attention is fixed on the front line and anyone in direct contact with customers. Many don’t realize the effort must go much deeper than the customer-facing employees. Some, however, will recognize the disconnect and understand that customer service and experience must be an organization-wide effort that is embraced by all employees.
When we work with clients to create a customer-focused culture, the process starts with leadership and department heads meeting to create a customer service/CX vision I refer to as a mantra. This is a simple one-sentence (or less) statement that is short and memorable. For example, Texas Health Huguley created a purpose statement: “People serving people like those we love the most.” That sums up exactly how they want all employees to treat patients, their family members and other employees. That type of statement isn’t a theme for the year. It’s strong enough to be permanently baked into mission, vision and value statements. The mantra is where it starts. It’s the “north star” that everyone focuses on when it comes to customer service and CX.
Once that mantra is defined, it must be communicated. It needs to be reinforced in many ways through ongoing communication over time. This can be through leadership and management presentations, email signature lines, posters, wall art, promotional items, etc. No matter how long ago the mantra was created, all employees must know, understand and live by it.
The next step is training, which is where many companies fall short, specifically in two areas. Some don’t realize that training isn’t something you did. It’s something you do. It must be ongoing and reinforce the original intent of the training. You can’t take people into a room for a day, train them to be customer-focused and hope they will remember it five years later. Once an employee goes through the initial training, there must be (much) shorter training sessions, even just a few minutes in a weekly or monthly meeting, to reinforce and remind everyone what they need to do.
The second area in which many companies fall short with their customer-focus training is that they only train customer-facing employees, typically people in sales and customer support. As already mentioned, an organization must go deep with its training. Everyone must be trained. Of course, customer support agents’ training will be far different than that for employees in the warehouse. The point is everyone must know how they support the customer’s experience. For example, employees in the warehouse may never need front-line customer support skills, but they must understand that if they improperly pack a product that’s shipped to a customer and the product is damaged en route, that falls on them. They become a significant part of the customer’s experience, yet they never have any customer interaction. The point is that everyone must be trained to the initiative, not just people who interact with customers.
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If you focus on the first three steps of the process—creating your mantra, diligently communicating it and properly training all employees—you’re on your way to becoming an aligned organization without the breakdowns of some companies and brands that are set in their old ways.
One final thought on this process. When people and departments—or the entire company—are meeting your customer service and experience goals, let them know. Celebrate successes, share stories and let people know they are doing a good job. Good behavior and success that are recognized beget more of the same!
Shep Hyken is a customer service and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling business author. Learn more about Shep's virtual training programs and follow #ShepHyken for more insights on customer service and experience.
This article was originally published on Forbes.
Check out Shep's latest research in his Achieving Customer Amazement Study, Sponsored by Five9.
Consultant & Coach for managers LINC Profiler, BDVT certified Business Coach; Neurodynamic Coaching
1yThe lack of understanding what happens in customer service for Marketing, technology or IT colleagues is a daily challenge. I vote for a mandatory job visiting. Not a single conversation is similar to the other - flexibility, empathy, competency, know-how, active listening, product & process expertise - all this and more is required to create an outstanding WOW experience for our customers - so let all employees have a look how our agents perform their magic!
Passionate and driven professional with expertise in change management, service design, student engagement, and customer service management.
1yChristine Inkster
Global Customer Experience Management Consultant | CEO, Niver CX Consulting | Speaker | Author | Coach | Trainer | I help organizations address, fix and manage their customer issues
1yIt seems we're thinking alike • Shep Hyken 😂 I made a post on this topic last week. Indeed, customer service is not a department. Customer support can be a department but customer service is everyone's job from the CEO to the cleaner.
I help achieve business objectives ensuring the appropriate level of Cyber Security with a focus on M&A.
1yI really liked this comment; Customer service is not a department, It’s a philosophy....