Amazing Customer Experiences Start with Your Team:
It seems obvious that the customer experience is totally tied to your team but, the real question is how do you keep your team constantly focused on creating amazing experiences? We all know that the most vulnerable point of our business is how your team members respond to and interact with your customers. This is where 90% of your business is lost or made.
So how do we take all the guess work out of your team and create a machine of automatic amazing customer experience? The ideas, plans and intentions of the owner are conveyed by and through your team to your customers, so you must master training and educating your team on how you want them to interact with your customers.
First you must understand that passionate customer centric team members are not employees. Employees are those individuals that you interview that know little or nothing about what you do and why you do it. Employees are the people that are looking for a paycheck, health insurance, 401K and 9-5 hours. None of these are bad qualities, they are just for clarification that until you develop them into your team they have no passion for your business and only focus on the needs they have. Employees come in all shapes, sizes, color, age and educational background. This is not to say that employees aren’t customer service machines for your business, most can be trained to be but they don’t walk in the door that way. How could they, they have no idea what you or your business stands for so they have no ability to understand and share that passion.
Now that we’ve laid out that footing let’s look at a few things:
- What drove you to start your business?
- Why do you get up and go to work every morning?
- Why do you love to share what you do with others?
Your passion is what makes your business successful or not. There’s a reason you invested your life savings, work all kinds of crazy hours and will stop at nothing to follow through with what you believe in. That’s what makes you successful and now you must figure out how to instill that passion into each of your team members. Every single action your team makes and every process they do for your business, down to greeting people walking in and out of your building and handling your mail, must revolve around your purpose. Why is how they process the mail for you so important and how is it tied to the customer experience? Every single process in your business must exude your passion.
Let’s look at this for a comparison:
Walt Disney in creating the Disney theme parks wanted them to be “the happiest place on earth”. So, what does this mean really? His passion and intention shows in every single detail in every park they own. Think about it, the bushes are cut into characters, the toilet paper in the public bathrooms are folded in certain ways not just put on the dispenser, the napkins at the restaurants are all always neatly folded and labeled, the light fixtures all have a specific theme and the water fountains all have a design and theme, heck even the trash cans are decorated and labeled with a theme! These examples merely point to several extra steps the park goes to to ensure you can see their mission in every single piece of their park. It is all about the experience and each of these details add to the experience and making it the happiest place on earth! There is not one detail left unattended to. Add to each of these details that each team member speaks to every guest they meet no matter if they are a gardener keeping the bushes manicured, the young lady or gentlemen cleaning the bathroom or the attendant at the ride your hopping on, everything is constantly attended to so that your experience is all that’s important. Each of these team members are happy to speak to every guest they meet. Most of these small details are lost on businesses and these details are some of the most important parts of the customer experience.
An Amazing Customer Experience is definitely not all about what service you provide, the customer can get that somewhere else, it’s about how you and your team make them feel about what you provide. In order to get you and your team to this point you need to back up to our earlier discussion about why you created your business. What pain did you want to solve and why? Your purpose is what defines every single action by every single person in your business as it does with Disney theme parks. Once you’ve determined that, you need to walk through the steps that each person in your business takes one by one. I know, I know, this will take a little time, but trust me it will be worth it!
Start with the receptionist:
This is the most important contact in your business! Don’t let a machine answer your phone, people want to talk to people (my most important tip here!). When thinking about your receptionist what does she do regularly every day? List each task then next to it add a description of how she does it. Remember the details are important here. As you’re listing the details remember that instead of listing how she does it now, list how she/he needs to do each task with your purpose and passion driving each task. How would you do it if the person on the other end of the phone or in front of your desk was your absolute perfect customer? How would you take care of that person and what extra miles would you go to? This is how you create the procedures for your receptionist to work with each guest that calls or comes in your door.
Once you create the list of duties and how you want each done with the scope of your passion as the driving force, you will have created the perfect working manual for how you want to create that amazing customer experience.
The next steps are obvious, you will need to do this for each open position on your team:
As you develop these descriptions of your ‘newly’ designed company it will be energizing for you. You’re now on the path for those Amazing Experiences for your Customers to be everyday regular experiences! You’ll be creating a team of mini me’s that will soon not only represent you, but your customers will be raving about you and them to others. Hey, wait that’s what you want isn’t it? That’s how the most basic and loyal business happens, when your customers find out about you, work with you, get to know you, like you and trust you enough to tell everyone they know!
After you’ve completed your newly designed descriptions for each position it’s now time to implement them. Remember you may find that one or more of your team members may no longer be a perfect fit for their current position so you may need to do some rearranging which is ok, its part of creating that experience you want.
Now let’s get to some training:
As you start to roll out this new design you need to sit your complete team down and walk them through the process and why you’ve done this. Then you need to explain your passion and how that ties into the changes you’ll be making. It is the mission of why you started your business in the first place and if they can understand you and why you do it they we more easily be able to buy into the changes and carry your passion into their actions every day.
Now, let’s get to some individual team training, start with your managers. They must buy into to your training or no one else will, they set the tone. Retraining them will be the hardest part but will also be the most rewarding. As they start to come through the process you will see the shift and the project will start to come together. Then you empower your managers to train their people. This will take a little time too so be patient.
This won’t be simple and it won’t all fall into place easily but it will totally be worth it. As your team starts to understand and work with your passion as the driving force that creates every process you’ll see a shift from employees to a team. Everything they do will be based on your passion and how it effects everyone else on the team. Each of their jobs, whether they do it well or not, will reflect on how the whole team does. Customer Service is only as good as each part of the process and working as a team with only the passion and mission of the owner as a focus will guide your team to creating the most Amazing Customer Experience every time!
Here’s an exercise to help guide your team in your vision and direction:
Create a list of 5 words or phrases that you want each of them to make mandatory in every conversation they have. You know how Chic Fil A has each employee say “my pleasure” no matter what you say or ask? It sticks with you and they are known for that polite response. You should have a few words or phrases each employee is trained to use when they are talking to a customer about your business.
Training your team to share your passion in every conversation will ensure you cut losses and will build your amazing customer experience. That experience will keep them talking about you again and again to everyone they know!
To learn more about increasing your closings by creating a customer service machine with your team, you can download our free resource https://www.conniefuksa.com/4-proven-strategies-to-bring-in-more-closings
Connie Fuksa
Connie Fuksa is an energetic speaker and facilitator and author who is on a mission to raise awareness of the value and purpose of title agencies and the intricacies of the title/closing process so that consumers can make more informed buying decisions. As the head of her own title company for nearly 30 years, Connie knows the challenges of the title industry, but also sees the opportunities. She is pioneering a new way of doing business by empowering title companies to grow passionate teams and better communicate with consumers. Connie also produces a regular broadcast that provides advice and home closing information directly to consumers. Outside of her work, Connie loves to ride her Harley and loves being outside and gardening. She’s been married for over 27 years and is proud momma to a son who’s a Navy sailor and a very active pup.
