I was born in London, but moved with my parents to New York ... where I grew up, went to high school, started work at IBM and ... got drafted into the US Army (a career halter, that one)!
When in high school, I had an after hours job at a supermarket in my home town, Mount Kisco, in Westchester County.
I started in that job as a packer – groceries were put into a bin, placed on a conveyor belt and pushed through to me. Customers would drive up, present me with their ticket(s) and I would load their groceries into their car boot (or ‘trunk’ as I called it then).
My little brain worked out pretty quickly that if you smiled and were friendly and loaded the shopping bags carefully, you got a tip ... everything from 25 cents to $1.
By the way, Betty White and her late husband, Alan Ludden, used to shop at my supermarket every Friday night. They drove up in their lime green Cadillac and Alan Ludden would get out of the car to help, but I also assured him that I was happy to load all the groceries in the car for him. He appreciated that (they all did) and Allen Ludden was a buck ($1) tipper! I also loved when Betty White would be sitting in the front seat, give me a dazzling smile (it has not changed, even today) and a wave. She did this every time they turned up. They were a lovely couple ... she smiled and waved ... he was a buck tipper.
After a while, management decided I would be excellent as a cashier. No one tipped cashiers. My feelings as expressed to management? No, I would not be a good cashier. Management won.
Now, a cashier would total up the amounts and load the bags into the trolley or into the bin and onto the conveyor. That was pretty much it. No warmth...no sense of service.
Not me.
I was friendly to every customer, I talked to them about their kids, their holidays (vacations) ... anything they liked. I gave them double bags, yep, one (paper) bag inside another ... packed the bottom layer with cans or drinks and lighter materials on the top. Cold and frozen items always went into a double bag. Management discouraged double bagging because you used, well, twice as many bags. Didn’t bother me ... if they had heavy items they got one or more double bags, in order to ease their load when they unpacked their car at home. That really impressed a lot of mums, on their own, who had to unpack at the other end. Some Thursday or Friday afternoons/evenings, I would have a line of people waiting for me to serve them ... they preferred to wait rather than be served by my fellow employees, who did not understand the concept of service (hey, we were all young and probably our hormones were pointing in other directions ... but my thoughts were – when you are at work, work).
Is your member service to a ‘double bag’ standard?
What is the foundation of every member service or member loyalty program? What is it that will induce your members to become your advocates? What really wins ‘members for life’?
The answer, although obvious, is often overlooked in our high tech world. The answer is – YOUR PEOPLE.
Your people are your greatest resources for achieving member delight, member retention, member advocacy and long term member satisfaction. Conversely your people can be the major causes of relationship breakdowns, non-renewals, disharmony and lack of trust on the part of members (current and ex).
Let’s look at how you can create EXCELLENT member service.
- Read, analyse and RESPOND to surveys – from other internal team members as well as your own people. Don’t be afraid to make the difficult decisions, including taking a cold, hard look at your management style and that of other team leaders/supervisors within your member services centre.
- Communicate to your people that your organisation is the paymaster – the member actually pays their salary (thanks to Henry Ford for this little gem).
- People who know what they are doing, why their job is important and where they are heading (team wise and career wise) are usually a lot more switched on and self motivated than people who consider themselves to be ‘mushrooms’. The answer is feedback, and it is every employees’ right, in every organisation, to be given feedback.
- Constant, positive reinforcement allows people to re-focus their attitudes in a more dynamic way, to change their behaviour to a more desirable style and to become a more productive team member. Reinforcement of desired behaviour (and striving to change undesirable behaviour) is one of the best ways to promote better member service. It is also one of the least used management tools.
- People need to understand and accept that there is no difference between internal and external service. Everyone in an organisation is serving someone else. If they are not, what exactly are they doing there?
- Little things count. Volunteering time to help an overworked colleague, answering another’s telephone, arriving at work a little earlier, staying a little later. Reward these little things and they will become habits. Your members will benefit from these habits as well!
- Is the term ‘ownership’ a reality in your organisation or just another buzz word? Can your people solve problems and make on-the-spot decisions relating to a member’s needs? Are they encouraged to take the initiative when dealing with other departments? Or, is your organisation totally rigid, inflexible and a slave to paperwork and forms?
- Is teamwork and team building encouraged within your organisation or do you play departmental mind games? Is support and recognition the norm or is rudeness and isolation more in vogue within departments? Is there a company wide information flow or inter-departmental blocks?
- Finally, every internal survey I have ever observed has (a) lack of leadership and (b) lack of communication very high up on the negative side of the list while ‘I’m currently doing a wonderful job’ is usually very high on the positive side. Somewhere, there is a balance but the reality is most people think they are doing OK from a service perspective, managers included. Sorry, that’s not good enough.
Your service to your members is not great because you think it is, it is great because your members say it is.
If people in organisations, large and small, were more tolerant, understanding, friendly, supportive, appreciative, respectful, encouraging and co-operative, there would be a lot more positive (and rewarding) focus on the needs of members.
If training and development programs were to reflect the above issues it would lead to record results in terms of productivity and response to the needs of your members.
If managers made the above issues part of their organisation’s culture and if they worked together to make their departments more open and their people were encouraged to communicate freely just imagine all the benefits this will bring.
One final thing, encourage an atmosphere of fun. It works!
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"Friendship takes time and energy if it's going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn't last if you don't give it proper appreciation. Friendship can be so comfortable, but nurture it - don't take it for granted."
Betty White
Actress and Comedian
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Kevin
Cahalane