Like the health care industry, sales, marketing, engineering, IT, customer service and other departments in any business face big customer satisfaction challenges. I’m sure there are examples in your industrial support services business where employees from different departments can undermine each other, resulting in less-than-stellar customer service.
If severe enough, these conflicts could derail a lucrative service contract and cost your company a lot of money in lost employee time. Your employees need quick and accurate action instead of obstacles and delays to avoid these situations.
Here’s an unfortunate example from the health care industry: A hospital patient asks for a banana. The nurse calls the dietary manager, who replies, “not without a doctor’s order.” After talking to two nearby managers, the nurse mentions it to a senior vice president who was passing through the unit. The upper level executive intervenes and the patient, unhappy about the long wait, finally receives the banana.
The time taken by each person to solve his problem makes the cost of the banana exceed $100. This wasted money, due to miscommunication and failure to integrate department systems, is an example of why medical costs have escalated.
Frontline employees with decision-making authority save management time and increase customer satisfaction. Organizations providing work environments where staff can perform at their best attract and retain the best people. Positive employee relationships generate energy and raise productivity.
Save money, improve client satisfaction, and reduce expensive errors with the following seven tips:
1. Empower your frontline staff to solve client problems on the spot. When frontline employees hesitate to make the independent decisions, it’s because they have been reprimanded for doing so in the past. They have learned to wait for specific directions from their managers rather than functioning as autonomous professionals. This ingrained habit is difficult to break. The best way to change this habit is to give your staff consistent support. Don’t let your chain of command become a ball and chain. When you empower frontline employees, you save money, clients are more satisfied and productivity increases.
2. Building trust enables you to use your intellectual capital. When workers trust each other, they act quickly and decisively, saving your company time and money. How do you build trust? By respecting yourself and others, by being a role model, by courteous communication, and by sensitivity to the needs of others.
For example, a frontline employee working on a joint venture with a client needs to transfer complex documents. She thinks using a particular website would make the transfer easier and asks her manager if their company prefers any one site. The manager suggests that she discuss it with the IT manager, who agrees with her idea and helps her set up the transfer. Since the frontline worker had the autonomy to contact the IT manager directly, she saved time in repeated tasks.
When companies take advantage of frontline workers’ good ideas, they save many $100 bananas.
3. Build a positive work environment. Companies that establish a working environment where employees can perform at their best attract and retain the best people. Long-term strategies, such as effective communication and staff-friendly cultures, enable companies to achieve the best results. Building a positive culture requires respect, consistency and integrity. A positive culture enables workers to make smart decisions for customers.
4. Insist that staff collaborate instead of compete. Ask yourself the question, “Is everyone aligned behind our sales strategy?” Good communication and collaboration save time and money, and increase productivity. For instance, a salesperson may have landed a good service contract, but the crew showing up with equipment must also interact effectively with the customer. No matter how good the salesperson is, future sales will be lost if others involved in your company aren’t onboard with your customer service priorities.
5. Brainstorm about the opportunities that lie beyond the challenges. Dedicate a portion of your staff meetings to list current challenges. Then talk about ways to transform these challenges into opportunities. Perhaps you can redefine your selling proposition to increase sales. For instance, look at both sides of client complaints. Ask yourself if the complaint reflects a client’s need for a new product or service that your company could offer.
6. Communicate respectfully. Poor communication wastes time, delays decisions, and damages morale. As the $100 banana illustrates, poor communication is also expensive. Even proven communication strategies are rendered ineffective when staff manage to find new ways to sabotage one another with negativity.
7. Solve the root causes of problems. If frontline employees have no power to solve the root causes of their problems, they end up creating temporary fixes day after day. This wastes huge amounts of time, costing your company significant amounts of money and reducing quality service for clients. Solving the root causes of problems may help you take the business in new, profitable directions.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Core values, such as respectful communication and integrity, cost nothing. Smart managers empower staff to leverage scarce resources and to do more with less. More than simply helping to maximize client satisfaction, these tips help managers raise productivity, saving your company from so many of those $100 bananas.
