Articles

Changing an industry's service reputation one customer at a time

2010-03-01T21:43:47Z

Plumbers, heating and air conditioning technicians, and electricians usually don't enjoy a reputation for particularly good customer service. They’re best known for being unreliable, making a big mess, and charging outrageous prices. Ideal Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electrical is out to change their industry’s reputation one customer at a time.

Ideal recently hired Toister Performance Solutions to help them create a service culture based on the company’s values and outstanding reputation in the San Diego community. Don Teemsma, Ideal’s President, wanted to make their approach to customer service more consistent and deliberate. They were already doing a great job, but he also knew that every service call could lead to repeat business and referrals to friends and neighbors if the customer was delighted.

Our Approach
Don wanted to provide his employees with some fundamental customer service skills, so we used our Delivering Next Level Service class as the foundation for this initiative. We started with their technicians and met with them for one hour a week for six weeks. The classes were scheduled before they went on their service calls for the day, so they could immediately try out their new skills. The classes also gave the technicians an opportunity to share successes they had achieved from the previous week.

Once we finished training the technicians, we turned our attention to the office staff. The office staff included the customer service, dispatch, inventory, and accounting departments, all of whom had direct customer contact and also supported the technicians in the field. We took the same approach as before and divided the class into six one-hour sessions that allowed participants to try out new skills between each weekly meeting.

Sustaining Momentum
A successful training program is often just the beginning of an ongoing process. Don and his leadership team employed three strategies to sustain the momentum achieved in our initial training series.

1. Weekly Team Meetings
Customer service is now a topic at weekly team meetings. Aided by a set of facilitation exercises, the meetings feature active discussions among the participants. According to Don, “We often hear stories about how a tech turned around a negative to a positive or how they were more effective in their communication with a customer.”

2. After Action Reviews
Ideal employees regularly review customer service interactions to learn what went well and what can be improved upon. A recent after action review led to the team finding ways to correct a misunderstanding with a customer who initially appeared to be very upset. The end result was a very happy customer who purchased a new heating and air system and continues to call Ideal for all his plumbing and electrical needs.

3. Refresher Training
Toister Performance Solutions recently facilitated a refresher training session to help Ideal’s technicians continue to develop their customer service skills. The one hour workshop included activities to help reinforce the importance of customer service in their work culture.

The Results
Ideal’s customer service initiative has had some great results so far. Don Teemsma described the highlights in four primary areas:

Happier Customers
Through our customer check-up program, our customers tell us they genuinely appreciate the extra care coming their way. The feedback is better than ever.

Happier Employees
Employees like to be trained and shown skills to make their jobs easier. Being able to delight customers with a sharpened set of techniques has provided greater customer satisfaction and in turn has given everyone more satisfaction in their job. This has been a win-win situation.

Increased Sales
Our technicians are building better rapport and through this rapport they feel more comfortable about offering solutions to our customers who need goods and services.

Culture
In our mission statement we say our goal is to delight the customer. By providing training we have helped build a stronger culture of service and show action beyond lip service and a mission statement hung on the wall.

About Ideal
Founded in 1960, Ideal Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electrical prides itself on exceeding customer expectations. From the most complex installation to routine service and maintenance, Ideal has the tools, people, and products to provide a quality job that fits your lifestyle and budget. They are a top-rated San Diego contractor and possess the expertise and technically advanced equipment to handle all commercial and residential projects. Please visit their website to learn more.

5 Ways to Stay Focused on Service

2010-02-03T17:28:12Z

Even the best of us need a little help staying focused on outstanding customer service. Difficult customers, demanding bosses, flaky co-workers, and the sheer volume of work we need to accomplish can all make it hard to keep outstanding service top of mind. A strong customer service vision is essential, but it’s important to take steps to stay focused. Here are five techniques that have worked for me.

#1: The Thank You Letter
This powerful exercise helps you make your vision a reality. Start by writing a ‘thank you’ letter to yourself as if it was written by an actual customer. Describe the service you provided and how it made an impact. Next, read the letter at the start of every work day for three weeks and then try to receive a real version of the letter. It’s amazing how well this works!

#2: Make it Visual
Customer service visions are truly meant to be visual, so you can really make yours memorable if you translate the words into pictures. Some people draw their vision while others use pictures from the internet or magazines to make a collage that represents their vision. I decided to make mine into a short video:

#3: Ask a Customer
A customer service vision describes how you hope to serve your customers, but you’ll need a real customer to tell you how you are actually doing. I often ask my customers for testimonials and their words allow me to synch my vision with what they’re experiencing. Here’s what one customer wrote not long after I did exercises #1 and #2:

"If I had to choose only one outside company to help with some training initiatives this year, that would be Toister Performance Solutions; Jeff is reliable, dependable, and flexible to incorporate the organizational culture in whatever he presents."
- Gabriela Alvarez, Training & Development Manager

#4: Tell Stories
Great customer service stories provide memorable examples of your vision in action. They also provide a connection between the lofty ideals of a vision statement and your day to day activities. Share your customer service stories with co-workers, colleagues, and even your boss. (Hey – those great stories will help you come review time!)

#5: Reflect and Reconnect
It’s easy for the big picture to get lost in our daily work. From time to time, I find it helpful to step back and reflect on my customer service vision. It helps me reconnect my core values with my work and make sure I’m still heading in the right direction. This exercise only takes a few minutes but I find it to be very powerful.

Toister Performance Solutions named 'Champion of Learning'

2010-02-02T17:12:02Z

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) has recognized Toister Performance Solutions as a 2009 'Champion of Learning'. This designation is recognition for our efforts to promote Employee Learning Week, an employee learning awareness campaign that is held every December. Our 2009 efforts focused on offering free learning opportunities including assessments and a webinar to help participants plan their 2010 training program.

Turning customer complaints into compliments

2009-12-31T20:54:15Z

There’s an old adage in the parking industry: no complaints equals a compliment. That’s because people generally don't like to pay for parking; it's easy to get a complaint when you are charging people for something they don't want to pay for, but compliments are tough to come by. The Transportation and Parking department at Oregon Health & Science University recently asked Toister Performance Solutions to help them do the seemingly impossible: create a service experience that consistently led to real compliments, not just a reduction in complaints.

Iceberg ahead! Conquering your icebergs before they sink your service ship

2009-11-03T18:38:35Z

In the business world, an iceberg is a situation that appears smaller or more benign than it actually is. We’re moving at such a rapid pace that it is tempting to dismiss customer complaints, quality issues, and employee problems as isolated incidents. This risk is missing out on a tremendous opportunity or allowing a critical problem to go unsolved. That’s why we use a simple model to examine these “isolated incidents”.

Moving at the speed of poor service

2009-10-09T14:43:54Z

For many companies in today's economy, leaner really does mean meaner. In some cases, business has picked up but executives are reluctant to spend the money necessary to add employees. In other cases, cut-backs were made so haphazardly that some of the best employees were laid off while poorly performing employees remain behind. Whatever is happening, there are many examples of people working so quickly that poor service is inevitable.

Long live the micromanager!

2009-06-11T16:00:18Z

Micromanagement has gotten a bad rap. Call someone a micromanager and it will almost certainly be taken as an insult. Employees are much more likely to use the term to complain about their boss, rather than to compliment their boss’s inspirational leadership. Alas, micromanagement is often misunderstood but it is sorely needed, as long as we do it right.

Treating customer service as a cost center can be costly

2009-05-12T17:12:14Z

This article originally appeared in the TurningPoint Executive Search electronic newsletter. The most important relationship a company can have is with its customers since they are your primary source of revenue. This point seems obvious, but a closer look reveals that many organizations treat their customer service operation as a cost center, not a profit generator. This disconnect can be costly.

Ditch the script for better consistency

2009-04-02T23:26:04Z

My local grocery store used to require cashiers to ask every customer if they wanted help out to the parking lot. Their intentions were good, but I was once asked if I needed help when I bought a single pack of gum. The cashier dutifully stuck to the script, but we were both a little embarrassed.

Driving Growth and Profits with a Customer Service Vision

2009-02-02T20:53:29Z

Despite the current state of the economy, growth is inevitable; we just don’t know when. Not surprisingly, improving customer service is a top growth strategy for many top companies. Vistage’s January CEO survey revealed that customer retention and growth was the top strategy for gaining competitive advantage in 2009. PriceWaterhouse Coopers found a similar trend in their annual CEO survey released in December 2008.