New Report Reveals Big Challenges From IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing our lives.

IoT refers to everyday devices connected to the internet. Our appliances, door locks, thermostats, vehicles, and many other items are suddenly "smart." For example, my wife and I enjoy watching out of town games streaming through the internet thanks to an app on our television. 

Only now we ran into trouble.

We couldn't get the game to play on our smart TV. There was no in-application support. An internet search proved fruitless. This prompted a call to support, but the agent had very little information.

The support rep ultimately wasn't able to fix the issue.

This isn't an isolated case according to the Next Generation Service report from the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and Oracle. A survey of 354 contact center leaders revealed companies are struggling to keep up with IoT support. 

Here are three of the biggest challenges.

Good Data is Hard to Find

A recent IBM Watson commercial depicted an elevator technician arriving to fix an elevator. The elevator wasn't broken, but Watson's sensors indicated the elevator would malfunction in two days. The technician was automatically dispatched as a pre-emptive measure.

Self-diagnosing problems like this relies on the device sharing relevant data. This is a struggle:

47 percent of contact centers are unable to use data from connected devices.

One reason the agent struggled to help my wife and I fix our smart TV app was she couldn't access any diagnostic data. She had to guess at the problem using her limited experience and training.

Arming agents with more data is an obvious step towards better support. It's much easier to solve an issue if you can see what's causing it.

Agent Training is Changing

Supporting IoT requires new knowledge, skills, and abilities.

67 percent of contact centers have to train differently to support IoT.

Joseph Kolchinsky knows these challenges first-hand. He's the Founder and CEO of OneVision Resources, a company IoT device manufacturers and installers rely upon to provide support to their customers.

"There are two incredibly difficult components to supporting IoT, especially in the home environment. The first is that when technology fails it usually affects some time-sensitive life moment—family movie night is ruined when Netflix doesn't work, or the kids can't do homework when the internet is down—which means that the first 15 minutes of any tech support issue is really about providing human support with a listening ear and empathetic approach. The second is the broad and interconnected nature of IoT—when a symptom appears on your Apple TV, the issue could be any number of unrelated problems with your ISP, credit card, the streaming provider, or even the HDMI connection with your TV—this requires broad training across many technologies."

Let's go back to the support agent who tried to help my wife and I watch the game. She wasn't empathetic, so our frustration about not watching the game remained. The agent also lacked training and information to sort out whether the problem was with the app or our TV.

Customer-focused contact centers are training agents to listen with empathy and solve issues holistically. These centers are also agile enough to quickly update training as technology rapidly changes.

Complexity is Increasing

IoT devices are making support more difficult.

37 percent of contact centers have seen live agent contacts become more complex.

This follows a general trend in support. As noted in this post, customers increasingly solve simple issues on their own. When they contact a live agent, it's usually because issue is too complex for routine self-service.

Let's go back to the agent who tried to help my wife and I watch the game. She clearly lacked the skills to solve our issue, which created a frustrating encounter for everyone involved.

Smart contact center leaders are changing the profile of their support agents. Kolchinsky emphasizes hiring the right people and then putting them in a position to succeed.

"Our solution to this is to hire creative, take-control individuals who genuinely enjoy helping people, removing the burden of having to follow scripts, and giving them the freedom to create a positive support experience in their own way."

You can download the report from the ICMI website to learn more about the future of IoT support.

Avoid Angry Customers with The No Fault Technique

A subscriber recently sent me the transcript from a chat session she had with a customer.

Her customer had gotten angry and ended the session abruptly. He then complained in a survey about the service he had received. 

The subscriber asked me, "What did I do wrong?"

The gist of the chat session is the customer wrote his payment wasn't going through. The customer service representative responded by saying that, based on the error message the customer received, the most likely causes were an incorrect debit card number, insufficient funds, or a bank error.

I have no reason to doubt these responses were technically correct. It was the delivery that likely angered the customer.

In my reply to this subscriber, I commended her for reaching out to me. Not enough people make an effort to continuously improve.

Then I suggested she try the No Fault Technique.

It's helpful to start by understanding why the customer got angry and then explore how the No Fault Technique can help in the future.

Why The Customer Got Angry

Let's take a moment to understand why my subscriber's original, fact-based response likely didn't go over so well.

It might help to imagine yourself as her customer. Picture a website with an online payment screen. You enter your payment information, but receive an error message. 

How would that feel?

Most of us would feel a little anxious and frustrated. This experience engages part of our brain responsible for emotions, called the Limbic System. It's one of the three parts of the Triune Brain, with the other two being the primitive brain, which controls basic functions such as breathing, and the neocortex, which handles rational thinking.

The danger is the Limbic System can limit our rational thinking when it gets riled up.

Now, imagine contacting customer support via chat and the support rep tells you the problem is on your end. You either typed in the wrong debit card, you don't have enough money, or your bank made a mistake.

Now, how would you feel? 

It's very likely our fired up limbic system gets defensive and really shuts down logical thinking. It doesn't matter that the support rep's response was entirely rational and accurate. From the customer's perspective, it feels like blame. 

The No Fault Technique

Blame can really send a customer over the edge. It's a good idea to side-step a fiery limbic system by avoiding blame as much as possible.

The No Fault Technique is a way to do this by steering the conversation away from blame to focus on solutions instead. 

Lisa Dezoete, an Accounting Administrator at Truckstop.com, often has to contact customers to collect payments for unpaid accounts. Here's how she uses the No Fault Technique.

"I start all calls off with a cheery voice, emphasizing it was 'probably an error' so they don’t feel embarrassed their payment did not go through."

Dezoete then tries to work with her customers to find a solution, such as giving an extension when needed or canceling an unwanted account. Her goal is to disarm the customer's emotional defenses by avoiding blame. 

One way to practice this technique is to use it in small situations where the stakes are low. For example, if someone sends an email but forgets the attachment, you could write, "The attachment didn't come through. Will you please resend?"

Let's apply the No Fault Technique to the payment processing error the subscriber wrote to me about. Here's how that conversation might look:

CSR: Let's try a few things to see if we can solve this!

1. Try re-entering your debit card number, expiration date, and security code. Make sure the billing address is also correct. 

2. Double-check the account linked to your debit card to make sure there are sufficient funds.

Customer: My card information is correct and I have enough money in my account.

CSR: Ok, here's another possibility. Some banks set up special fraud protection rules that prevent certain online purchases. If this happens, a quick phone call to your bank will allow the charge to go through.

If that still doesn't work, it may be easiest to try another debit card. We also accept credit cards and PayPal. 

Notice the root causes are still the same. The customer entered information incorrectly, lacked sufficient funds in his account, or his bank prevented the charge for some other reason.

The difference here is they've been reframed as suggested action steps, which shifts the focus away from blame.

The No Fault Technique won't work in every situation and customers may still get upset. But it will give you a better chance at finding a resolution!

How Palo Alto Software Used Metrics to Improve Service

A question posted on the Inside Customer Service LinkedIn group recently caught my attention. Celeste Peterson, a Customer Advocacy Supervisor at Palo Alto Software, asked:

What do you think are the most important metrics to track for a small customer service team?

There were a few nice responses. Celeste's question intrigued me personally because I've heard it a lot recently and even wrote this blog post about it. So I reached out to her and we eventually set up a call that included Sean Serrels, Palo Alto Software's Director of Customer Advocacy

During our conversation, we discussed what the company's executives were most concerned about when it came to customers. I learned that company leaders were particularly concerned with reducing customer churn for its LivePlan online business planning software.

LivePlan is a subscription-based software as a service product, so customer churn (when a customer cancels their subscription) represents a loss of recurring revenue. 

I gave them a few suggestions and Celeste promised to follow-up and let me know how things went. Here's their update.

Palo Alto Software's Customer Advocacy Team

Jeff: What's new since we had our conversation?

Celeste: "Since we talked, we did some brainstorming, particularly about reducing churn for LivePlan. Our Development team informed us of data they've collected about groups who churn more than others, and we've made some changes to try to reach out to those groups and give them more attention.

"For instance, we noticed that a lot of the churners seemed to feel like they had to get in, complete their plan in the first day, and then not come back. Those that came back a second, or third day in the first week, were way more likely to stay for at least 90 days. 

"I wondered, do new users who communicate with CA in the first week churn less than new users who don't? If so, how can we reach more of those users?"

Jeff: It's a smart idea to start with a few questions and then dig into your data to find the answer. What did you learn?

Celeste: "Sean added live chat triggers to the page in the app where people are setting up their business plan the first time they log into their new account. [Editor's note: this means customers are invited to start a live chat session with a customer advocacy agent when they reach this page.]

"We've been getting lots of questions from users via those chats. Many request help changing their account settings, or finding the features they’re interested in, and we have been able to help them with that instantaneously, which produces satisfied customers. We also use the information gathered from those chatters to create or edit our Help Center content. If a few users have questions about a feature, others probably do, too. 

"We've also added a chat trigger on the cancellation page of the app to see if we can resolve anything someone is frustrated about before they click the cancellation button! Those chats have been very active, too. 

"Another purpose for these chats is to try to get more feedback from users who are canceling so we can learn more about what causes churn. We share that feedback with our development team. Sharing data and customer feedback with other departments is an important part of what our Customer Advocacy department does. The data we received from the Development team about churn helped us decide where to best implement new chat triggers, and the feedback we receive from those users helps the Development team decide what changes to implement in the app."

Jeff: Connecting with customers right when they need you is a great idea! Has this made an impact on customer churn?

Celeste: "We have to have patience to wait and follow cohorts to track how it's affecting churn, but we'll take a look at those users down the road and see if they are staying longer than people who didn't chat with us when they started. Overall, our churn has recently decreased, so we are excited to stay the course.

"We are discussing ways to change our delivery or framing of responses to maintain a positive user experience, even if a feature was not what that user expected.

"For instance, we discussed better ways to respond to people who were confused about the annual pricing. The site explains the lower monthly price and that it's 'billed annually,' but sometimes a customer complains they weren't expecting the 12 months of charges to hit their bank account at one time. 

"In the past our customer advocates apologized for the confusion and offered to convert the account to a monthly one. Now, rather than immediately addressing their confusion and apologizing, giving a negative impression, we empathize, and focus on the positive, that the annual subscription provides the benefit of a 40% discount by collecting for 12 months in advance. We also let the customer know that we're happy to convert it to the monthly option or cancel and refund if they prefer, since we have a 60 day money back guarantee. With that positive framing, along with collaboration with the marketing team to test various wording on the sign up page, we’ve been seeing a decrease in churn and refunds of annual subscriptions."

Jeff: You mentioned earlier that it will take awhile to see if your overall churn rate improves. Are there any other metrics that are giving you more immediate feedback?

Celeste: "An important metric for Customer Advocacy and preventing churn is our customer satisfaction rate. Our average rate has been a wonderful 97% this year, but I did notice, by looking at metrics for satisfaction and first reply time simultaneously, that there is a strong relation between the two. 

"We are often at 100% satisfaction when our first reply time is below 8 hours. Most of the unsatisfied ratings happen around Monday when we have a larger email queue built up over the weekend when we're closed. I have adjusted our schedules and workflow to try to keep the first reply time low on Sunday and Monday, and we achieved a complete week of 100% positive satisfaction survey results, recently."

---

Jeff: In Chapter Six of The Service Culture Handbook, we learn how customer-focused leaders use metrics differently than most managers. Celeste, Sean, and the rest of the Customer Advocacy Team at Palo Alto Software provide a great example.

They are learning more from customers by going beyond the numbers to see what story the data is telling. This, in turn, gives them actionable insights they can use to improve service and ultimately drive more revenue.

Lessons From The Overlook: Go and See the Problem

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here.

Our property manager called with a problem.

The Overlook was too hot. A summer heat wave caused temperatures to soar in Idyllwild and our cabin doesn't have air conditioning. Even at night, the house was still hotter than 80 degrees. 

One group of guests asked to move to a different property. Our property manager convinced them to stay after she managed to borrow a couple of portable air conditioners for the weekend. We weren't so lucky with another group of guests who wanted to stay at The Overlook, but decided to book another property when they learned about the heat.

My wife, Sally, and I were presented with three options:

1. Spend $800 to install window-mounted air conditioners.

2. Spend several thousand to install central air conditioning.

3. Do nothing and accept a decline in revenue until the weather cooled.

We decided to investigate the issue before jumping to solutions. In the end, we identified a great solution that cost just $119.27.

The Problem With Solutions

It's instinctive to skip the investigation and jump to solutions.

That can sometimes be a liability, especially if the solution is offered without first observing the problem and identifying the root cause.

One of my favorite examples comes from a client who hired me to train his employees on phone skills. He felt they weren't friendly at times and assumed that training would fix the problem. 

I spent just 15 minutes talking to his customer service team and found the real issue. Customers sometimes had to wait on hold for as long as 30 minutes during peak times. This caused employees to rush through calls which inevitably created a perception that they were brusque and unfriendly.

A simple adjustment to align the schedule with call volume eliminated the long wait times. Employees were suddenly friendly with no training required.

When we applied this principle to The Overlook, it's hard to choose from three crummy options without first understanding why the place is too hot. 

Go and See

There's a concept in process improvement called Gemba. 

It's a Japanese term that means, "the real place." In business, you can often solve problems by taking what's called "a gemba walk" to go and see the issue first-hand. This often reveals unexpected causes and solutions.

Sally is fanatical about this. She's a process improvement expert whose Twitter handle is @gembagirl. I've learned a lot from her about the value of observation.

Fortunately, we had a long-planned visit to The Overlook in July that allowed us to experience the heat first-hand. 

The first thing we noticed was the ceiling fan in the family room. It was set in winter mode, which draws air up and pushes warm air down. It was actually heating the room rather than cooling it!

The fan should have been set to summer mode, which pushes cool air down. I see how this could easily be missed. You look at the fan spinning like crazy and naturally assume it's doing its job. I only realized the problem when I stood directly under the fan and felt the warm air.

The room instantly started feeling cooler once the fan was on summer mode. We'll be adding this item to our inspection checklist so it doesn't happen again!

Next, we opened up windows to let the cool air in. The night air was a cool 65 degrees when we arrived at 9:30pm. Inside it was 82, so the cool air could help lower the inside temperature if we could find a way to pull the cool air in.

Sally and I once lived in Massachusetts without air conditioning, so we've experienced hot summers. We learned that a window fan can cool a room better than an oscillating fan, because it pulls cool air into the room at night and can be set to expel warm air during the day. So we spent $119.27 at Home Depot to purchase three units of a highly-rated model. Home Depot has a generous 90-day return policy, so buying the fans ahead of time wasn't a risk.

The fans have three big advantages over window-mountained air conditioners. First, they're much less expensive. Second, they can quickly be taken out of the window when the weather turns cold. And third, they're much less unsightly than bulky window box ac units.

We installed the fans in three of the four bedrooms and they instantly worked! The master suite is on the bottom floor and has twin ceiling fans, so was already much cooler than the rest of the house.

Just one hour later, the temperature inside The Overlook was a pleasant 70 degrees.

Check Again

It would be easy to think the problem was solved.

As I wrote in this post, you can learn a lot by experiencing what your customers experience. We decided to keep an eye on the thermostat throughout our stay.

It was good that we did. The temperature started to rise steadily at mid-morning, even with the fans running. By mid-afternoon, it was back up to 80 degrees in the house. It was tough to keep the cabin cool when the air outside was warm. 

That's when we noticed the sun pouring in from our large windows. We had closed the blinds on the lower windows, but there was still a lot of heat coming through the upper windows. I closed those blinds, too, and the temperature began to cool again.

Photo credit: joniephoto

Now we hoped the problem was really solved, but there was only one real way to check. We had to hear from actual guests.

Sally and I waited anxiously to hear from our property manager the next time we had guests booked for the weekend. We wanted to get guest feedback on the temperature.

Good news! Our solutions worked!

Why the Huddle Is Your Most Important Meeting

UPDATED: December 22, 2023

Ugh, not another meeting.

It seems like our calendars are full of them. Most of these meetings seem pretty pointless. Many of us work on other tasks during meetings, which suggests that whatever we're meeting about isn't too amazing.

There's one meeting that's different: the huddle.

Alternatively known as a stand-up, pre-shift, line-up, or tailgate, the huddle is a short meeting designed to get everyone on the same page, discuss any pressing issues, and quickly get people back to work.

I reached out to a number of customer service leaders to see how they use the huddle to prepare their teams for success.

Why Huddle?

Patrick Maguire is a a hospitality consultant and author of the Server Not Servant blog. He suggests huddles (often called pre-meal or pre-shift meetings in restaurants) are a great way to develop a healthy service culture.

"Effective and consistent internal communications are critical in building and nurturing a culture of trust and mutual respect within every business. Pre-meal meetings in restaurants ensure that your team is prepared, confident, and aware of as much information as possible to maximize hospitality and meaningful engagement with guests."

Jeremy Hyde, Customer Service Manager at UCare, used huddles to help his team handle rapid growth. He continues to use them to keep the team up to date.

"Initially we implemented them because we on-boarded 185,000 new members and wanted to make sure we identified issues and trends and could disseminate information quickly. We've continued them as an ongoing way to share information in place of longer and less frequent team meetings."

How to Huddle

Huddles should be short, focused meetings. Most teams have no more than three topics:

• Reinforce the service culture

• Share critical updates

• Identify any issues

Many customer service leaders use the Customer Service Tip of the Week to provide ongoing service reminders to their team. Others use the time to reinforce some aspect of the customer service vision.

Maguire outlines a number of topics that restaurant managers can draw upon. "Hospitality tips, menu and drink specials, professional and amateur reviews, social media activity, upcoming events, staff questions, and neighborhood news, are all great content for pre-meal meetings."

The Ritz-Carlton has four items on the agenda for its daily huddle:

1. Gold standard of the day

2. Share WOW stories about great guest service

3. Celebrate birthdays and service anniversaries

4. Discuss property-specific information, such as special events

Keep in mind that the huddle should be a discussion, not just announcements from the boss. Encourage participation from everyone and even consider asking others to help lead the discussion on various topics.

Alex Wyatt, Vice President of Customer Care at Gardner Dixie Sales Inc. tries to limit huddles to three to five employees plus the supervisor.

"We like to utilize small group huddles for updates or Q&A's when call volume allows. We tend to get better participation and questions as a small group."

How Often and How Long

Huddles should be short.

The consensus among customer service leaders I asked was no more than 15 to 20 minutes. In my experience, you can have an effective huddle in 10 minutes.

Employees typically remain standing during a huddle to encourage a short and focused session.

Some leaders advocate daily huddles while others prefer to meet less frequently. Nate Brown, Director of Customer Experience at UL EHS Sustainability, suggests that customer service leaders consider what works best for their teams.

"I will be the odd man out here and say daily huddles are excessive in my opinion. At least in our environment it became a waste of time. I've moved to two huddles a week (Monday and Wednesday) which has been a very good fit for us. A good checkpoint would be immediately after the huddle to think about if it makes any actual difference to your day or not."

Maguire reminds managers hosting pre-shift meetings to give their team a little bit of extra time to get ready for the day. "Leave at least 10 minutes between the end of the meeting and the start of service for final station checks, bathroom/smoke breaks, etc."

Discussion

The customer-focused companies I examined in The Service Culture Handbook relentlessly discussed customer service with their employees. The huddle is a great way to foster this discussion.

What is a Good Survey Response Rate?

It's the most common question I get about surveys.

Customer service leaders are understandably concerned about getting a lot of voice of customer feedback. So my clients want to know, "What is a good response rate for our customer service survey?" 

The answer may surprise you—there's no standard number. 

There are situations where an 80 percent response rate might be bad while a 5 percent response rate might be phenomenal in other circumstances.

In fact, I'm not overly concerned with the percentage of people who respond. My advice to clients is to use a different set of criteria for judging their survey responses.

Here's how to evaluate your own survey response rate the same way I do.

Three Response Rate Criteria

There are three criteria that you can use to determine if you're getting a good response to a customer service survey:

• Usefulness

• Representation

• Reliability

Usefulness is the most important consideration.

Any response rate that provides useful customer feedback is good. That's not to say you can't do even better than your current rate, but the whole purpose of a customer service survey should be to yield useful data.

For example, let's say you implement a contact opt-in feature that allows you to follow-up with customers who leave negative feedback. That survey could become tremendously useful if it allows you to contact angry customers, fix problems, and reduce churn.

Representation is another important way to gauge your response rate.

You want your survey to represent all of the customers you are trying to get feedback from. Imagine you implement a new self-help feature on your website. A representative survey in this case would ask for feedback from customers who successfully used self-help as well as customers who weren't successful and had to try another channel.

Sometimes you need to augment your survey with other data sources to make it more representative. The authors of The Effortless Experience discuss the self-help scenario in their book and suggest having live agents ask customers if they first tried using self-help.

This question can help identify people who didn't realize self-help was available and therefore wouldn't complete a survey on its effectiveness. It could also capture feedback from people who tried self-help, were unsuccessful, and didn't notice a survey invitation because their priority was contacting a live agent to solve the problem.

My final criterion is reliability.

This means the survey can be relied upon to provide consistently accurate results. Here's a summary of considerations from a recent post on five characteristics of a powerful survey.

1. Purpose. Have a clear reason for offering your survey.

2. Format. Choose a format (CSAT, NPS, etc.) that matches your purpose.

3. Questions. Avoid misleading questions.

Many surveys have problems in one or more of these areas. For instance, a 2016 study by Interaction Metrics discovered that 92 percent of surveys offered by the largest U.S. retailers asked leading questions that nudged customers to give a more positive answer.

For example, Ace Hardware had this question on its survey:

How satisfied were you with the speed of your checkout?

The problem with a question like this is it assumes the customer was satisfied. This assumptive wording makes a positive answer more likely.

A more neutral question might ask, "How would you rate the speed of your checkout?"

Resources

A survey response rate is good if it generates useful data, is representative of the customer base you want feedback from, and is reliable.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to continuously improve your survey. Here are some resources to help you:

• Blog posts on surveys

• Survey resource page

• Training video on using surveys

A Simple Way to Double Your B2C Survey Responses

Everyone wants a better survey response rate. The Center For Client Retention (TCFCR) recently shared some data about business-to-consumer (B2C) surveys that revealed an easy way to improve results.

TCFCR helps businesses conduct customer satisfaction research. The company's client focus is primarily Fortune 500 companies in business-to-business (B2B) and B2C segments.

There's a big need for these type of services given that a recent study from Interaction Metrics found 68 percent of surveys offered by America's largest retailers were "total garbage."

I provide similar services to small and mid-sized businesses, so I was curious to see what TCFCR's survey data might reveal.

One quick look and I immediately saw a way for businesses to double the response rate on their B2C surveys.

The Response Rate Secret

TCFCR pulled aggregate data from thousands of surveys across all of their clients for a 12-month period. The company compared response rates for "in the moment" surveys versus follow-up surveys sent via email. 

Here are the results:

Follow-up surveys had more than twice the average response rate!

An in the moment survey is offered at the time of service. It could be a link in an email response from a customer service rep, an after-call transfer to an automated survey, or a link in a chat dialog box.

A follow-up email survey is sent after the customer service interaction is complete.

TCFCR also found that sending a reminder email after the initial survey invitation typically generated an additional 5-point increase in response rates!

Some companies do follow-up surveys via telephone instead of email. TCFCR's data shows that those surveys get an average response rate of 12-15 percent, which is on par with in the moment surveys.

One thing to keep in mind is that this data is for B2C surveys only. TCFCR found that B2B surveys typically get a response rate that's half of what you'd expect from a B2C.

Increase Response Rates Even More

There are a few more things you can do to stack the deck in your favor.

One is to keep your surveys short. A 2011 study from SurveyMonkey found that survey completion rates drop 5-20 percent once a survey takes 7+ minutes to complete. The same study discovered that's usually around 10 questions.

Most surveys will gather adequate data with just three short questions.

Another way to improve response rates is through rules-based offering. A lot of customer service software platforms, such as Zendesk, have a built-in survey feature that allows you to adjust which customers receive a survey and when.

For instance, you might only send a follow-up survey once a support ticket is closed rather than after every single interaction. Or if you offer a subscription-based service, you might survey all customers when they reach the six month mark in their annual subscription, regardless of whether they've contacted your company for support.

You can learn more about response rates and other survey-related topics here.

How to Harness the Power of Peer Recognition

Employee recognition can be a minefield.

One key distinction is to decide between rewarding or recognizing good performance. Rewards are a pre-determined "if-then" proposition. If you achieve X result, you get Y as a prize. 

There's a volume of data that proves rewards often unexpectedly lead to poor performance. Check out Daniel Pink's excellent book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, for an easy-to-read overview of some of the many studies that show rewards don't work in a customer service context.

Recognition can be healthy if done right. It's unexpected and delivered after the performance occurs to let employees know their performance is valued and appreciated. 

So where to start?

The Pitfalls of Recognition

Formal recognition programs are fraught with pitfalls that can demoralize employees. Take the venerable employee of the month program as an example:

• How do you make the selection process seem transparent and fair?

• Can you allow repeat winners without prompting feelings of favoritism?

• What is the impact on morale of not winning?

Even informal recognition can backfire. 

A manager I know once bought his employees donuts to recognize the team for some extra effort. It was so well received that he bought donuts a week later, which quickly started a weekly tradition. 

Soon, the weekly donuts were expected rather than a treat. A few people even grumbled about not getting their favorite kind.

Remember: recognition is unexpected. The donuts no longer recognized good performance once the team expected to receive them.

While researching customer-focused companies for The Service Culture Handbook, I noticed several companies were putting a twist on traditional recognition.

They were using peer recognition to drive culture.

The Power of Peer Recognition

According to a 2014 employee engagement study by the employee feedback company TINYpulse, peer recognition is the top reason why employees go the extra mile at work.

Shawn Anchor, bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage, wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review detailing a study on JetBlue that he co-authored. This study found that "for every 10% increase in people reporting being recognized, JetBlue saw a 3% increase in retention and a 2% increase in engagement."

Coincidentally, I profiled JetBlue in The Service Culture Handbook for their employee engagement best practices.

There are a couple of easy explanations for why peer recognition is so powerful.

One is Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs. Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed his now famous ranking of basic human needs in 1943. They are, in order:

1. Physiological 

2. Safety

3. Love and belonging

4. Esteem

5. Self-actualization

I've written about this hierarchy before, as a way to explain why employees provide better service (priority #5, self-actualization) when they feel like they're part of a team (priority #3, love and belonging). Peer recognition is powerful because it reinforces a sense of love and belonging.

There's one more explanation: we take our social cues from others.

Experiments by Solomon Asch and other psychologists demonstrate that we humans instinctively try to conform to the groups we're a part of. Conformity is often thought of as a negative trait, but it doesn't have to be.

Imagine a team of employees conforming to a group norm that values outstanding customer service! Peer recognition helps promote this positive conformity.

Practical Examples

I reached out to the Inside Customer Service LinkedIn group for some practical examples of peer recognition programs.

Two members shared excellent examples:

Jeremy Hyde, Customer Service Manager at UCare, wrote: "We have a 'hats off' program where people can fill out a brief form on our intranet. Then something is delivered to the Supervisor with the details on who nominated them and why with a little 'hat' pin. A lot of people put the pins on their lanyards or tack them up on their cube walls. After you collect 10 you can redeem them for a gift card."

Jenny Dempsey, former Customer Service Manager at Phone.com, wrote: "At Phone.com, I developed the Smiles peer recognition program. Anyone could write a note of gratitude for a coworker and drop it in the Smile box. At each CSR meeting, we would draw a few entries from the box and read them aloud. The people they were writing about would receive gift cards. The team loved it!"

Both examples are simple, practical, and don't require a lot of input from management. They're also easy to implement.

But wait! You don't even need a formal program. As a customer service leader, you can lead by example. 

Recognize your employees for a job well done by thanking them one-on-one, writing a short handwritten note or email, or praising them in a team meeting. At the same time, encourage employees to pay the compliment forward!

Even a simple "Thank you!" from a colleague can be a powerful form of recognition.

Does Your Company Have Too Many Missions and Visions?

The vice president shared a draft of her company's new values project.

She had been working with two other executives to create them. They had come up with nine after several brainstorming sessions.

On paper, they looked good. These were solid, reasonable values that were all straight out of the corporate values catalog. Nothing controversial. 

There were two problems. 

The first issue was the company already had a lot of cultural artifacts. A cultural artifact is something that helps people understand your organization's culture, like a mission, vision, or set of values. 

This company already had a lot:

• Mission statement

• Service promise

• Service motto

• Brand tagline

Now, they were planning to introduce a new set of values on top of everything else. Which led to the second problem.

Some of those nine values weren't accurate. Communication was number three on the list. "Oh, we suck at communication!" said the vice president.

Perhaps you face a similar mess. Here's how you can untangle it.

Focus vs. Confusion

Companies' cultural artifacts frequently feel empty because organizations often have too many or the existing ones are inauthentic.

In the rush to create another tagline, motto, or corporate vision, nobody takes the time to decide what one statement is the most important or ensure all the artifacts are in alignment.

If everything is important, then nothing is important.

In The Service Culture Handbook, I related the story of a restaurant chain I worked with that had too many cultural artifacts.

It had a mission statement, a brand promise, a set of four service promises, and a list of 17 service standards that waitstaff were expected to follow with every guest.

Employees weren't quite sure which was most important. 

This was especially challenging since some of these cultural artifacts didn't clearly support each other. For instance, the mission statement described a desire to create amazing experiences while the service standards emphasized up-selling and efficiency.

At an executive retreat, I posed the question to the CEO, his executive team, and the general managers of each individual restaurant: which cultural artifact is most important?

There initially wasn't a consensus, but it led to a good discussion. The group finally agreed that the mission statement should be the primary guide for the employees. 

Next, they decided to rethink their existing cultural artifacts. Some were eliminated while others were simplified and aligned with the mission. The 17 service standards were slimmed down to 10. 

The restaurant chain's leadership team then communicated the revised artifacts to employees with a renewed emphasis on the mission.

Not surprisingly, service quality improved once employees had a consistent understanding of what outstanding service should be.

Where a Customer Service Vision Fits In

In customer-focused companies, the most important cultural artifact is a customer service vision.

A customer service vision is a shared definition of outstanding service that guides all employees' actions when it comes to serving customers.

What if your company already has some pretty important artifacts?

When my clients face this challenge, I usually suggest two options. Option one is to make one of your existing artifacts do double-duty as the customer service vision.

In many companies, the organization's mission, vision, or values is also the customer service vision. There's no need to add yet another statement to the mix!

For example, take a look at REI's mission statement:

At REI, we inspire, educate and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship.

This is why the company exists (hence, the mission), but it also paints a clear picture of what type of service employees should strive to provide. Go visit an REI location today and you'll almost certainly find enthusiastic retail associates who will try to help you enjoy the outdoors!

In some cases, none of my clients' existing cultural artifacts are particularly inspiring. (They decide this, not me.) That's when I suggest a second option: replace one of your existing artifacts with the new vision.

I recently helped a client do this and it was amazing how much the new vision energized employees.

Take the Three Question Test

Here's an easy way to tell if a cultural artifact is actually relevant.

Select one of your cultural artifacts (mission, vision, values, motto, tagline, etc.). Talk to a random sample of employees and ask them three questions about that artifact:

1. What is it?

2. What does it mean?

3. How does it guide the work that you do?

You can tell the artifact has virtually no meaning if employees aren't aware of it or can't give consistent or clear answers to those questions.

In customer-focused companies, every employee can give a consistent answer to the three questions when asked about the customer service vision.

You can learn more about customer service visions and how to create one here.

How to Make Time For Training

I'm a bit behind on listening to podcasts.

For instance, I've just finished episode 91 of Crack the Customer Code, a wonderful podcast hosted by Adam Toporek and Jeannie Walters. The current episode is #255.

Ironically, the title of episode 91 is "How to Find Time for Training."

One of the topics Adam and Jeannie discussed was restaurants and retailers like Chipotle and Starbucks that shut down the entire operation to conduct employee training. 

As Adam points out in the episode, "That's great for a reset," but shutting down the entire business for training is more of a statement than a long-term solution. And many smaller businesses may find it too economically difficult to close down completely.

Trying to train employees while the business continues to run can be an exercise in creative scheduling and challenging logistics.

It's difficult, but not impossible. Here's what you can do.

Step 1: Focus on What You Need

Many leaders mistakenly believe the challenge is figuring out how long the training should be, who should deliver the training, and when can it be scheduled.

This approach neglects one key decision: what training do you actually need?

My analysis suggests that training often addresses just one percent of the problem's root cause! Why worry about how long the training should be if it's such a small part of the issue?

Imagine you wanted to help your team do a better job of serving angry customers. Here are just a few contributing factors that have nothing to do with training:

• Can you use voice of customer feedback to improve common problems?

• Do customers have access to self-help solutions to simple issues?

• Are employees empowered to resolve typical complaints?

Training won't address any of those.

Now, imagine you first implemented some solutions. You reduced product defects, beefed up self-help, and empowered employees with better policies and procedures to serve their customers.

You might still need training, but now you'd need a lot less.

A client once asked me to conduct training to help its call center employees sound more friendly over the phone. I did some research and spent just a little time talking to the employees. It turned out the call center was severely understaffed several times during the week and wait times expanded up to 30 minutes.

The employees sounded curt because they were in a hurry to get to the next customer!

I was able to help the client solve the problem just be reconfiguring the schedule so staffing levels better matched call volume. This solution eliminated much of the wait time and employees were more relaxed.

The employees suddenly sounded a lot friendlier and we didn't do any training at all.

Step 2: Embrace the 70-20-10 Rule

When most people think of training, they imagine a formal class such as a live workshop or an e-learning program.

The 70-20-10 rule, based on research from the Center for Creative Leadership, tells us this just scratches the surface of how our employees learn.

• 70 percent of learning comes from challenging assignments

• 20 percent of learning comes from a boss or mentor

• 10 percent of learning comes from formal training

The rule was originally intended as a rough guideline for leadership training. It can easily be adapted to other training topics such as customer service.

Look at those percentages again. They tell us that generally speaking, roughly 90 percent of training (70: challenging assignments + 20: boss or mentor) is already happening to some degree. You just need a way to guide it.

For example:

70 percent: Challenging Assignments

• Engage employees to solve problems

• Have employees conduct self-reviews and peer-reviews

• Encourage employees to share best practice solutions to difficult issues

20 percent: Boss or Mentor

• Hold short, weekly team meetings (many use my weekly tips for agenda topics)

• Give employees one-on-one feedback

10 percent: Formal Training

You can save time by leveraging video in many cases. Here's one example where you can use video to reduce training time by 75 percent!

I've also assembled these simple training plans to help you blend experience, mentorship, and formal training into an effective training program takes less than one hour per week.

Conclusion

A lack of time isn't a great excuse for not training your employees.

You can make training work if you do it efficiently. Ditch the old content-heavy, classroom-only training model and adopt a new approach that puts the focus where it belongs: getting results!