Jeff Toister — The Service Culture Guide

  • About
  • Speaking
  • Books
  • Training Videos
  • Resources
    • Customer Service Tips
    • Tools and Worksheets
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Books
  • Training Videos
    • Customer Service Tips
    • Tools and Worksheets
    • Blog
  • Contact
Banner-template-1.jpg

Inside Customer Service blog

The Inside Customer Service blog features tips, trends, and analysis that can help you unlock your customer service team's hidden potential. 

  • Customer Service Tips
  • Tools and Worksheets
  • Blog
  • All
  • Building Relationships
  • Exceeding Expectations
  • Solving Problems
Road sign pointing to core values.

Great Customer Service Leaders Keep Things Simple

Jeff Toister March 26, 2019

I spend a lot of time talking to leaders about service culture. One of the challenges I hear most often is complexity.

None of these leaders actually say "complexity." I hear it in the way they describe their business and what they're doing to get everyone on the same page. They often struggle to articulate exactly what they want their employees to do.

If you can’t describe it, it’s hard for your employees to do it.

One restaurant chain I worked with had a company mission statement, a service slogan, four elements of a "great experience," and a 17-step service procedure that waitstaff had to follow with every guest. The really confusing part was all of these elements pointed to slightly different behaviors. 

Worst of all, there was no agreement on what was most important:

  • Executive leaders tended to focus on the mission and service slogan.

  • Store managers talked about the four elements of a great experience.

  • Shift leaders typically encouraged efficiency over everything else. 

The chain's leadership team had the best intentions when all of these items were created. But they unwittingly created complexity for their employees by giving them too many things to think about.

Keep Things Simple

Leaders in customer-focused companies make things simple for employees, so employees can focus on customers.

Trader Joe's is a terrific example. Founder Joe Coulumbe created the successful grocery chain by focusing on simplicity:

  • Smaller product selection than typical grocery stores

  • Less square footage than typical grocery stores

  • No coupons

  • No loyalty program

What you will find in Trader Joe's are high-quality, reasonably priced products along with friendly and helpful employees who are really knowledgeable. A Trader Joe's staffs more employees than most grocery stores, so it's also easier to find help when you need it.

At the restaurant chain, I asked the leadership team to decide which statement was the most important. It took some discussion, but they ultimately decided the mission statement would be the main thing. 

The 17-step service procedure still contained helpful operating guidelines for servers, but it needed some changes. It was shortened to just ten steps, and those steps were carefully aligned with the mission. 

These changes suddenly made it far easier for servers to understand what was most important when serving guests.

Take Action

Here's an exercise that can help you focus your organization or team on simplicity.

Start by taking an inventory of existing cultural artifacts. These are statements, slogans, models, or other items that help define your culture. Examples include:

  • Mission statements

  • Vision statements

  • Values

  • Brand promises

  • Mottos

  • Service slogans

  • Service standards

Next, identify which one of these is most important. The way to do this is imagine an employee is in the midst of serving a customer. What one statement do you want the employee to use as a guide?

The answer for many companies is "none" or "we're not sure." If that's the case, you may want to start from scratch by creating a single customer service vision.

Finally, take this mini-assessment to see how well your business is aligned with the single statement or slogan you chose. It's a shorter version of an in-depth service culture assessment I offer to my clients.

Tagsservice culture, simplicity
  • Inside Customer Service blog
  • Older
  • Newer

Search by Keyword

Popular Topics

  • Customer Service Vision

  • Employee Engagement

  • Customer Service Surveys

  • Hiring for Culture Fit

  • Employee Empowerment

Recent Posts

Featured
Managing Customer Expectations.png
Mar 29, 2025
Training plan for Managing Customer Expectations
Mar 29, 2025
Mar 29, 2025
Internal Customer Service.png
Feb 21, 2025
Training plan for Serving Internal Customers
Feb 21, 2025
Feb 21, 2025
Customer Service Icebergs.png
Jan 16, 2025
Understanding the Iceberg Issue in Customer Service
Jan 16, 2025
Jan 16, 2025
5-5-5 blog post.png
Dec 12, 2024
Train customer service skills faster with 5-5-5
Dec 12, 2024
Dec 12, 2024
Phone-Based Customer Service.png
Nov 14, 2024
Training Plan for Phone-Based Customer Service
Nov 14, 2024
Nov 14, 2024

Books

Cover image of The Service Culture Handbook

Recognition

ICMI Top 25 Thought Leader badge
Badge honoring best customer service trainers in the world.
Top 50 Customer Experience (CX) Influencer for 2021
Unymira Top 20 CX Influencer badge
ProcedureFlow Top 30 Contact Center Influencer badge
LiveHelpNow top CX Influencer Award
cx-award-logo-e1527014824753.jpg
Netomi CX thought leader badge
SurveySensum Top 150 Global CX Thought Leader badge
Customer Service Influencer Award, FitSmallBusiness
customer-service-blog-550x550.png
MVP2018_badge_winner_CCC.png

Let’s Get Social

linkedin-unauth instagram-unauth youtube-unauth
  • The Service Culture Guide

Copyright © 2025, Toister Performance Solutions, Inc. Privacy Policy

Jeff Toister — The Service Culture Guide

Toister Performance Solutions helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. Services include helping companies develop customer-focused cultures, voice of customer programs (i.e. surveys) and customer service training. 

linkedin-unauth instagram-unauth youtube-unauth