When one sound wave runs exactly opposite another, sound is canceled out and you get complete silence. Are you wondering, “What does that have to do with customer service?”
Here’s the connection – when your desire to provide outstanding customer service runs opposite to your doubts, it cancels out results. Are doubts interfering with your desire to improve customer service and the bottom line?
Just imagine what it would be like to have your company humming like a high performance car. Every leader is doing their part, your front line is empowered, and customer feedback scores are soaring. Employees (yourself included) look forward to coming to work because of the positive environment you created. Would you agree that most people would desire this type of workplace environment?
Why is it then that some companies manage to empower their people to hold onto those desires and take focused action to make them happen, while others don’t?
It’s those pesky doubts. Doubts have a sneaky way of seeping into your thoughts and spreading like wildfire. People start saying to themselves, “A new customer service initiative probably won’t work. Some of our managers will surely shoot it down . . . people will be too resistant to change . . . and I’m afraid of taking the heat if it fails.” Can you imagine how desire would fizzle out to nothing with such thoughts?
Some say doubts are necessary. It’s not true. Critiques are necessary, not doubts. Critiques keep the desired vision in place, while allowing you to look for weak areas to refine or retool. They help you ensure you’ve crafted a bullet-proof plan.
Sky Lakes Medical, a hospital featured in chapter nine of “Who’s Your Gladys?” is an amazing example of a company that did not allow doubts to cancel out their desire to achieve high patient satisfaction scores and become a hospital of choice. CEO Paul Stewart had a strong desire to improve the customer service culture. Change is not easy. Hospitals have special challenges because customers are patients dealing with the physical and emotional impacts of illness.
Sky Lakes brought in Brian Lee of Custom Learning Systems to help them devise a plan. Brian knows that hospitals have the most complex delivery of service of any field of endeavor. An average patient admitted for a three and a half day stay is handed off to different people 60 times. While some hospitals may let doubt stop them from taking the leap toward excellence, Sky Lakes made the desire non-negotiable. Non-negotiable desire beats out doubt and results roll in. Sky Lakes hit the top ten in the nation on their patient satisfaction scores.
What can your company learn from Sky Lakes? You CAN successfully change your company culture. You CAN change the way you do business and raise your customer satisfaction scores, while increasing happy customer referrals. Do you doubt it? What might have happened at Sky Lakes if they had doubts? What might happen to your company if the desire for exceptional service was non-negotiable?
What do you think? Where might doubts be canceling out the results you desire? What might happen if you replaced doubt with a non-negotiable commitment to improving service?
Marilyn Suttle is the co-author of the best-selling customer service book, “Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan.” She is president of Suttle Enterprises, a personal and professional growth training firm through which she has taught thousands across the country how to have happier, more productive relationships with customers, coworkers, and even their children. Contact Marilyn at Marilyn@MarilynSuttle.com.
She is looking forward to sharing culture changing strategies including the principles behind Sky Lake’s success at the tenth annual Health Care Excellence Conference in Nashville on October 29. http://www.healthcareserviceexcellence.com
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