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The following questions
and answers are transcribed from an interview with Nick Zigic, a marketing
professional.
Q: How did you get to this
point in your career?
A:
As a result of my
training in theatre, I became keenly aware of how behaviors trigger emotions. For example, I had an acting teacher who coached celebrities like
Tom Selleck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ted Danson, etc., and he was often asked ‘How do you sustain the
emotional level of a performance night after night?, and in some cases, year after
year?” He would advise his students to commit to the
behavior and the emotion would follow. These moments
of commitment are referred to as “choices”, and that same principle can be applied to our daily
interactions in the work place.
You may have
heard other customer service professionals refer to “Moments of truth”. There are literally hundreds of these moments within each
interaction we have with our customers, clients and staff. Our choices, or “behaviors” combined with our “script”, in that
moment, dictate the outcome of the interaction.
Anyway, that’s
how my career evolved. I was a good observer and could
analyze my choices while staying in the moment. I
shared this skill with staff, and eventually other clients found it significantly helpful in
transforming their relationships, both personal and professional. And I liked that I could have that kind of positive impact on
someone’s life.
Q: What should
every business-owner/executive/leader know?
A: It’s all about
leadership. I’ve seen organizations spend tens of
thousands of dollars on building a service culture, and if they don’t have committed leadership,
they won’t be able to reap the long term rewards of the time and money they’ve spent on growing
their service program. Leadership is a broad topic,
but I’ve distilled it down to some characteristics with a particular behavior and script associated
with each characteristic. So you can literally turn
the knob on your office door and begin to do things differently today. You don’t have to attend a class or seminar that leaves you with
several handouts and notebooks and possibly a tape or two. In my experience, these items go on the shelf and are
forgotten. These characteristics are on one piece of
paper that can be posted on your desktop as a reminder every day of what behaviors are important to
becoming a great leader. The biggest impact will be
with your staff. You’ll see positive results
immediately.
Those leadership
characteristics/behaviors are as follows:
1. Passionate – service is as important to you as the
budget. For example: Whenever you talk to staff about budget, service must
always be part of the conversation.
Script: “We’re not going to be able to get that
copy machine this year. I know that it
continuously needs repair and is a source of frustration to you, but it’s important that we
don’t convey our frustration to our customers.
We’ll continue to give the same great service, and I’ll do my best to continue to wok on the
problem.”
2. Set & Communicate clear
priorities – using the
copy machine example, in one sentence you’ve conveyed to your staff your
expectations. Do something every day to let your
staff know what you expect. And, don’t forget to
emphasize this during the interview process. The
best time to let people know what to expect is BEFORE you hire them. Do they have a problem saying their name when they answer
the phone? If that’s what you expect, you’d
better find this out before you bring them on board.
3. Listen & Act on staff
suggestions – Share
the power. You don’t have to think of
everything. Get your staff involved. Ask them for their thoughts and then act on their
input. I ran an office with a call center and 15 case
managers. We needed a new system to make sure that the
case load was equitable. I could have easily developed
a system and told the staff that effective tomorrow, we were going to change the way we distributed
cases. But, this was the perfect opportunity for them
to get involved and design a system that would work for them. It was more important to me that they were happy, and that the
work got done and on time. So I gave them those
parameters and turned them loose. They came up with
some great ideas and chose one to try. It was very
successful because it was their idea – not mine. Less
work for me, too.
4. Obtain resources needed
– OK – back to that copy machine
example. This is something that can make their lives
miserable. How do you think they’re going to treat
your customers if they don’t have what it takes to give good service? At a minimum, you have to keep them updated on the
situation. Let them know the status and that you’re
continually working on their behalf. I consulted with
a physician’s practice where the nurses complained that they didn’t have enough blood pressure
cuffs. As a leader, it’ your job to sacrifice to get
them what they need.
5. Recognize frequently
– do you think you have to
buy your staff a trinket to recognize them?
Remember the power of a personal Thank You. Keep
some cards in your desk drawer, or just write a Thank You on a post-it note. But, make it specific. For example: write this – “When you said, “Is there
anything else I can help you with today” you demonstrated one of our values – to always “be
helpful” to the customer.” I’ve given you the
language, so start to recognize someone on your staff TODAY!
6. Empathize – as a leader, you’ve got to understand where
your staff is coming from. Are they always
late? Why? It’s your job to say: “That must be very difficult for you. What can I do to help you get to work on time?” If you’re asking them to be helpful to your customers, you have
to be helpful to them.
7. Role model – Does your staff see you get frustrated in
front of your customers? If so, you can guarantee that
they share their frustrations in front of customers, also. Do you give an unhappy customer some options for resolving the
problem? Then, your staff will do the
same. Do you listen with understanding and make
an empathetic statement, sincerely, when listening to your staff? If so, they, in turn, will behave similarly with your
customers.
To
summarize the leadership issue, if you’re going to ask your staff to do things differently,
you’d better have addressed all of the characteristics above FIRST.
Q: What are the key success-points and
mistakes most business owners make in regards to employee retention?
A: First of all, they don’t take
the time to recruit and hire appropriately. If you get the right person and they’re a perfect fit
for your team, that means a lot to not only the new recruit but the existing staff as
well.
Secondly, there
is no defined career path or ongoing educational opportunity. No matter the size of the company, you must always find a way to
encourage skills-building. This is not a guaranteed
employee retention strategy, but take a tip from Susan Heathfield, an expert in employee
retention. In an article entitled:
Top Ten Ways to
Retain Your Great Employees,
By Susan M.
Heathfield,
Susan
says:
“Your best employees, those
employees you want to retain, seek frequent opportunities to learn and grow in their
careers, knowledge and skill. Without the opportunity to try new opportunities, sit on
challenging committees, attend seminars and read and discuss books, they feel they will
stagnate. A career-oriented, valued employee must experience growth opportunities within
your organization.”
I couldn’t have
said it better.
Q: What are the
biggest pitfalls of poor employee management?
A: You lose
business. It’s as simple as that. You can spend your dollars on marketing efforts and advertising
campaigns, but if you don’t take care of your employees, they won’t take care of your customers,
and you won’t get the repeat business. You’ll just
have to spend more money on attracting new clients.
That’s not necessary and it’s a waste of your resources. Investing in a service culture, is the most cost-effective
proposition for any business.
Q: How would you
link the elements invested in a business start-up and staffing with the ones output at the time of
the business disposition?
A: It’s a value
proposition. If someone’s evaluating your business,
you can show them the great financial results, but you can guarantee the steady growth because of
your human resources and your customer relationships.
Q: You’ve shared a
lot in terms of leadership and employee management, but what do you do when you have to deal with a
difficult employee that’s making your life miserable.
A: You’re
probably locked in a power struggle with the difficult employee, and it’s your job to break
it. Start slowly by adding the leadership behaviors to
your daily routine, and consider giving up some of the power to the difficult
employee. I’ve always had great success in
“pushing the HELP button.” You’d be surprised at
how effective this technique is in your personal and professional life. Simply say, “I need your help” and you’ll be amazed at how
the cooperation level will increase. I had an
employee who did nothing all day but document – my actions, the staff’s actions – you name
it, she documented it. And, of course, this
documentation was done in order to file grievances or make other types of negative
reports. When I was faced with a move to a new
office, I put a positive “spin” on this behavior, and told her, “You’re very organized and
you keep excellent notes. I need someone
like you to help me. “Would you be willing (key
phrase) to manage the move for me.” I had an
ally, and she did an excellent job at managing the move. As a result, she was considered for a higher level
position. And, although she still had some
personality and behavioral issues that caused commotion every now and then, I could always
rely on her for help. I had to ensure calm by
continually involving her in the leadership role, but it paid off, and the power struggle was
a thing of the past. She actually nominated me
for a leadership award!!!!!!!!!!!
Q: What do you
have in the works?
A: My mission is
to make my 25 years of experience available to every business, whether small or
large. Most small business owners simply don’t
have the resources to hire a professional consultant, so I’ve spent hours developing and
researching the concepts of a service culture - designing an easy-to-follow, quick process
called, “The 7-Step Solution”, specifically for the “do- it- yourselfer.”
The “7 Step
Guidebook” is not meant to tell you all you need to know about Customer Service, but it does give
you the NO COST tried and true basics that will
guarantee success.
Q: How can people
get in touch with you?
A:
I encourage everyone to contact me via e-mail at verena@theserviceadvisors.com. They’ll definitely get some tips on how to get
started to build a service culture (and it's fun to boot!), or they can always e-mail me to discuss
a particular service issue that may be giving them a problem.
Better yet,
everyone should read The 11% Solution - 7 Steps to Make Your
Buck Go Bang. It’s a distilled version based on my 25 years of experience, and I guarantee,
that everyone who reads it, will discover some new idea or process that will help them keep their
existing customers, while growing their business!
The great thing
about the 7 Steps, it also works in maintaining or recovering relationships with friends and
family!
Read on, and have
fun. Be a winner. Get the first 10 pages of the Guidebook free.
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