What do you do when your boss/co-workers don't get the importance of customer service?

Ask your customers how important good Customer service is to their loyalty. Share the results with your colleagues. They will be surprised. A customer service workshop is also a good idea, it forces people to think about what customer service means to them and how it affects their own personal buying choices.

Good data does help to make for good corporate decisions, but good data are merely necessary, not sufficient to guarantee such decision. If it were that simple, business would look a lot different. With data in hand, it's not enough to share the results -- you have to evangelize them. Advocacy counts for a lot, and enthusiasm is contagious, especially when others see potential benefit to themselves.

It's also important to remember that not even the most compelling data will compel a boss with that ever-popular attitude, "my mind's made up -- don't cloud the issue with facts!" If your boss doesn't "get" the importance of excellent customer care is to the business, you may need to consider changing bosses...good luck...

Agreed Michael, you have to sell your findings to the decision makers, the most effective way to do this is to translate the findings into $. Talk their language; show them how it affects their bottom line.

I'd like to re-state the case for workshop style forums as well, it's a great way to help colleagues understand the value of great customer service. Ask them to think about good and bad experiences as a customer and how this affects their buying decisions.

Well, you can find some useful customer service data for her. Also, try to provide a failure case study for your boss which caused by bad customer service. Here is also an aritcle about customer service, maybe it helps.
http://elearning-zone.blogspot.com/2010/06/do-quality-technical-support-for-y...

I always suggest to my clients to shop their own business. Ask them when was the last time they viewed the business from the outside in?

Once they do this, they realize how vital this area is - this really is the one aspect of your business that can make or break your business. You can have the best product for the best price and have the best cadre of people in your company. But if your customer service isn’t the best - your company most likely will struggle or not last.

1st Idea: Have the employees act like a mystery shopper.The insight you gain is remarkable. But you do it slightly different than a typical mystery shopper (checking boxes to existing questions, etc.).

Here you simply write a letter the President of your company - whether he is your boss or not - and you list things you like, don’t like or have heard about the company from others outside and you also list these same 3 things for actual customer service (in this case, you would ‘shop’ customer service)

Put this in a large manilla envelope - don’t fold it - so its size grabs the President’s attention. Handwrite his/her name and ‘Confidential’ on the envelope and that is it. Place it on his desk chair before you leave at the end of the day.

From my experience doing this when I was generating extra work for myself in this area when I was a former private investigator, (i would shop them, even though they hadn’t hired me yet, then write reports up and then have my reports hand delivered to company VPs or Presidents) these get opened quick - not thrown in the inbox - the curiousity of this strange 'package' begs for it.

If all the employees do this on the same day, the boss will realize if his own employees are taking the time to do this to alert him to some things, & he needs to schedule the time to have conversations about this & address this more throughout the year. Employees can be the push to inspire bosses sometimes :)

The key to this is my steadfast philosophy: don't be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution. If the employees are going to 'complain' about something, they should offer at least 1 idea of how to fix it or make it better.

The boss will respect they did this because they took the time not just to complain, but to care to help. Moreover, he will be very appreciative (even if at first riffed a bit) that these employees cared enough about his company - to reach out to let him/her know there are aspects in the company that the boss needs to keep his eye on and constantly champion.

The awesome secret about customer service. It's something that is absolutely controllable, fixable & flexible to change instantly. Their is power in that and I always suggest you capitalize on the areas in your business where you have the most instant power (and where its reflected in the bottom line).

Keep in mind: customer service happens on all levels of the company. Exceptional customer service starts with the President, he sets the standards - so he is the one that needs to be aware of this (not necessarily the boss - it will get to the boss anyway) to reestablish the momentum in this area and set the new benchmark.

But the benchmark should always be the same: you should offer nothing but Exceptional Customer Service. Everything else (these days especially), is almost equivilant to offering no customer service at all.

Some outstanding companies to view for customer service: Mercedes Benz, Nordstrom, Ritz Carlton, Ferarri (they are king for employees too).

This is my 2nd suggestion for this (you are only allowed so many characters:

Get the owner/president involved personally. This speaks volumes about their level of care or dedication to delivering exceptional customer service - showing the entire company it's importance, and showing the customers they are really valued.

Get the president of a company to call or email customers asking them to provide some feedback on how they were treated in the company during their entire experience with that company.

That person will feel honored the president took the time to care, and most likely will tell them things candidly. If you do this, just ask them for at the most, 3 points of good, 3 points of bad, but they are free to list more if they want. This won’t take up too much of the customer’s time, but it gives enough insight to the president as to what their true experience was vs what he thinks his company is doing.

The best is to poll 20 - 25 people, so this doesn't absorb all your time as a president & gives you a decent amount of information, as well, a fair balance in the differentiation between customers (age, sex, income level, repeat customer, 1st time customer, etc)

Print out all the emailed points (minus the names) and send copies of them out in a packet to the entire company - get the entire company involved, so they are aware of the outside perception of the company.

Ask them all what they think they can do to change it? Ask them if they are surprised? Ask them if any remember certain scenarios and get their take on it - be open to dialogue and not just using these emails as point of fact only with no room for discussion.

Then get focused on fixing or improving things. If you have an entire department, you can role play different scenarios to improve customer service. But you might be surprised what other employees will suggest or mention in how they think they can contribute to immediately changing/improving the customer service of the company.

For us, multiple touch points have improved customer service. There is no one person who hold all the cards here. That keep us each of us accountable and in constant dialogue with each other and the client. There is a lead Consultant, an Account Manager and an Administrator. One of our Vice Presidents and one of our customer service team are also on hand to answer questions quickly. They are all trained on the same systems and are all able to see all levels of customer and account information. We see when there are "gatekeepers" to customer service at other companies, the first person to suffer is the client, but in the end the company will suffer greatly as well when the clients business goes to the competitor, which we hope is us.

I always suggest to my clients to shop their own business. Ask them when was the last time the viewed their business from the outside in?

Once they do this, they realize how vital this area is - this really is the one aspect of your business that can make or break your business. You can have the best product for the best price and have the best cadre of people in your company. But if your customer service isn’t the best - your company most likely will struggle or not last.

Suggestion: Have the employees act like a mystery shopper.The insight you gain is remarkable. But you do it slightly different than a typical mystery shopper (checking boxes to existing questions, etc.).

Here you simply write a letter the President of your company - whether he is your boss or not - and you list things you like, don’t like or have heard about the company from others outside and you also list these same 3 things for actual customer service (in this case, you would ‘shop’ customer service)

Put this in a large manilla envelope - don’t fold it - so its size grabs the President’s attention. Handwrite his/her name and ‘Confidential’ on the envelope and that is it. Place it on his desk chair before you leave at the end of the day.

From my experience doing this when I was generating extra work for myself in this area when I was a former private investigator, (i would shop them, even though they hadn’t hired me yet, then write reports up and then have my reports hand delivered to company VPs or Presidents) these get opened quick - not thrown in the inbox - the curiousity of this strange 'package' begs for it.

If all the employees do this on the same day, the boss will realize if his own employees are taking the time to do this to alert him to some things, & he needs to schedule the time to have conversations about this & address this more throughout the year. Employees can be the push to inspire bosses sometimes :)

The key to this is my steadfast philosophy: don't be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution. If the employees are going to 'complain' about something, they should offer at least 1 idea of how to fix it or make it better.

The boss will respect they did this because they took the time not just to complain, but to care to help. Moreover, he will be very appreciative (even if at first riffed a bit) that these employees cared enough about his company - to reach out to let him/her know there are aspects in the company that the boss needs to keep his eye on and constantly champion.

That's the awesome secret about customer service. It's something that is absolutely controllable, fixable & flexible to change instantly. Their is power in that and I always suggest you capitalize on the areas in your business where you have the most instant power (and where its reflected in the bottom line0.

Keep in mind: customer service happens on all levels of the company. Exceptional customer service starts with the President, he sets the standards - so he should be the one made aware of this (not necessarily the boss if he isn't the President) in order to re-establish the momentum in this area and set the new benchmark.

But the benchmark should always be the same: you should offer nothing but Exceptional Customer Service. Everything else (these days especially), is almost equivilant to offering no customer service at all.

Some outstanding companies to view for customer service: Mercedes Benz, Nordstrom, Ritz Carlton, Ferarri (they are king for employees too).

Leslie,

Great question! I agree with the others that a customer service workshop may be needed in the organization. I also believe that sometimes people learn more effectively when they see others modeling the behaviors that are expected of them, which in this case is delivering exceptional customer service. A few additional suggestions:

•Survey your customers for feedback on the service they receive
•Create performance goals based on customer service/satisfaction
•Hold the bosses accountable for the customer service being provided by their employees

Lastly, if your bosses are not recognizing the importance of customer service, they may be in need of additional leadership or management training.

Good Luck!