Employee Engagement
City of Philadelphia Celebrates Customer Service Week in a Big Way
Customer Service Week was a tremendous success! The conversations that took place during these trainings were meaningful and lead to very important questions and reframing of our customer service mentality.
During our first session, City employees and I deconstructed the role of customer service in creating a welcoming, responsive, connected city. We discussed this topic in great detail. What makes a welcoming city? Who is our customer and why are they customers, why not citizens? We talked about how to treat customers like you value their investment in our communities, workforce, and local economy. Our customers are what drives our city and we want to show them we appreciate them.
Public service means committing to and working for the people. Because of the nature of public service, an immense customer base and often limited resources can lead to disgruntled customers and equally frustrated city workers. That is why these workshops were geared towards training and development of the every day heroes who work directly with customers on a daily basis. These City employees came out to discuss the importance of quality customer service because they believe in their calling.
You may have seen my recent post on our second session. To recap, Darryll Adams, General Manager of the Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia spoke to City employees about what it means to provide outstanding service. He talked about your attitude, appearance, and presentation all being a factor. He talked about choosing the right employees, with a customer-oriented mindset both on and off the job, and getting employees invested in the mission. Customer Service is directly connected to efficiency. In a cyclical way, when your employees are invested and believe in what they are doing they provide better services and the customer satisfaction rate increases dramatically.
Our thirds session, with Stacey Mosley of the Office of Innovation and Technology, covered open data. We went through what open data is, how we obtain and share it, and what practical uses it has in your department, particularly as it relates to customer service. Open data increases transparency. When residents, businesses, and visitors have more data, they are equipped to make better decisions. Open data can also reduce the amount of calls from customers looking for information that is public through open data and media can access information without a right to know request. All of these aspects of open data help make Philadelphia, more efficient and responsive to the needs of our customers.
In our final session, we talked about putting yourself in the shoes of your customer. We went through the process of defining your desired customer experience and did some brainstorming on what the customer experience model could be for the departments present at this session. Reading Terminal Market presented about their customer service model and how they developed it, and how it has helped them in creating a cohesive experience for all of their customers and vendors too. We closed by talking about what role social media can play in defining and enhancing the customer experience.
All of the Customer Service Week sessions were about training, brainstorming, and working together to provide the best interaction possible when customers work with their local government in Philadelphia. But this week was also about recognizing the great work of our very own every day heroes in Philadelphia. The customer service representatives on the front lines, helping people understand and navigate city government; these are the every day heroes. The City of Philadelphia celebrates all of the employees who directly impact the experience customers have with city government, these representatives are the first impression customers have of the City.
City services are directly related to quality of life concerns. Citizens and government need to work together to keep making this city cleaner, greener, and safer. That is what we are here to do, and we want to acknowledge and celebrate
the success we have had so far, as we continue to improve our service standards.
Thank you to everyone who participated in Customer Service Week! We are looking forward to doing it again next year!
Essential Traits for a Customer Service Manager
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Above is a sneak peek at The Philly311 Show episode where I interview 311 Operations Manager, Sheryl Johnson.
What I loved most about speaking with Sheryl is her passion for customer service. This passion is so important to a customer service manager because it tends to transfer into the organization and its employees. From my time speaking and working with Sheryl, I took away a few key attributes that every customer service manager should have.
Innate passion for customer service. Sheryl’s level of passion for customer service is an asset to the organization, unfortunately, this level of passion can rarely be taught. The same innate passion should be sought out in your hires, the kind of potential employees who yearn for more than a just a paycheck. Among other aspects, these individuals should be evaluated on the way they have handled past situations rather than on the intricacies of their resumes. (See my blog post on how to hire the right customer service people.)
A clear understanding of the organization’s mission. A customer service manager must understand how his/her “shop” contributes to the organization’s mission and communicate this to employees to increase their level of engagement. Small ways managers can accomplish this is by celebrating milestones, achievements, and other types of employee recognition also helps to engage employees, relating their success to the success of the organization and vice versa.
Ability to identify special skill sets of employees and capitalizing on those skills. In a contact center, most of the day-to-day work is mundane. That’s why it’s important for a contact center to give employees special projects that cater to their skills or interests. This not only lets employees explore their passion, but it also helps create a more vibrant and creative environment where employees are excited to come to work.
What other traits does a customer service operations manager need? Let me know in the comments!
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog atwww.rosettacarringtonlue.com
How Are You Developing Your Talent?
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Above is the sneak peek for the The Philly311 Show’s latest episode with guest Jackie Linton, Director of the Center of Excellence. I really enjoyed sitting down with Jackie and discussing the Center of Excellence’s three core functions: Project Management, building project management capabilities; Organizational Development, developing talent for the future; and Performance Management, supporting departments in managing their performance metrics and facilitating external transparency. While all of these functions have a direct tie to customer service excellence, I would like to focus on organizational development (specifically talent development) for this week’s customer service tip.
Developing talent within your organization is crucial to your customer service operations for two important reasons: the first is that many of the employees who are on the receiving end of development programs are ones closest to your customers. Customer service representatives, supervisors, or even call center managers have direct contact with your customers every day, with the ability to make or break your customers’ overall experience. With such constant high stake interactions, these are the employees whom you should be developing the most. While most organizations carefully plan and implement training programs, development programs are just as important as they help to build the skills, knowledge, and confidence of your employees on and supporting the front line.
The second reason that talent development is so important in customer service is that a good development program helps to build employee engagement. While most organizations agree that higher employee engagement leads to better customer service, most organizations do not agree on the best ways to engagement their employees. Why not engage your employees by taking a proactive interest in their future? This will not only help your employees to feel valued but it will also help them take a vested interest in the organization’s success. (Forbes has a great blog post about why employee development is so important.)
As customer service professionals, what do you think are the best ways to develop your talent?
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com
An Employee Engagement Miracle
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I loved WestJet’s “Christmas Miracle.” I couldn’t stop watching this viral video for a number of reasons. For one, it goes above and beyond the scope of customer service excellence. Through its gift-giving customer service effort, WestJet was able to bring its customers (and even its Youtube viewers) to tears. But while it was fun to watch customers receive surprise gifts, there was another aspect to the video that intrigued me: WestJet level of employee engagement in the company’s rich customer service culture.
Engaging employees in a customer service culture is a difficult task. It does not focus on just one area such hiring or on-boarding or recognition. To create a truly engaging customer service culture, there needs to be a set of processes in place, across the organization, at every point of an employee’s career. Here are a few of the ways that can help:
1) Choosing the right employees. Choosing the right employees, especially for customer service, involves a flexible hiring process that allows you to choose candidates based on fit. In customer service, this fit means placing less emphasis on what a candidate has done in previous positions, with more emphasis on what an employee would do in certain situations. Engaged customer service employees have a rare blend of passive, yet assertive traits that make them invaluable on the frontlines of customer concerns. These traits should be sought out before picking the best-looking resume. (See my post on choosing the best customer service people.)
2) Training employees with hands-on, peer-to-peer training. Micha Solomon wrote a great blog post on Forbes about “How Hiring and HR Build Customer Service Culture.” Solomon writes that hiring the right customer service employees is important because (A) they are ultimately on the front lines, serving as the “face” of the organization and (B) “The employees you hire will ultimately exert pressure–positive or negative–on other staff members, who, when its their turn, will directly interact with customers.”
While Solomon admits that the first reason (A) is a bit obvious, the second reason is important to consider. If you’re hiring the right employees for customer service, those employees should be the ones directly training new employees. Which do you think is more impactful: a powerpoint presentation from a middle manager or a hands-on lesson from an employee performing the same job as the new hire? At the very least, the new hires will behave in the way their peer trainer behaves as a way to “fit” with the organization. If new hires cannot behave in the same manner their per trainers behave, they’ll likely leave.
3) Combine empowerment with standard processes, without micromanaging. Empowerment is the new buzzword in customer service, and it should be, because empowered employees have the ability to best satisfy customers wants and needs. But it can’t just be about empowerment. There needs to be a standard, communicated process for almost every situation. Employees need to be well-versed in these processes; without them, most employees will feel lost. Once employees have a firm grasp of the set processes and procedures in your customer service operations, it’s important to communicate that they can deviate, should they find it necessary. Employees who are empowered by both education and the ability to deviate from the “plan” without someone standing over their shoulders are the employees who will feel most comfortable providing excellent customer service.
4) Meaningfully recognize employees, often. Employee recognition programs often drive performance and help engage employees, but only if these recognition efforts are recognized by employees. Do you think a paper certificate or gold star will have much impact on an employee’s level of engagement? Recognition efforts need to be personalized and thoughtful in order to build a community within an organization. This personal sense of community is especially important to customer service operations that deal with people every day. One way to engage employees through meaningful personalize, and fun recognition is to have an employee-led recognition committee. These employees will know how to meaningfully celebrate because they are planning for their peers.
What are your essentials to engaging employees? Let me know in the comments!
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com
VIDEO POST: Creating a Customer Service Service Culture in Government
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Although governments have made great strides in improving customer service, there’s still a stigma about how complicated the process can be. From both inside and outside of government, people assume that any major change is next to impossible. It’s assumed, for example, that it’s next to impossible to create a customer service culture in government. I’m proud to report that it’s not. And finally, I came across a video that outlines how scalable the process can be.
Above is a video from the wonderful Dennis Snow, the former customer service executive from Disney. Dennis Snow is outstanding leader and a well-known expert in the customer service business. In his video, Dennis outlines the four simple steps to creating a customer service culture. Remarkably, these steps are not just applicable to large corporations. These steps are realistic and scalable whether you’re directing the customer experience at Disney or at the Philadelphia City government. Here are Dennis’ steps:
1. Define your service culture. (For this Dennis says to choose three characteristics)
2. Make sure there is a hiring process in place to identify “customer service” people.
3. Make sure there is a training process to drive this service culture.
4. Hold employees accountable for their behaviors.
The important part about these steps is that they can be implemented in any organization, especially a government. In my experience, defining a service culture was easy because we aligned it with our mayoral goals. Hiring the right people also wasn’t a challenge. Once we had clearly defined the service culture we wanted, it was easy to find the kind of employees who shared the same values. (See my blog post on hiring the right customer service people) Our training process took time to develop. We wanted to make sure that every employee was well educated, had hands-on experience in serving our customers and empowered to serve nearly every need. Once the training was developed, however, we had our more senior-level employees act as “instructors.” This ensured buy-in. Our experienced employees knew our customer service culture inside-and-out and our new employees were trained on our culture immediately. The last step, accountability, is perhaps the most simple. Where organizations get caught up, however, is in the communication piece. Holding employees accountable only works when expectations are clearly outlined and reinforced. Our contact center worked this communication into the training program. (Our customer service values are also hanging on the walls.)
Does creating a customer service culture in your government agency (or any other organization) seem any more obtainable? Let me know in the comments. And don’t forget to thank Dennis!
Rosetta Carrington Lue is the Chief Customer Service Officer and Senior Advisor to the City of Philadelphia’s Managing Director. Follow Rosetta on Twitter @Rosettalue or visit her blog at www.rosettacarringtonlue.com.
Developing an Effective Customer Service Strategy for Government Agencies | HowTo.gov
Customer Engagement & Performance Management Practices in Government
This 10-step plan will help you develop and implement an effective customer service strategy for your agency.
9 Ways to Reward Employees to Reinforce Customer-Centric Behaviors
Celebrate target behavior: Many companies make the mistake of trying to tie variable compensation (e.g., bonuses) to customer experience metrics too early.
What many firms have learned is the informal recognition programs can be even more powerful at moving culture than the compensation metrics.
1. Reward those named in customer surveys. At Pitney Bowes, employees recognized by name in surveys or feedback receive a gift certificate, and at GoDaddy.com one lucky employee’s bonus is a paid year’s worth of rent or mortgage payments. Circles gives agents the ability to accumulate points based on customer satisfaction surveys and redeem them for prizes, including additional time off.
2. Recognize people behind-the-scenes. Since 1992…
Great tips and reminders about reinforcing positive customer-centric behaviors.
See on www.1to1media.com
Deliver a World-Class Customer Experience | TIME.com
Customer Experience Excellence Best Practices
Take a page out of Disney’s employee training playbook to see how creative management can lead to fully engaged employees dedicated to pleasing customers.
Enjoyed reading this article and the author summarized key points that applicable to all industries.
See on business.time.com
Contact Center Agent Turnover Is A Fact Of Life That Must Be Tracked And Managed | Forrester Blogs
Customer Experience Excellence Best Practices
A really well written article. “Good” turnover in a contact center is between 20%-50%. How does your organization measure and manage agent turnover? What strategies are in place to retain great employees?
See on blogs.forrester.com
Innovative Customer Service Leadership Strategies 