rules Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

18
Aug 20
-

Friendly Competition, Is It Really Friendly?

Tags : competition culture friendly integrity rules

Are you up for a little friendly competition? Will everyone play by the rules?

In the workplace, sales teams will sometimes do this.

Who is having the best day, week, or month in sales? Sell the most and you win a trip, get a special parking spot, or maybe you receive a nice bonus.

It works for other areas too. Safety records, attendance, or any key performance indicators that are measured for improvement.

A little friendly competition can certainly be motivating, challenging, and break new ground. It can spice things up and achieve some great results.

Is friendly competition truly friendly or are there rule-breakers, guideline manipulators, and short-cut takers?

Would you consider that to be part of the competition?

Friendly Competition

The desire to compete, to win, to prove excellence or highest performance motivates many.

Competition can also invite pressure, the pressure for greater performance or to get recognized as above average.

Pressure might imply pushing. Getting pushed, being pushed, or risking it all for victory.

We often use the word push. Push harder, do more, get better, or stronger. Conceptually, pull is a better method.

When the pressure to achieve becomes so overwhelming a win at all costs might develop. Sometimes, people believe they need to risk it all to achieve.

They try short-cuts, end runs, and they may try to cheat.

Cheating isn’t friendly competition. It shouldn’t be part of the process.

Your highest integrity and most loyal team members won’t sacrifice their character or reputation by resorting to cheating. Unless of course, the possibility of better results outweighs the risk of getting caught.

Competition and cheating have been around for a long time.

Do you want a culture of integrity?

When you start the competition, what will be the rules? How will the rules be monitored and enforced?

Promoting competition with “no rules” means you may be weakening the integrity of your organzation.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

05
Aug 19
-

Whatever You Do, We Trust You.

Tags : accountability rules trust workplace

Workplace trust seems like a reasonable component of any flourishing organization. What are the signs of trust? Does your team have it?

A small entrepreneurial effort may not require a lot of rules. A few people working together to add value and build a growing business, they have each other’s back. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Workplace Trust

As organizations grow a little bigger, things often start to change. Trust often changes.

Do supervisors micromanage because they lack trust? You bet.

Are there rules of engagement, rules for decisions, and rules to track effort? You bet.

Are there rules about keeping the rules? Yes, often.

Organizations of all sizes can be wildly successful and exciting. The difference between small and large often requires more management of the organizational dynamics.

Mistakes sometimes pile up and can become a new rule.

When accountability seems to fall short, there is a new rule. There are rules to protect the bottom line, rules to protect the organization from legal actions, and likely some rules to protect the customer.

Rules Pile Up

As the rules pile up, the pace of the organization slows.

I don’t know if we can do that, check back next week.

That isn’t my job, I’ll have to get someone who can help.

Next week is our meeting, we’ll discuss it then.

Rules slow the pace.

The business owner who is a plumber and actively works in the field doesn’t need to check with the boss. The same is true for the print shop, the landscaper, and the garage builder.

Do you have a growing business enterprise? Do you trust your employees? How do you show it? What does the customer feel?

A lack of trust becomes costly in many ways.

-DEG

22
Apr 19
-

Best Customers Are Not Every Customer

Tags : best customers customer service respect rules

It is common, a new rule, something to prevent or curve off potential losses. Unfortunately, many businesses think about customer service as a department, a place that is the caretaker of rules. Be careful what you do to your best customers.

Every Customer

A good friend of mine is avid Harley Davidson guy. He dumps all his pocket change on playing with his Harley Davidson motorcycles. He is known at several dealerships and regularly drops a couple of hundred bucks on a visit.

Recently, he decided to order some new parts. The person at the parts counter explained that he needed to prepay. He never prepaid before.

The parts counter person advised, “It’s a new rule, all customers must prepay for non-stock items.”

He responded back, “Come on, you know I’m good for it.”

The counter person suggested that he didn’t make the rules, but that it applies to everyone.

My friend prepaid, he has the money. The problem is, he felt disrespected, he felt like there is mistrust, and the shop just weakened a previously very strong relationship.

Best Customers

I use a lot of printing services in my business.

My black and white copy business primarily goes to one vendor. It has been that way for many years. I send them a file via email, they know me by name and normally they have a good idea of the specs for my print job.

Recently, I had a job requirement that wasn’t normal, there was also a pending holiday. I wasn’t sure of their business hours or when the job would be finished. In addition to my normal email, I telephoned ahead for clarity.

When I arrived to pick up my finished order, I noticed a new sign. The sign read something like, “All print orders must be prepaid, no exceptions.” Yet, back on the shelf, clearly labeled with my name, my print job was complete and ready to go.

I felt respected. My order mattered. I was important to them and my years of being a good customer made a difference.

I’m not an average customer at the print shop, neither is my buddy at the Harley shop.

Remember your best customers, they are not every customer.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

01
Jun 18
-

Customer Rules Should Work, Will They?

Tags : customer experience guidelines rules service

Many businesses adopt customer rules. Sometimes these are designed for safety or other critical concerns. Many times, the customer rules are designed to be convenient for the vendor.

No one needs another customer service horror story, we get plenty of them already. This is the short story to illustrate a point.

Short Story

Recently I had minor surgery on my eye lid. Following the procedure, I was prescribed a prescription drop to use for a few days. The surgery center sent my prescription electronically to a pharmacy about twenty-five miles away.

More than ten minutes later I was released from the center, I had to have a driver, and needed get my drops. Thirty-five to forty minutes later we arrived at the drive through lane at the pharmacy.

The prescription, that only required a label to be placed on the packaging (no pill counting, etc.) was not ready. The employee working the drive through window provided two options, “You can either come inside and wait, or come back later.”

Leaning across the center console of the car I asked, “How long until it is ready?”

The employee said, “If you come inside it will be twenty minutes, if you are coming back through the drive through it will be one hour.”

I laughed, and she walked away from the window.

I’m not released to drive, not really in a great position to enter the store, and my driver has other commitments. All of that aside, who is this customer rule benefiting?

Customer Rules

Businesses do silly things every day. Rules, guidelines, and ways of doing business that are designed to benefit someone, but it is a stretch to see the benefit to the customer.

Customer rules should work, but do they? Unfortunately, many rules actually punish the customer.

What are your rules?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

23
Dec 17
-

Employees That Care Change The Customer Experience

Tags : caring customer experience employees policies rules

Rules, policies, and procedures are often in place to ensure the customer experience is delivered consistent with the brand promise. Have you considered that having employees that care is really what changes the customer experience?

Organizations can set policy and have rules, but often the values and beliefs of the employee will be the biggest factor for outcomes. Demonstrating caring starts with the employees believing that the organization they work for values both the employees and customers.

Bounds of Rules and Policies

Employees will make decisions both within the bounds of rules and policies and outside of those parameters too. What they decide will really depend on what they value. Culture, driven by leadership often shapes value perceptions.

A gallon of milk has a drip, but put it on the shelf anyway. I hope that someone grabs it soon.

There is an empty coach seat on the unfilled airplane but the three biggest people on the plane are required to sit in the same row.

The roofer drops some nails in your yard, but oh well, perhaps no one will notice.

At the automobile repair shop, the mechanic steps in grease, gets it on your floor mats, but ignores what he sees because it isn’t his problem.

Food for table four sits and grows cold since the waiter is more preoccupied with his friends seated at table eight.

Chances are great that all of these circumstances, as well as thousands of others are against the rules. They break the fundamental policies, procedures, and what the organization leadership claims as the brand promise.

Caring Starts Inside

Caring starts on the inside. It starts with the organization philosophy that is carried out every day. Not the rule in written in the manual, the one that the employee feels based on the cultural environment.

The dairy department manager is measured in part by loss due to spoilage or out of date merchandise.

Airline personnel aren’t sure that comfort is one of their problems. Security is what really matters. Stay in your ticketed seat. Passengers should be more weight conscious.

The boss wants the roofer on the next job, they already lost a day because of rain. Picking up a few nails is a waste of time.

Grease, what grease? I work in grease every day and I can’t afford that car. Deal with it, it didn’t come from my boot.

Why do people eat burgers and fries anyway? They should be vegans. Who cares if their food sits. Reminiscing about high school is much more fun.

Employees That Care

Chances are great that rules, policies, and procedures won’t matter that much. It is the integrity and ethics of the employees that will make the difference. They’ll decide. They likely make those decisions hundreds of times per day.

However, they aren’t the only ones to blame. Guiding their choices are the behaviors of the leadership agenda.

Time is money and waste is problematic are two leadership punishments that employees divert to the customer. They’ve learned it from the inside and they’re sharing it on the outside.

Do you want to change the customer experience? Employees that care are important. Leadership measurement should consider metrics of caring. Caring is never cheap, but not caring is the most expensive of all.

– DEG

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

18
Dec 17
-

Care About Your Customer Or Else

Tags : caring customer service feel good policies rules

Many of our customer service successes or problems are the result of caring, or not. It seems simple to most. Which is precisely why so many take customer service behaviors for granted. Do you care about your customer?

I’m missing a shirt from my dry cleaning drop off.

Sorry, we accidentally gave it to another customer. He will bring it back soon.

Do you mean soon, as in an hour, or soon as in days?

We don’t know, soon. He usually comes in on Saturday.

I needed that shirt for a trip. I’m headed out of town.

Sorry.

Lack of Caring

Why do fast food drive through lines leave the bag open when there is warm food inside? Why does the garage move your car seat or mirrors and then leave them in that position?

The root cause of any or all of the problems is the same. They don’t care about how it makes it you feel or how it affects what happens next for you.

Sometimes it is about chance. The customer called saying he had a shirt that was not his. The thought is, oh darn; bring it back when you can please. More thinking, the customer has nine other clean shirts, this one doesn’t matter. Hope he doesn’t come in before the shirt gets back.

Sometimes it is about protection. The bag is likely open because the last thing they do is look inside, being sure they haven’t made an error. The thought is, keep the bag open so we can spot check and the customer can too.

Sometimes it is about convenience. The seat and mirrors were obnoxious in that position they are better now. The thought, how can someone drive with those positions, I can’t.

Care About Your Customer

Rules, policies, procedures, or even ignorance to the outcomes are often to blame for a lack of caring. Not caring feels wrong in a world that measures the service experience by advancing the needle on the gauge related to how good the customer feels.

What is worse than the customer not feeling good? The customer will tell others how it made them feel.

When you decide to make a difference, you will stop saying that you care about your customer and start showing them.

– DEG

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

11
Sep 17
-

Why Customer Service Is Unique

Tags : culture customer service lifetime value policies rules

Do you know customer service? Many people believe that they have it mastered, that it is simple, and often that one size fits all. Have you considered why customer service is unique?

People make decisions every day, the business owner, the C Suite executive, the director, manager, or supervisor, even the front line employee. People, employees, those who represent the organization are making decisions about the customer.

Decisions Affect Outcomes

Decisions are made in the boardroom, on the plant floor, in the cubicle farm, at the coffee pot, and often while being face to face with the customer.

The decisions that you or anyone in the organization make will change how business is done. Decisions are made based on the organization culture. The values and beliefs that are carried forward form an understanding. Spoken, written, or symbolized it is in the behaviors of the team.

Have you considered how culture impacts the decisions made about the customer? How is your culture conditioning decisions? Consider this:

Products are sometimes made before you know the customer.
A customer always has the right of refusal of the offer.
Customized work can be costly if the customer doesn’t like what you deliver.
For customized or client based work you typically must find the customer first.
The order you’ve taken is a promise. The promise is to deliver what the customer believes they are about to receive.

Customer Service Is Unique

One size doesn’t fit all. One approach is not always the best. How your business positions the culture of customer service will have everything to do with the decisions employees make.

You can build a great product, fulfill orders, and work towards building a brand worthy of great admiration and respect. You can do it in more than one way.

When customer service is based on rules, policies, and procedures it is not a culture of customer service, it is a position of us against them.

Us against them may be a signal. A signal that you’ve forgotten about how your customer is unique, a signal of the beginning of the end.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

30
Aug 17
-

Empowered Customer Service Culture?

Tags : culture customer service empowerment rules touch points

Managing the customer experience doesn’t work well when the restrictions are high. Often organizations claiming to focus on customer service really only have a plan for the small problems. Big problems must move up the often-unavailable organization hierarchy. Do you have an empowered customer service culture?

What limitations does your organization set? What does the front line team understand? Is the purpose clear?

Rules and Policies

It doesn’t take long to have a well-intended rule create more of a problem rather than a solution. The longer the organization has been in business or the more transactions that have occurred you’ll often find more rules. Rules are limitations, limitations that may cause the loss of a customer.

“I can’t return your merchandise for cash. I can only give you in store credit for items that aren’t marked down or shown with a 30% off tag.”

“That bolt, washer, and nut are covered under warranty. I can’t just give you another one. We’ll have to send it back to the manufacturer.”

“Sorry about your fender bender, especially on a brand new car. Certainly, we will cover it with your insurance policy but you’ll have to install used parts. It’s in your policy that way.”

Empowered Customer Service

Does your organization believe in customer service empowerment? What are the rules, policies, and procedures?

Policy on customer service actions are often set to protect the margin of the sale, the sale to your valued customer. Are your executive team rules or a lack of empowerment creating too much red tape? Are you sabotaging the customer experience?

Certainly the business has to protect its bottom line but at what cost? Small businesses (big ones too) lose customers every day because of poor or misunderstood front line decisions.

Your front line is a touch point. Any touch point with a customer represents all that your business is, and all that it does.

Protect the Customer

You’ll always need to protect the business, but you’ll also need to look out for your customers.

Train the front line well. Empower them to make reasonable adjustments, allow flexibility, and have someone immediately available to manage transactions beyond reasonable parameters. Keep in mind that internal organization dynamics set external tone.

You’ve attracted the customer and made the sale. When your brand promise is tested, be sure that it works. It may begin or end with an empowered customer service culture.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

13
Apr 17
-

Customer Service Rules and Misunderstood Costs

Tags : customer service education management rules

It happens all the time. Something affects profits or progress and the organization makes a new rule. Does it make sense to make customer service rules from one bad example?

Nearly every business will tell you that they value the customer. They cite examples of how hard they work for delivering an exceptional customer experience. Do they live up to doing what they say?

Certainly every organization needs to protect themselves from fraud, deceit, or profit erosion. They need customer service rules but at what cost?

Customer Service Rules

In the early 1980’s I worked in a retail drug store. I stocked shelves, unloaded trucks, swept the floors, and sometimes worked at the checkout register. At the time this retail drug store chain was doing very well, with many stores and lots of valued customers.

Somewhere along the way, some smart folks in district or regional management came up with a new rule. The new rule was that every purchase had to go in a bag and the receipt had to be stapled to that bag. No excuses, no exceptions.

What a disaster.

Rules in Action

One day as I nervously worked the checkout register while the regional manager looked over my shoulder I allowed a repeat customer to take their pack of cigarettes and a candy bar (after paying) and leave the store with receipt in hand. No bag and certainly no receipt stapled to it. Immediately I was summoned to come to the back of the pharmacy. I was scolded and sent back to the register.

What management didn’t realize is that for whatever reason they invented their rule, it was hurting their customers.

We had repeat customers come in every day to make a purchase. Purchasing everything from a candy bar, to cigarettes (big in those days), to a magazine or newspaper. They never returned anything or made a large purchase. They loved the store and they didn’t really need a bag.

These loyal customers loved it right up until the moment management started hurting their experience.

More than a Job

I was probably only 17 or 18 years old, but I knew better. I saw what was happening, it was ridiculous.

Regional management never seemed to get it. The local managers did but they were under strict guidelines from regional and corporate management.

It was supposed to be a job, but really it was the start of my education.

I miss those days.

You know—happy customers and all.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

28
Feb 17
-

Leadership Habit 36: Show and Tell

Tags : lead by example leadership habit rules

Role models represent the do as I do approach. What is your leadership behavior? Do you show as much as you tell? Show and tell is leadership habit number 36.

It’s not uncommon that the best leader in an organization during times of calm is not necessarily the best leader for the same organization during the storm. Yes, it can be done, and often it is, but the skill set might be different.

If you’re watching, leadership is transparent. The leader often believes that the organization (followers) will adopt a pattern of behavior based on what is said. This is the tell part.

Show and Tell

Unfortunately, most people who are paying attention believe more deeply about what they are shown. Show and tell favors the show part, every time.

Consider that you are told:

It is the best handling car.

The restaurant has the best dinner in town.

The workout routine will burn more calories and keep you looking fit in less than 10 minutes per day.

Is it believable? It might be when the car is shown on a closed course raceway exiting a turn. When the picture of the dinner platter on the menu dropped off at the office looks fantastic. And, when the professional athlete featured in the commercial has the abs you’ve been hoping for.

It’s always made more compelling with the show part.

The trouble that many people in a leadership role get themselves into is that they want to only do the tell part. Worse, they often don’t like to live by their own rules of the game. What is your leadership habit?

Leadership Habit

Every leader needs to be aware of style during times of calm as compared with times of storm. Nearly every business is cyclical in some manner. Every up cycle might have an occasional down. Every positive turn might occasionally result in a wrong turn.

The leader is the person who illustrates how to get to the next correct turn and who positions the team for the next climb. They lead the way by showing, not just by telling.

It is often more evident during difficult times, that is when the team is looking for an example. On a normal day everyone is busy doing their part. On a bad day they stop what they are doing and watch for examples on how to do it right.

In addition to the proper execution of show and tell, the leader lives by their rules.

The tell part is only compelling with the show.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: rules

Aug 20

-

Friendly Competition

Aug 19

-

Workplace Trust

Rules Pile Up

Apr 19

-

Every Customer

Best Customers

Jun 18

-

Short Story

Customer Rules

Dec 17

-

Bounds of Rules and Policies

Caring Starts Inside

Employees That Care

Dec 17

-

Lack of Caring

Care About Your Customer

Sep 17

-

Decisions Affect Outcomes

Customer Service Is Unique

Aug 17

-

Rules and Policies

Empowered Customer Service

Protect the Customer

Apr 17

-

Customer Service Rules

Rules in Action

More than a Job

Feb 17

-

Show and Tell

Leadership Habit

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