Category: Training & Development

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Customer service Training & Development

When It’s Best to Lose a Customer or Client

Despite the best intentions, there are times when it’s necessary to give up a customer or client. The reasons vary, as I learned when I asked colleagues why they stopped working with customers.

In their own words (and in no particular order), here’s what they said about terminating customer/client relationships.

It’s time to cut a customer/client loose when …

  • “Every time we did work for this one company, the marketing director would go out of her way to find 40 things wrong with the project to try to get it for free.” Ad agency executive
  • “1) The client/customer becomes abusive to you or your staff, 2) lies to you, and 3) doesn’t pay his or her bills. Not always in that order.” Marketing researcher
  • “You’ve lost enthusiasm for them.” Ron Strauss, Founder and CEO, Brandzone
  • “1) Project after project, year after year the business isn’t profitable. 2) They don’t respect your team — meaning they take advantage of the client/vendor relationship and always are mean, disrespectful and basically just not nice! This leads to a heavy toll on your team and usually means more turnover.” CEO research supplier

It’s time to cut a customer/client loose when …

  • “Your work together is no longer fun or engaging for both of you, lacks mutual respect or when there is a mismatch of values.” Jane Wells Schooley, Executive Leadership Coach and Educator
  • “The relationship has deteriorated to the point that it is affecting staff morale.” Marketing Consultant
  • “They are asking you to do something that goes against your ethics or your professional judgment.” Dennis Fischman, Chief Communicator, Communicate! Consulting
  • “They are not ‘all in.’ Meaning they are not doing the work, engaged in conversation, or showing progress.” Meridith Elliott Powell, Business Growth Expert & Keynote Speaker
  • “The thrill is gone; i.e., when I’ve lost enthusiasm for the project due to any number of circumstances including (a) the client is never satisfied; (b) the client is unresponsive and/or uncooperative; (c) the client hasn’t paid for work I’ve already done; etc.” Writer/editor

It’s time to cut a customer/client loose when …

  • You find you can no longer serve their interests in good faith and are on the border of losing your professionalism.” Senior Communications Consultant with a 20+ year history in consulting
  • They’re yanking your chain. When a client does not provide the necessary information for you to be able to complete their work in a timely manner. I understand ‘what can happen will happen’when it comes to business. However, I also know when they’re procrastinating with the tasks at hand. Client satisfaction travels on a two-way street.” Chuck Holder  LLC, Business Consulting
  • “They say ‘your competition is saying they can do it for $X.’  The reason that is a ‘move on’ statement is two-fold:
    1. They’ve already been talking to my competition to get a price which means they don’t see me as a partner anymore but simply another ‘vendor.’ Normally, if you’re a partner, they would address pricing way before they get a quote from a competitor and may even tell you they will be checking to see what the market is showing for your services. That is normal. Doing it behind your back shows a lack of respect for the relationship.
    2. They’ve decided what you are providing is a commodity and can be bought on the open market. Somehow your ‘unique’ value-add that got you the business (assuming you didn’t buy it in the first place with the lowest bid) is no longer unique nor value-add. You’re just another line item.
      These two things combined typically mean you’ve moved past a collaborative, supportive, reciprocal business relationship and have entered the dreaded ‘vendor zone.'” Paul Hebert, Senior Director, Solutions Architecture, Creative Group, Inc.

Takeaway
Respect and trust matter in professional business relationships — among service providers and their customers/clients.

Special thanks to the business professionals who shared their responses here. (Names or general titles listed by respondent preference.)

 

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Engagement Training & Development

“Hoping to Help” – Lessons in Global Health Volunteering

Whether providing relief after a natural disaster or rendering humanitarian aid to countries in need, we’re familiar with the importance of international medical missions. The inspirational stories told by returning volunteers describe the desperate and challenging needs of the people served and their deep gratitude in receiving medical aid. The volunteers, themselves, are forever changed as a result of their experiences.

Presumably everyone involved benefits from such missions – the countries in need and the volunteers. But to what extent? Beyond the obvious good-will, what’s really happening in these situations and what can we learn from them?

In her new book, Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering, Judith N. Lasker, N.E.H. Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University, explores the benefits and costs of such missions. She studied the impact of short-term (two weeks or less) medical missions through interviews and surveys with three key groups: the sponsoring organizations (religious, educational, non-faith based NGOs, and corporations); the people who volunteer (medical and non-medical); and the host communities. Lasker’s research covered the following:

  • the level of cultural training given to volunteers prior to their trip, ranging from thorough to insufficient background information on the host country’s situation and culture
  • how volunteer resources were deployed
  • the true costs involved, including travel, logistics, medical supplies and equipment etc., and their effects on donors, volunteers, and recipients
  • cultural sensitivity and the resulting impact on volunteers and host countries
  • needs assessments, program measurement, and outcome evaluations
  • capacity-building and the sustainability of such missions.

Was it good for you, too?
The importance of “mutuality,” in which all parties mutually benefit, is a major theme throughout the book. According to Lasker:

“Achieving mutuality is one of the many challenges sponsoring organizations must try to address. Host-community members want more than helpful visitors with skills and resources, although these are valuable and greatly appreciated. They want to be involved in the work programs undertaken by volunteer organizations, and they want to be respected. They want a relationship of equality in which each partner learns from and benefits from the other. … an ongoing relationship of respect, collaboration, and exchange, if not with individual volunteers, at least with the representatives of the [sponsoring] organizations.”

She also explored the elements of cultural sensitivity and understanding, respect, and empathy by volunteers and the sponsoring organizations participating in international missions. Lasker found that:

“to treat the volunteer’s experience or the organization’s reputation or religious priorities as on a par with, or even more important than, the benefits to hosts is to exploit poor communities for the benefit of people from wealthier countries.”

Lessons for other nonprofits
While “Hoping to Help” addresses global health volunteering, many of its recommended practices are applicable to other health and social services nonprofits:

  • Foster mutuality among ALL parties involved, including those who benefit from the mission and those who help support the mission (e.g., volunteers, employees, donors, etc.).
  • Conduct needs assessments with and among those benefiting from the services offered.
  • Strengthen volunteer training and preparation.
  • Maintain continuity of programming/services, as needed.
  • Evaluate process and outcomes, incorporating the results into continuous improvement.
  • Build capacity for the long term.

Sensitivity and empathy are also important for volunteers and nonprofit organizations. Lasker reinforces this by citing the following:

“Without the wisdom of humility, altruistic behavior can lead to self-delusion, compassion can become an obsession, and both may generate a damaging sense of hubris.”  Dr. Jack Coulehan, emeritus professor, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University.

A valuable reminder for everyone helping anyone.

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

What’s the Matter with Management? It’s Not What You Think

Actually, the question should be “What’s the matter with managing?” as I’m hearing from more colleagues who tell me they still love their work, but they dislike the managing people part.

I shared my concern about this with Mary Theresa Taglang (MT), who has a background in HR and is now the Director of Lehigh University’s Master of Science in Management program. We talked about what MT called “the seismic economic shift that began with outsourcing and hit its zenith in 2008 when the economy soured and many experienced managers were let go and replaced with younger, cheaper and inexperienced managers focusing only on the bottom line.”

We also discussed:

  • the decline and continued lack of corporate America’s investment in management development that’s still considered “soft-skills” training
  • technology that allows for more communication and task efficiency that also results in unrealistic demands of being available to work 24/7
  • mixed generations who multi-task and communicate differently
  • the ongoing stress of changing priorities, budget challenges, and internal politics
  • the resulting frustration of experienced managers who are tired of it all and not yet able to retire.

We could spend hours lamenting what’s the matter with managing these days, but my concern is the message we’re sending to young professionals. How do we keep from discouraging prospective managers? Based on her overall career experience, MT was both candid and realistic in her response: “Suck it up or go out on your own. That’s the only way to be in control of your own destiny.”

Yes, people interested in management roles need go in with their eyes wide open. In addition, what else can be done to better prepare people for the workplace – in both managerial and non-managerial roles? Your thoughts, please.

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Don’t Discount the New Year for Employee Engagement

Every four years it happens in the U.S. – a presidential election. Too often, it’s also an excuse companies use to withhold spending based on an uncertain outcome: “We’re afraid to invest in new initiatives until we know what’s going to happen in Washington, DC.”

This wait-and-see attitude carries over into cutbacks on hiring, training & development and, ultimately, engagement. The result is a double whammy for employees — besides feeling anxious over the new year’s uncertainty, they also become frustrated with limited-to-nonexistent options for their development as the organization goes into a holding pattern. Who wants to work for a company that isn’t moving forward?

“Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first base.” – Frederick B. Wilcox

Uncertainty is a fact of life, regardless of what’s scheduled to occur in any given year. Holding the line by not investing in employee recruitment and ongoing development may seem like a safe strategy, but it’s also a risky one that can negatively impact employee engagement and the internal brand. Think of the opportunities such a strategy opens up for competitors who aren’t afraid to devote resources to support their employees.

No one can predict the future, other than knowing it will change. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, hiding isn’t a viable option for business and brand success.

“He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.” – Thomas Fuller

 

 

 

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Engagement Training & Development

‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ of Disruptive Leaders

As a strong advocate of an engaged workplace, I was apprehensive about this executive education session – “Disruptive Leaders are Good for Business” – given by Dick Brandt, Executive Director of Lehigh University’s Iacocca Institute. Dick is a well-respected international consultant and frequent speaker on leadership, and I was intrigued with this particular topic.

Dick talked about Apple’s Steve Jobs and Tesla’s Elon Musk and how their “shared genius” and business success were based on their vision, obsession with design perfection, and conviction taken to the extreme. He also mentioned Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as a disruptive and difficult leader.  The style of these men, who transformed major industries, may be “abusive, arrogant, and intolerant” — opposite the servant leadership style found in engaged workplaces. Disruptive leaders, according to Dick, are “noted for their determination – a trait that actually dwarfs all other skills.” As a result, “people skills and collaboration may be left behind.”

Jobs, Musk, and Bezos are not the poster boys for running Firms of Endearment. Yet, one can’t argue about their business success. Truly transformative, disruptive leaders are rare, and it’s important to learn from them — acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of their management styles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Best Lessons from Bad Bosses-Part 2

We all love great bosses and hate the bad ones. The only upside to a bad boss is what we learn from our experience working with that person: primarily what not to do and, occasionally, what to do.

Following up my previous post on lessons learned from bad bosses, here is more great advice shared by colleagues.

Understand Who’s Important

The best lesson I learned from a bad boss is — to kiss your subordinates’ butts. Put another way, be of service and work for YOUR TEAM instead of the other way around. You need your team to get things done. If you are there for them when they need you, they will be there for YOU. So, for example, if one of your team members needs an extra day off or a little resource boost on a project and you deliver, they are far more likely to help you when you need to pull together a presentation for YOUR boss.

A lot of bad bosses get it reversed. They are busy ingratiating themselves to THEIR boss and treating their staff like dirt. My favorite and best boss taught me this lesson in a big way. In some ways it felt like he worked for me. Whenever I needed resources or him to push something through the system, he was there. This was a huge help in my being successful. This also meant that when he came to my office on a Friday at 4:30 p.m. begging for help on his board presentation — you KNOW I was there, and happy to do it. — Ivana S. Taylor, Small Business Influencer, DIYMarketers.com
A Bad Boss Can Do Something Right

I learned that sometimes the rules need to be broken when something important needs to be done. Not unethically, but when a rule designed to solve one problem, creates a barrier to success, it can be the right decision to do the wrong thing.

We had a process whereby a certain form needed to be filled out. It was a form designed and created 40 year earlier by the founder when there was maybe 100 employees. We had over 2,000 at the time and the form was no longer needed. But no one wanted to stop using it because they feared the repurcussions. My bad boss simply stopped using the form. Two years later someone asked about the forms and he played stupid. We never had to do the form again. Nothing fell apart. Nothing stopped working. The world went on without it.

Lesson: The requirements of the past can stop you from creating a future. — Paul Hebert, consultant/speaker/writer for engagement, incentives and rewards

Don’t Ignore the Value of Engaged Employees

  1. Recognize the fundamental economics of having engaged employees, customers, channel partners, and communities, which is that: companies with highly engaged audiences relationships do better financially than the average company; relationships with customers and talent are a company’s biggest financial and brand equity asset; and disengagement has hard costs in terms of turnover, lower productivity, poor service, more accidents, less healthy people, and legal suits that can have a significant effect on the bottom line and brand equity.

  2. Empower and value people, rather than control them and treat them like statistics: people who feel empowered, act like owners and watch your back — people who feel controlled, act like slaves.

  3. Do as Tom Peters said:  “Manage by walking around.”  — Bruce Bolger, Managing Director, Enterprise Engagement Alliance

You Can’t Fake It + Other Important Lessons

  • Playing politics never pays — It’s shallow, transparent and short-sighted.  It may help you win the day, but it will lose you a ton of respect long-term with peers, superiors and subordinates.

  • Communicate clearly (not in code) — There’s no excuse for allowing ambiguity to cloud judgment, direction or execution. If your style of management is to expect your team to predict or guess what you mean and want, that’s terrible leadership. Not all news is good news, but people want clarity, not innuendos.

  • Invest time with your team — Absentee management never works. You can’t hide behind emails. And it’s never a good idea to look annoyed when one of your team members wants to see you or ask you a question. Successful management requires time, it requires an investment in spending time with your team to make them better, allow them to become more autonomous and productive. That just takes time, but it creates results, loyalty and longevity (for you and for them).

  • Superficial optics will backfire — This particular boss told us she wanted us to be at our desks as much as possible, so that people walking by would see how hard we are working. She literally said that to us. You can imagine what that did to her credibility.  — Matt Heinz, president, Heinz Marketing, Inc.

Special thanks to Ivana Taylor, Paul Hebert, Bruce Bolger, and Matt Heinz for sharing their lessons learned from bad bosses.

You’re invited to share
What lessons did you learn from your experience with a bad boss?

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Best Lessons from Bad Bosses-Part 1

This post is inspired by Boss’s Day. I hope you’re fortunate to work with a really good boss. If not, take heart – there are valuable lessons you can learn from your experience.

I asked several colleagues to share their best lessons from bad bosses. Here are their horror stories and lessons learned.

It’s Just as Easy to Demoralize a Team as It is to Build Them Up

I had a boss who decided to change his Windows start-up theme to be Full Metal Jacket. On startup and shutdown, his computer would remind us that we were all equally worthless. After he quit, employees from around the company remarked how happy they were he was gone. The new manager removed all themes from his machine, and found more positive themes for his team to use on their computers. He also made a point of managing by walking around, and thanked his employees often for the effort they put in to make customers happy.

Both took the same amount of time and effort. One built the team up and found them recognized for customer service every year for the next 10 years. One tore the team down and made the rest of the department look down on the team, as if the manager thought they were useless, they knew they could treat them badly too.  — Phil Gerbyshak, Social Selling Training and Social Media Strategist
Blind Siding an Employee Doesn’t Help
One particularly bad boss I once had many years ago suddenly turned on me. It came “out of the blue.” I had been a “star” one moment, and the next I could do nothing right in her eyes. It did not end well for me. Here are a few of the lessons I learned:
  • Stay alert to the proverbial “handwriting on the wall.” There may have been signals I was missing. Like a drop off in communication from the boss.
  • Keep your boss in the loop at all times on everything you are doing. Run the risk of over-communicating, especially if you suspect something is “up.”
  • Determine what your boss’ priorities are and get into alignment with them. Do whatever you can to support your boss. And make her “look good.”
  • Be professional, personable, and positive at all times. Be accountable. Deliver with excellence to your clients. That way, if the tables turn on you, you can walk out the door with your head held high, knowing that “it was not about you.”
  • Sometimes the power plays that happen in a corporate environment result in some folks winning, and other folks coming out with the short end of the stick.  — Terrence Seamon, author of “To Your Success!” guide for transitioners; “Lead the Way” leader’s guide to engagement; and “Change for the Better” change agent’s guide to improvement.

How NOT to Treat an Employee

I think my lesson is (was) that the fastest way to kill enthusiasm and commitment in young talent (or even older talent for that matter) is for the boss to publicly humiliate someone in front of others, when the someone had only good intent and was trying to do their job. We all have to learn, we all make mistakes, we all need coaching and guidance. But there is a right way to handle ‘teaching moments’ and a wrong way.

When I was a young, aspiring channel marketing manager at a small software company, I worked for a Sales and Marketing VP who was promoted too fast and not mature enough for his role. He had no patience or interest in the details of actually making a business run. When on several occasions I asked questions in group sales meetings that he thought were stupid, uninformed or otherwise too tedious, he delivered stinging, humiliating responses to me – a young female – in front of a room full of mostly men sales reps. I grew to hate him, and the bitterness and resentment I felt is still called up writing this, almost 20 years after the fact. The channels business for that company also failed, because the leader in charge of it would not do what it would take to make it a success, and my own sense of urgency about taking care of channel partners certainly took a hit after my experiences with this guy. It took a long time to overcome that feeling and fear of opening my mouth in meetings. — Owner of a Strategic Communications Consulting business

Special thanks to Phil Gerbyshak, Terry Seamon, and a colleague (who’s still so traumatized by her bad boss experience that she wished to remain anonymous) for contributing to this post.

I’ll have more great lessons to share in my next post, so stay tuned …

 

 

Categories
Engagement Marketing Training & Development

My Top 7 Blog Posts

Reviewing my blog’s top posts over the past few years, I was surprised with the popularity of my “favorite employee engagement quotes” posts. So I’ll continue to share the best quotes on workplace engagement compiled from both current and classic articles on the subject.

Here are Quality Service Marketing’s top seven blog posts:

A special thank you to my many blog readers for your continued encouragement and support!

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

The Three Most Important Questions You Need to Ask in Human Resources

In addition to the fine folks who work in Human Resources (HR), or in the absence of an HR function, everyone who is responsible for managing or supervising employees needs to consider three critical questions from the employee’s perspective. Answers to these questions are key to strengthening employee engagement. Note: Nonprofit managers can also apply these questions to volunteers who serve in their organizations.

  1. Does my employer care about me and my work?
    People need to know that managers recognize and respect their roles within the organization and will support their efforts to do the best job possible.
  2. What difference do I make?
    Employees and volunteers also need to know how their efforts contribute to the organization’s mission and goals. This includes having a clear line-of-sight as to how their work impacts customers or clients, co-workers, stakeholders, the community where the organization is located, and the organization’s overall success. (Think of the NASA janitor who wasn’t just cleaning floors — he was helping to put a man on the moon.)
  3. What’s in it for me?
    Addressing this question gets to the heart of why an employee’s work matters and why s/he should stay with the organization. Considerations include the meaning and purpose of the work involved, the quality of the workplace culture (how employee- and customer-focused it is), and basic benefits,

How do you learn the answers to these questions?
A variety of listening posts are available in most organizations, including (but not limited to): employee engagement or satisfaction surveys … exit surveys … management by wandering around (MBWA) … everyday conversations with employees … and “engaging conversations – open-ended, non-judgmental conversations with each employee about passions, aspirations and opportunities.”

Ask first, then listen for understanding.

 

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Best Quotes on Customers

Customers – love ’em or sometimes hate ’em – if you’re in business, you can’t live without them. True customer-focus means understanding, respecting, and serving customers as the basis of your business rather than considering them a necessary evil.

Following are several of my favorite quotes about customers and their importance. Think of them as customer-focused words to live by. You can also incorporate them in your customer service training.

“Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.” Stanley Marcus

“If you respect the customer as a human being, and truly honor their right to be treated fairly and honestly, everything else is much easier.” Doug Smith

“You can forget about an over-satisfied customer, but an unsatisfied customer is one of the most expensive problems you can have.” Jan Carlzon

“Anyone who thinks the customer is not important should try doing without him [or her].” Unknown

“It’s very easy to think that you are the expert on your own product. But in many ways, that’s a myth. The true experts are your customers.” Jamie Wong

“Customer feedback is free until you don’t listen, then it gets very expensive in the form of lawsuits, poor word-of-mouth advertising, and adverse publicity.” John O’Malley

“Isn’t it really ‘customer helping’ rather than customer service? And wouldn’t you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?” Jeffrey Gitomer

And when it comes to hiring and training the employees who serve customers:

“The customer-facing organization with the fewest assholes wins.” Olivier Blanchard