Nobody wants a business where their team is disinterested and indifferent to taking care of the clients that they serve. While many business owners talk about creating a service culture, not all of them know how this can be done.
Gallup just put out an article on why hospitals don’t deliver great service.  All of the points that are brought up in the article are valid points. I want to focus on three that are most often overlooked in a business.
Start with the vision:
I just wrapped up a workshop on vision. It truly is the foundation of everything that you do in your business.  Do your mission, vision and values allow for a culture that would serve your clients at a high level? If you are concerned about raising the level of service in your business, start here.
Internal Culture Is The Caretaker Of the External Experience:
This is point four of our manifesto. The problem with hospitals is that they are really run by doctors. Doctors don’t always treat staff very well. My wife has worked in hospitals for years and I am appalled at the way some doctors (not all mind you) speak to people on their team.
The point is, if the people who work inside of your organization aren’t treated well by teammates then how can they be expected to turn around and deliver great service to clients?
Communicate:
As with anything important, you can’t say something once and hope that people will run with it full out. You also can’t assume that people know that what you want. High level service seems like a given in any business but if you aren’t communicating that message regularly, it’s less likely to happen. It’s not that your team isn’t smart enough to realize it, it’s just that your team has a lot of messages that come at them on a regular basis and it’s easy to lose sight of priorities.
Taking care of your clients at a high level is one of the only things that you can do today to separate yourself from the pack. Doing that requires an intentional effort that you can manage and measure to ensure that your team and your business are on track.
What do you do to make sure that your team is delivering a high level of service?