1. CREATE A UNIQUE SERVICE PHILOSOPHY TO SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE Promising to provide “excellent service” is no longer enough for your customers or your staff. Excellent at what? You need to be clear to foster an organizational culture change.Excellent service in a hospital is warm and caring, but that’s not what you want at a computer store or car wash. Some restaurants are fast and inexpensive, but that may not be what you want when you go out for dinner.The Japanese have twenty different words for “quality” – each with a different meaning: durability, craftsmanship, design, efficient use of materials, packaging, presentation and more. Your customers have as many different words and meanings for “service.”Find out what version or style of service your customers VALUE most, and then match your service philosophy to meet their needs. This will help promote the organizational culture change you’re after.* * *2. CONSTANTLY EXPLAIN AND PROMOTE YOUR SERVICE PHILOSOPHY TO SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGEBuild it into your Mission, Vision and Values, your newsletter, training, recruitment, orientation and rewards program. This will ingrain your organizational culture change focus.Singapore has been working for years to upgrade service skills and uplift the service mindset in the nation. There is even a national movement called “GEMS: Go the Extra Mile for Service.”But service providers also need uplifting goals and a motivating rationale. So we wrote the “Singapore Service Champion’s Pledge” to promote organizational culture change.3. HIRE PEOPLE WHO ARE COMMITTED TO YOUR SERVICE PHILOSOPHY AND ADVANCE YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE DRIVE Everyone must be committed to live your service values every day. If they are not, organizational culture change cannot happen.As the College grows, Sim Kay Wee coached me to insist on new staff alignment with these values. He warned that high-performers who are not aligned with the values can damage your reputation and hurt the morale of your team.So what do you do with a high performing salesperson or brilliant technician who behaves contrary to your values?You help them change, or let them go. If they don’t support the organizational culture change you’re after, they will only harm your business.* * *4. ORIENT YOUR NEW STAFF TO SUPERIOR SERVICE AND MAKE THEM PART OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE Texas Instruments conducted an experiment to measure the impact of new staff orientation. One group got the usual induction: workplace rules, employment benefits, office equipment, passwords.A similar group received the same, plus two months of occasional meetings with service leaders, top customers and senior managers.Twenty years later the two groups were compared. The second group scored higher in every category, including positions, promotions, pay, longevity and contributions to the company culture. This group fit in better with the organizational culture change Texas Instruments was after.Make the early investment to see organizational culture change efforts pay off. Make sure new staff experience the best of your service culture in action during their first months on the job. Buddy them with your best service providers. Introduce them to your best customers. Take time to mentor, manage and motivate the new service players on your team. Make them key to your organizational culture change.* * *5. CONTINUOUSLY TRAIN AND RETRAIN YOUR SERVICE TEAM TO FOCUS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE YOU’RE AFTER Training is a key factor in organizational culture change. To make sure the organizational culture change you’re after takes hold, however, refreshers might be necessary.When you train someone to use a software package, they tend to get better over time. When you train someone in a technical procedure, their performance will improve the more they use it.But why does “customer service training” tend to wear off? Why do customer service workers need continuous training and retraining? Why is this essential to organizational culture change?Because providing customer service requires that you work with other people, not only with software and procedures. Other people can get angry, or be in a bad mood, or simply not appreciate your efforts and the service you provide.That means “wear and tear” on the service provider. That’s why top service organizations continuously train and retrain their team members and support them with a robust service culture. This is essential if you want to foster an organizational culture change that is service minded.* * *6. RECOGNIZE AND REWARD SERVICE PROVIDERS THAT BOLSTER ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE In a strong organizational culture change where service matters, “recognition and reward” must come frequently from the company. Why? Because it doesn’t come very often from the customer.A service provider who calms an angry customer, listens patiently to his complaint and acts quickly to resolve the issue surely deserves appreciation. But how often does an angry customer say, “You did a great job of calming me down and taking care of my needs. Thanks for such great service!” (Answer: Not very often.)Recognition is a powerful form of reward and it can foster organizational culture change. Salespeople respond to financial incentives. Product engineers work hard to prove a new technology. But most service people are “people people.” Personal recognition from their managers and peers means a lot.Recognition can be given many ways: in private or in public, in person or in writing, with or without a physical or financial component.
an you name three changes in the past three months as a result of staff suggestions?8. Invite customers and suppliers to participate in your program, and reward them along with the staff.Wouldn’t your customers and suppliers have a different point of view? When was the last time you asked for their suggestions?Are there more ways to build a successful suggestion program where you work? Of course there are. What’s YOUR best suggestion?* * *9. WALK THE TALK. LEADERS MUST BE EXAMPLES OF EXCELLENT SERVICE DURING A TIME OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CHANGE. It is essential that leaders, managers and supervisors be SEEN giving excellent service to customers and to staff. This inspires organizational culture change. Employees may know the Vision, read the Mission and memorize the Values, but they will only BELIEVE in your service culture when they see it and hear it from the people at the top. (And they will mock your proclamations if they don’t.)The manager who tells the team “Get out there and serve!” while he stays comfortably in back is not a service leader at all. The real service leader gets out on the frontline to help whenever she can, especially when times are busy, customers are angry or staff are overloaded.*At a leading hotel in London, the General Manager spends one day every three months dressed in a bellman’s uniform and doing the bellman’s job. Here’s what happens:1. The General Manager meets customers in a completely different way. He asks real questions, and gets honest answers. The bellman hears a lot of unvarnished feedback that guests may be reluctant to share with the General Manager.2. The General Manager gets a firsthand taste of what it’s like to work on the frontline. He wears the uniform, stands by the door, carries the bags, and eats in the staff cafeteria. This firsthand experience means small things that might irritate staff get noticed quickly, and fixed quickly.3. Most of all, the hundreds of other staff working in the hotel see their General Manager doing frontline work with dignity and respect for the customers, and their colleagues. This respect is returned with a shared dedication to providing superior service. In essence, this simple act has created an organizational culture change that makes it clear service superiority matters.*The country of Singapore is striving to upgrade quality service and improve the image of service providers. Singapore wants “giving service to others” to be embraced as a noble profession and is working toward a service-based organizational culture change as a result.This is important because Singapore’s future is a service future. Many manufacturing and back-office jobs have migrated to China, India and other lower-cost locations. Meanwhile, more resorts and entertainment, universities, financial, research and medical facilities are coming to Singapore.To motivate local service providers and encourage professional pride, service awards are given every year; Gold Awards, Star Awards, Extra-Mile Awards.After each awards ceremony, the service winners enjoy tea with top government leaders. There are many smiles for TV cameras and photographers from the newspaper.Here’s one way Singapore’s leadership could “walk the talk” and shift the national attitude towards service overnight:At the next awards ceremony, have top Government Ministers “serve tea” to the frontline service award winners.This simple gesture of respect from the very top to the very best at the frontline of service would make everyone in the nation take notice. It would become a national talking point and a terrific example of the nation’s most senior leaders “walking the service talk.”*What is your best idea to “walk the service talk”? How can you build a stronger service culture where you work and foster an organizational culture change for the better?* * *10. CREATE RITUALS TO REINFORCE YOUR SERVICE CULTURE Every strong culture has rites and rituals. These activities anchor individuals to the collective and reinforce what the group deems acceptable, admirable and important.Think “National Day,” “religious service,” “dining habits,” “wedding ceremony” and “tribal dance” to see how deep, diverse and enduring our rituals can be.World-class service organizations create strong rituals to constantly reinforce the importance of providing excellent service. These, in turn, support organizational culture change.At Raffles Hotel, the daily “line-up” briefing is not to remind waiters about what’s on the menu. It’s a daily ritual to reinforce SERVICE as the main ingredient of their success.At Singapore Airlines, the “round-up” with cabin crew before each flight is not to remind them where the plane is going. It’s a carefully scripted, participatory ritual requiring every member to offer a SERVICE tip and commit themselves to fulfill it.At World of Sports, a brass bell hangs near the cash register. A colorful sign invites customers delighted with the service they received to “Ring the Bell!” and express their satisfaction. Every time that bell rings, this customer-involving ritual reinforces the staff’s passionate commitment to SERVICE.One business manager told me her staff enjoyed when someone left the company because everyone held a “going away” party in their honor. What kind of cultural reinforcement is that?!A more constructive ritual would be to hold a party welcoming new staff members. Or a gathering to acknowledge staff members on their anniversary of joining the company, thanking them for giving another great year of SERVICE. This is a great way to foster organizational culture change.There are many ways you can reinforce your organizational culture change with rituals: “Service Hall of Fame,” “Compliment of the Month,” “Service Provider of the Week,” “Uplifting Service Awards,” “Dinners with Our Service Winners.”You create it, you name it, and you build it up by repeating it again
and again.Do you want a stronger service culture where you work? Then create better rituals to promote and reinforce your SERVICE. You can make organizational culture change happen.Author: Ron KaufmanArticle Source: EzineArticles.com
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