Customer Service, Peggy Style

By now most of us have seen the Discover card commercials where "Peggy," a customer service agent in some frozen tundra, gives us an example of what really horrible customer service is like.  If you haven't - take a look:

Remembering an episode in your past where you encountered equally horrible customer service?  If so, you can probably recite it in detail - and probably did, right after it happened, to anyone who could listen.  Now, put on your leadership hat and think about what your customers experience when they call or visit your fitness center - what kind of customer service experience awaits them, and who are they telling about it?

Use these steps to make sure your customers don't encounter Peggy at your facility:

1. Hire the right people:  Any position that requires someone to come in contact with customers is a customer service positioin.  In our industry, that's everyone in the center - from the cleaners wiping down the equipment, to the fitness staff, child care attendants...you get the idea.  When interviewing, ask people questions that test their abilities to relate to others, even when frustrated. 
2. Train, train, train:  Peggy hung up the phone because "she" encountered a question that "she" could not answer - obviously because there was no training.  Being well trained doesn't mean that your staff can answer every question, but it does mean that they can handle any situation.  When bringing on a new staff member, make sure that you cover all scenarios possible, and give them the guidance to know how to answer. 
3. Be aware of what your customers are experiencing:  No leader can be around 24/7, but there should be someone observing your staff to constantly monitor their customer service skills.  Have a company "shop" your facility, to truly learn what goes on when your staff doesn't know that they are being graded.  You might be surprised at what you find...
4. Be aware of what your customers are saying:  It's easy today to know what's being said about your facility - Google your name and see what comes up.  You should have someone dedicated to watching your facilities online reputation, because it may be the reason that your sales and retention are slipping.  People are quick to share bad experiences with their friends and acquaintances - if someone does have a bad experience at your facility, make sure you know about it and take direct steps to rectify the situation.

If you have any questions about setting up any of the above steps, email me and I can help you get started.

What makes a team successful?

One of my favorite websites is www.Ted.org, where you find "riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world."  These video presentation can be funny, inspring, jaw-dropping, informative...or just about any other adjective that you can think of.  They are presented by world leaders, politicians, artists, scientists, athletes...and just about anyone else that you can think of.

One of these remarkable people is Tom Wujec, a recognized thought leader and innovator.  He specializes in business innovation, using images, sketches and data-driven infographics to help teams solve complex problems.  In his February 2010 Ted presentation entitled, "Build a tower, build a team," Tom used the "marshmallow problem" to observe how successful teams can be when they need to collaborate quickly to solve a problem.  As I watched the video and heard his results, there were three key takeaways:

1. The teams that were expected to perform best were often the poorest performing team.        As teams worked in 18 minutes to come up with a plan and construct their marshmallow and spaghetti tower, you saw the dynamics within each group play an integral part in their success or lack thereof.  Consistently, the poorer performing team was formed from recent graduates of business school, while one of the more successful teams was formed frmo recents graduates of...kindergarten!  As an MBA candidate, I had to wonder - could my 5-year old son and his kindergarten buddies make a better marshmallow tower than myself and my MBA study group?  Certainly not!  Yet, in Tom's observations, they did. 
2. It's about team dynamics.  In the aforementioned teams, the key to their success or failure was their overall team dynamic.  The kindergarten team used their time to create several different prototypes and shared ideas openly, having time to create more than one structure to see what would work.  Other successful teams during Tom's observations included those that combined people with specialized skills, such as a CEO or top level management, with a great facilitator, such as an executive assistant. Because the team was well-rounded, there was someone to develop the idea, and someone else who could implement.  Teams that were one-sided tended to be poorer performers, with either too many ideas and no one to follow through, or no ideas to execute.  How well-rounded is your team?
3. Adding financial incentive did not increase success.  A few weeks ago, I talked about Dan Pink's book Drive, where he studied the science behind what motivates people.  As illustrated in Drive, Tom found that when he added a significant financial reward to those groups who build the best marshmallow tower, none of the teams performed well at all!  In fact, all of the teams performed significantly worse.  Take this and apply it to your team - how are you motivating your staff to stay engaged and perform well?  Dangling a financial carrot is increasingly shown to be ineffective - you must be engaged with your team well enough to know what drives them.

What motivates us? Surprise!!

Many of the fitness and wellness centers that I have worked with have asked the same question, "How do we motivate our staff?  What kind of incentives can we offer to keep them engaged and doing their job to the best of their ability?"  If you ask most owners or managers, the answer usually comes back to the almighty dollar - if you offer incentives or pay more money, then your staff will be willing to do more.  The higher the reward, the better the performance, and vice-versa.  Seems logical, right?

Enter Dan Pink, who you see at the right.  In his bestselling book Drive, Dan looked into the science of how people are motivated.  The results are contrary to what most of us believe...not only do higher rewards not elicit better performance, on the contrary - performance was poorer.  Only in tasks requiring only mechanical skill did bonuses work as expected.  While most of us learned in economics that higher pay equals better performance, the economists performing this study said that once you get above rudimentary cognitive skills, rewards don't work that way.

So what, then, drives better performance? 

• Autonomy - the ability to be self-directed.  Allow people time to work on what they want and watch their creativity and productivity flourish.

• Mastery - the ability to become better at something.  Allows people to have fun and learn more about something - to see a progression of their own skill.

• Purpose - part of the Purpose Motive.  More organizations are starting to have a transcendental purpose, so it's better to come to work, people enjoy work more and organizations find it easier to attract the best talent.