The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line
Guest writer Floyd Jerkins tackles how customer service looks when it is done with exceptional skill in this week’s guest post “The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line.”
Disney has been in the news recently. Some would say for the wrong reasons. One thing that has been true for decades is they deliver outstanding customer service. Disney provides millions of people every year with an experience of a lifetime that keeps customers coming back generation after generation. You can’t fake that level of excellence and customer service.
A good friend of mine just returned from taking his family to Disneyland for the fourth time. Of course, I love to hear his stories about their family experience, but it also piqued my interest in “how are they doing”; with their customer service.
Customer retention is more important than ever in all businesses as we find ourselves in an increasingly competitive world fighting for a piece of market share and the customers’ wallets.
Disney is an excellent model to consider because of the high loyalty level among its guests. They serve as a guideline for anyone who wants to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The Red Zone
Walt Disney said, “Just when everyone is saying how great you are is when you’re the most vulnerable.” At Disney, it’s known as the Red Zone. Every business that gets positive feedback from customers regularly can quickly become complacent. Something changes when you get all the right people in the right positions and things go smoothly. Many businesses feel like they are unstoppable. That’s the reality of running any business.
The problem is that in any short two-month period, you can have a lot of things go wrong that probably set you back six months or even a year of growth. It could be just a few little things, but it still causes plans to slow down or stall completely. This shows that being prepared all the time for the unexpected is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. Arrogance and complacency can cause a lack of attention to detail. Keeping your front-line people focused isn’t always easy, even in the best of times.
Who is Your Competition?
According to Disney’s philosophy, anyone that raises your customers’ expectations is a competitor. That is really true and something many think little about. If someone likes how they get treated buying a car or new home or getting their dry cleaning done, how can your team help the customer feel even better when dealing with your business?
The customer compares you with all other businesses they deal with. We are all competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction. Every front-line person must realize that every interaction they have with a customer forms an impression at that point of contact, or touch point as I call it. Not every other one, but everyone. The customer leaves that interaction with being, in the simplest terms, mad, glad, sad, or scared.
The customer doesn’t just look at the product when making a purchase. They rate the way they are treated on the phone, the invoice accuracy, the follow-up when they inquire with a question, the warranty claims procedures, and the list goes on and on.
Some internal customers look for and expect the same attention and focus as external customers. This is an important point to remember in any business. How often do we take a customer for granted and just think he will buy from us again? How often are you surprised that one of your front-line people suddenly quits?
Conduct the “How Are You Doing?” Test With Internal Customers
Disney isn’t unlike many other retail businesses; they make every effort to implement common sense practices. It’s always easy to say any business could adopt these practices, but that’s not true. As I’ve often said, common sense isn’t always common practice.
Leadership and cultural components impact the ability to implement these practices, and consistent communications are needed to sustain them. When it comes together, it’s like magic and full of possibilities. A major essential item is to take the time and effort to look at things from your customer’s perspective. Creating purposeful internal communications and setting the correct behavioral expectations doesn’t just happen by chance.
When in your weekly department meetings, ask the question, “How are we doing?” I know that is a pretty broad question but start the conversation about what people are hearing about your organization during their business transactions with customers. Also, ask what they overhear in a conversation between two customers or a group of customers. Begin asking for feedback from each team member; what in their opinion can we improve or what are we doing right? Create the entire list of items, then pick the top two or three that you could improve on and discuss how you can improve as a team. Give yourselves some timelines to see these issues resolved. Gather the successes and discuss the achievements at the same time. Never let the number of flaws outweigh your accomplishments.
Personal Development is the Key to Organizational Development
I contend that when you hire good people in a growing organization, you can generally find a role for them. Hiring front line people who want to learn is easily identifiable. Remember, personal development is the key to organizational development. If they don’t want to learn, how valuable is that person on the team?
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Friday Filosophy v.08.19.2022
Friday Filosophy v.08.19.2022
Homer is the legendary author to whom the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey (the two epic poems that are the foundational works of ancient Greek literature) is attributed. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. For example, in Dante Alighieri‘s Divine Comedy, Virgil refers to him as “Poet sovereign”, king of all poets; in the preface to his translation of the Iliad, Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the “greatest of poets”.
The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek kingdoms. It focuses on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles lasting a few weeks during the last year of the war. The Odyssey focuses on the ten-year journey home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy.
The Homeric epics were a defining influence on ancient Greek culture and education. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who “has taught Greece”. From antiquity until the present day, the influence of Homeric epic on Western civilization has been great, inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film.
The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. It is generally accepted that the two works were written by different authors. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Many accounts of Homer’s life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a blind bard from Ionia, a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary.
The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally.
Today only the Iliad and the Odyssey are associated with the name ‘Homer’. In antiquity, a very large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, the Little Iliad, the Nostoi, the Thebaid, the Cypria, the Epigoni, the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia (“The Frog-Mouse War”), the Margites, the Capture of Oechalia, and the Phocais. These claims are not considered authentic today and were by no means universally accepted in the ancient world. As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer’s life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture.
Some ancient claims about Homer were established early and repeated often. They include that Homer was blind (taking as self-referential a passage describing the blind bard Demodocus),[16][17] that he was born in Chios, that he was the son of the river Meles and the nymph Critheïs, that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the “Homerica”), that he died either in Ios or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen, and various explanations for the name “Homer”.
The two best known ancient biographies of Homer are the Life of Homer by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod.
In the early 4th century BC Alcidamas composed a fictional account of a poetry contest at Chalcis with both Homer and Hesiod. Homer was expected to win, and answered all of Hesiod’s questions and puzzles with ease. Then, each of the poets was invited to recite the best passage from their work. Hesiod selected the beginning of Works and Days: “When the Pleiades born of Atlas … all in due season”. Homer chose a description of Greek warriors in formation, facing the foe, taken from the Iliad. Though the crowd acclaimed Homer victor, the judge awarded Hesiod the prize; the poet who praised husbandry, he said, was greater than the one who told tales of battles and slaughter.
The Time is Now.
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The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line
The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line
Guest writer Floyd Jerkins tackles how customer service looks when it is done with exceptional skill in this week’s guest post “The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line.”
Disney has been in the news recently. Some would say for the wrong reasons. One thing that has been true for decades is they deliver outstanding customer service. Disney provides millions of people every year with an experience of a lifetime that keeps customers coming back generation after generation. You can’t fake that level of excellence and customer service.
A good friend of mine just returned from taking his family to Disneyland for the fourth time. Of course, I love to hear his stories about their family experience, but it also piqued my interest in “how are they doing”; with their customer service.
Customer retention is more important than ever in all businesses as we find ourselves in an increasingly competitive world fighting for a piece of market share and the customers’ wallets.
Disney is an excellent model to consider because of the high loyalty level among its guests. They serve as a guideline for anyone who wants to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The Red Zone
Walt Disney said, “Just when everyone is saying how great you are is when you’re the most vulnerable.” At Disney, it’s known as the Red Zone. Every business that gets positive feedback from customers regularly can quickly become complacent. Something changes when you get all the right people in the right positions and things go smoothly. Many businesses feel like they are unstoppable. That’s the reality of running any business.
The problem is that in any short two-month period, you can have a lot of things go wrong that probably set you back six months or even a year of growth. It could be just a few little things, but it still causes plans to slow down or stall completely. This shows that being prepared all the time for the unexpected is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. Arrogance and complacency can cause a lack of attention to detail. Keeping your front-line people focused isn’t always easy, even in the best of times.
Who is Your Competition?
According to Disney’s philosophy, anyone that raises your customers’ expectations is a competitor. That is really true and something many think little about. If someone likes how they get treated buying a car or new home or getting their dry cleaning done, how can your team help the customer feel even better when dealing with your business?
The customer compares you with all other businesses they deal with. We are all competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction. Every front-line person must realize that every interaction they have with a customer forms an impression at that point of contact, or touch point as I call it. Not every other one, but everyone. The customer leaves that interaction with being, in the simplest terms, mad, glad, sad, or scared.
The customer doesn’t just look at the product when making a purchase. They rate the way they are treated on the phone, the invoice accuracy, the follow-up when they inquire with a question, the warranty claims procedures, and the list goes on and on.
Some internal customers look for and expect the same attention and focus as external customers. This is an important point to remember in any business. How often do we take a customer for granted and just think he will buy from us again? How often are you surprised that one of your front-line people suddenly quits?
Conduct the “How Are You Doing?” Test With Internal Customers
Disney isn’t unlike many other retail businesses; they make every effort to implement common sense practices. It’s always easy to say any business could adopt these practices, but that’s not true. As I’ve often said, common sense isn’t always common practice.
Leadership and cultural components impact the ability to implement these practices, and consistent communications are needed to sustain them. When it comes together, it’s like magic and full of possibilities. A major essential item is to take the time and effort to look at things from your customer’s perspective. Creating purposeful internal communications and setting the correct behavioral expectations doesn’t just happen by chance.
When in your weekly department meetings, ask the question, “How are we doing?” I know that is a pretty broad question but start the conversation about what people are hearing about your organization during their business transactions with customers. Also, ask what they overhear in a conversation between two customers or a group of customers. Begin asking for feedback from each team member; what in their opinion can we improve or what are we doing right? Create the entire list of items, then pick the top two or three that you could improve on and discuss how you can improve as a team. Give yourselves some timelines to see these issues resolved. Gather the successes and discuss the achievements at the same time. Never let the number of flaws outweigh your accomplishments.
Personal Development is the Key to Organizational Development
I contend that when you hire good people in a growing organization, you can generally find a role for them. Hiring front line people who want to learn is easily identifiable. Remember, personal development is the key to organizational development. If they don’t want to learn, how valuable is that person on the team?
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
Why Job Vacancies Are Surging & Likely to Continue
Why Job Vacancies Are Surging & Likely to Continue
Guest writer Ed Gordon continues to explore the aftermath of the great disruption with this week’s blog post “Why Job Vacancies Are Surging & Likely to Continue.”
As the labor market starts recovering from the severe disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some reasons for hope and many reasons for concern. The labor participation rate which continues to remain 1.1 percent lower than before the pandemic’s start, may rise somewhat as normal schooling enables more women to return to the workforce and the fear of contracting COVID subsides. On the other hand, reports are showing that students at all levels have lost a year or more of learning and community college enrollments have declined at a time when job skill requirements are growing.
The biggest and most persistent negative factor is the shrinkage of the U.S. working age population in this decade. The baby boomers who caused a huge surge in the working age population are retiring in droves and this will continue until 2030. As the U.S. birthrate declined precipitously starting in the 1970s, a much smaller cohort is now entering the workforce. Also, since 2017 fewer immigrants have been admitted to the United States.
Current Job Vacancies Soar
The rebound from the pandemic and the shrinking labor pool has caused the unemployment rate to plummet and job vacancies to soar. An estimated 10.7 to 12.5 million jobs are now unfilled. The Bureau of Labor Statistics June JOLTS Report showed high rates of job vacancies in many major businesses sectors: information 7.9 percent, health care 9.1 percent, education 8.4 percent, professional/business services 8.3 percent.
The National Federation of Independent Business reported an all-time high of small businesses that cannot find qualified applicants for skilled positions. A January 2022 Fortune/Deloitte survey reported that 71 percent of CEOs expected that labor and skills shortages will significantly disrupt their business strategies over the course of this year.
U.S. defense contractors have major staffing shortages. Their aging pool of high-skill specialized employees – particularly engineers with security clearances – is rapidly shrinking as they reach retirement age. These are also tough times for military recruiters. As of late June, only 40 percent of the 57,000 new recruits that the U.S. Army wants by September 30 had been enlisted. The Navy, Marine Corps, and even the Air Force are also having trouble finding personnel that meet their fitness and educational requirements.
To retain workers and recruit new ones, many employers are raising salaries or offering special hiring bonuses. So far in 2022 the average increase in base pay in the United States is 4.8 percent. As there currently is a shortage of one million registered nurses in the United States, hospitals are offering an up to $40,000 signing bonus to nurses who sign a two-year contract. Walgreens Boots Alliance is offering signing bonuses of up to $75,000 to pharmacists who agree to stay in their jobs for a specified period.
The Society for Human Resource Management reports that projections for 2023 indicate that salaries will increase from 4 to 5 percent driven by continuing shortages of skilled workers.
Can We Enlarge the Labor Pool?
As we cited earlier, the labor participation rate remains below pre-pandemic levels. As of June 2022, there were about 100 million American of working age that are currently not employed or looking for work. We estimate that about 21 million are deterred from seeking employment because they lack the skill requirements for vacant jobs but could gain them if provided with entry-level training. Many of the 5.6 million Americans currently listed as unemployed also are in the same position. Yet only 20 to 25 percent of American businesses have training and education programs. This includes both entry-level job training and upgrading the skills or knowledge of current employees. For every dollar our chief foreign competition invests in worker training, U.S. business contributes just 20 cents!
Can Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Fill the Gap?
Many industry analysts are saying robots will largely solve current worker shortages. Businesses are investing billions in robotics and AI. A Material Handling Institute survey found that their members plan to increase robotics in warehouses by 50 percent over the next five years. However, as nations such as Singapore that have successfully automated industrial facilities illustrate, this approach relies heavily on having a high-skill labor pool and providing retraining to workers whose jobs now require programing, monitoring, or repairing automated equipment.
While AI software can now generate text and field telephone inquiries, it can’t go beyond the set of data with which it is programmed. It can’t solve cause-and-effect problems or learn about the world like a child. Advancements in AI and robotics will require HI (human intelligence), i.e., more knowledge workers.
How to Expand the Knowledge Pool
Raising salaries will not generate more qualified employees, it will only increase job churn and fuel inflation. The Fourth Industrial Revolution requires a higher proportion of workers to be high-skilled, and their skills and knowledge need to be continually updated to keep pace with rapid technological change. Surveys indicate that most American workers want to work for employers that provide workers with opportunities to upgrade their capabilities.
Cooperative options for providing training and education need far more support. Small businesses particularly can profit from participating in regional associations in which businesses, educational institutions, and training providers work together in developing programs that develop and retrain workers with in-demand job and career skills.
Edward Gordon is available to provide customized presentations on talent and the current and future U.S. and global labor market. Please visit our website www.imperialcorp.com for more information or contact us by email at im**********@**no.com or by calling 312.664.5196.
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You Should Not Be Planning to Fail
You Should Not Be Planning to Fail
In this week’s blog on education, curriculum designer and writer Caroline Slee-Poulos walks us through all of the reasons you should not be planning to fail.
There is an old adage that tells us “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” When it comes to phrases like this, I believe that sometimes we hear them so often they can become meaningless. In business, we always create plans and projections. We have processes in our departments, and systems that keep things running smoothly.
When it comes to employee development, we have spent many years without a solid plan. I think it is simple to say that this leaves us without a way forward – a path – for your staff and for the future of the business. Employee turnover is an expensive proposition for any business, and this can leave us reluctant when it comes to our training budgets.
When you invest in the future of your business, you should also have a plan for investing in the development of your employees. Just as a course is planned out with each segment, from content through assessments, your employees need to have a plan to map out their future with your business.
It’s time to make a shift towards the future: don’t you want to be planning for success at every single level?
As Ron would tell you, the time is now.
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Friday Filosophy v.08.12.2022
Friday Filosophy v.08.12.2022
Friday Filosophy v.08.12.2022 shares quotes, words of wisdom, and thoughts for consideration from Euripedes.
Euripides; c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined – he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became “the most tragic of poets”, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was “the creator of … that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare’s Othello, Racine’s Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg,” in which “imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates”. But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.
Traditional accounts of the author’s life are found in many commentaries, and include details such as these: He was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, with parents Cleito (mother) and Mnesarchus (father), a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. On receiving an oracle that his son was fated to win “crowns of victory”, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. But the boy was destined for a career on the stage (where he was to win only five victories, one of these posthumously). He served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, studying also painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus and Anaxagoras. He had two disastrous marriages, and both his wives—Melite and Choerine (the latter bearing him three sons)—were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis (the Cave of Euripides, where a cult of the playwright developed after his death). “There he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky”. The details of his death are uncertain. It was traditionally held that he retired to the “rustic court” of King Archelaus in Macedonia, where he died in 406 BC, but modern scholarship is skeptical of these claims. It is possible that in reality he never visited Macedonia at all, or if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists.
The Time is Now
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Process Mapping Blog
Process Mapping Blog
Guest writer Sara Hanks helps us with a key detail for continuous improvement in her “Process Mapping Blog” today.
Continuous improvement in an organization requires implementing projects. Projects also mean change, which is often met with resistance. In the early stages of a project, I recommend using process mapping to facilitate effective change management.
In one of my first IT projects, I was creating an inspection software for manufacturing quality. The project was significantly delayed, and the former project manager had left the company. To create something quickly, I deployed an off-the-shelf software. Completing the inspection plan turned out to be a giant pain and added significant cycle time. A year later, we ended up redesigning the entire inspection software after so many complaints from the users. It was not worth trading off an understanding the current state process for the speed of implementation. I should have known better, after many years of training and practicing lean at GE.
When lean was a corporate initiative at GE, the business planned large transactional lean events to conduct process maps in a session that was sponsored by senior leadership. Attending these events was a privilege and a great way to network with senior leaders. These sessions, often led by a trained facilitator, were highly interactive with post it notes and giant sheets of paper. Over time, the initiatives shifted, and the leaders were no longer engaged at that level. However, I require my teams to conduct process maps 100% of the time.
Process mapping is a necessary step towards implementing change as it helps to understand the current state. A process map is a detailed diagram that articulates each step of a process. While these can be created by interviewing people, they are best conducted in a conference room environment, with representation from each function involved in the process. With enough prework, the session can be completed in 4-8 hours, depending on the complexity of the process.
Prework to the Process Mapping Session
Create a RASCI chart. A RASCI chart identifies the process steps, as well as the roles or people who need to participate in each step. RASCI stands for:
It’s important to note that every step needs a responsible person or role, but the other categories are not required*. At minimum, one person from each function that owns a step should participate in the session.
The output of the prework is to schedule time with the team, as well as a report out session with the relevant leaders.
Conducting the Process Mapping Session
Once the waste is identified, the team will see themes of similar waste. These can be grouped into categories and should be quantified in terms of time or cost.
At this point the team and the project manager has a thorough understanding of the process, as well as the opportunities to drive improvement through waste elimination that can be considered in the project plan. Some process mapping events use the team to design a future process collectively, but that’s a blog for another day.
Report Out
When people are asked to take time out of their day to support process mapping, a report out is helpful to justify the time with their managers. In addition to the management team and the participants, any people who are approvers in the RASCI should review the outcome of the process mapping session. The report out can be summarized as a Value Stream Map, which is a high-level representation of the process and includes the cycle times. It is helpful to include the waste impact in the Value Stream Map as well.
Conclusion
Process mapping helps project managers understand the current state thoroughly which helps prevent issues when implementing the project. The biggest benefit of conducting the process mapping session is that it engages the stakeholders and subject matter experts. Process mapping exposes frustrations about the current state, so the subject matter experts are more likely to understand why a project is happening. Additionally, it highlights what works about the current state, so the project manager can consider keeping these best practices. When the stakeholders are understood, they are more likely to accept or even embrace the change.
NOTE: Some sources say that the A means accountable, but I prefer approver because if a person is responsible for completing a step, by default the person is accountable.
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What Makes a Great Customer Experience?
What Makes a Great Customer Experience?
Guest writer Alex Kraft asks a question that matters deeply when you are in customer service: What Makes a Great Customer Experience?
I recently had an awful customer experience with a large retailer. I’ll spare the long-winded details because we’ve all been there. From the 30,000 ft. level, what’s incredible is how everything falls on the customer to make things right. All I did was purchase something and now I’m the one who has to exert a ton of effort to get the refund or a resolution? How is it my problem? The experience made me appreciate what makes a great customer experience and/or great customer service. I’ve started to pay more attention to this in everyday life.
For this blog post, I don’t want to necessarily discuss equipment related themes as Ron has other contributors who’ve spent 40+ years in heavy equipment service departments. I’d rather delve into what factors into a positive customer interaction. What makes customers want to come back to your business?
Two major components that we all appreciate as consumers are competence and a ‘give a damn’ factor. Competence is something that you can recognize very quickly and puts a customer at ease. I think of a restaurant. We’ve all had a server that within 60 seconds you know will be attentive, knows the menu, and has a great demeanor. It makes your entire experience better knowing that the person waiting on you is competent. It doesn’t have to be a five-star restaurant either, this can be your local chain or even a coffee shop. We’ve all had the opposite as well: where the server is overwhelmed, isn’t able to answer questions concerning the menu, blames the kitchen, and has a poor attitude. Many times, we wonder, ‘why is that person a server if they don’t like interacting with people?’
I’ve had ongoing shoulder pain for a few months. Upon returning from vacation, I decided that I had to do something, so I booked a massage. When I arrived, I told the therapist about my shoulder. Just by looking at me, the therapist says, “your hips are out of alignment, your right shoulder is higher than your left, and it looks like your right leg is a tad shorter than your left. All of these things contribute to your shoulder pain”. Before the massage began, I knew that I came to the right place. Afterwards, I’ve made a couple adjustments to my daily routine, and voila! My shoulder feels a lot better. Apply that to your teams. You don’t necessarily need a customer survey to have an idea of how your people represent your company. Does your sales team exude competence when dealing with customers? When you speak with your sales team, do they speak in generalities or do they have a command of your products and their customers? Do your parts and service representatives embody competence when customers need help?
My personal favorite is the ‘give a damn’ factor. I don’t know of any formal ‘give a damn’ training classes, but maybe Ron will add one to his curriculum. What I’ve seen happening at more companies than I can ever remember, are employees that are quick to tell you that they can’t help you. This manifests itself as ‘I’m sorry, that’s not my job’, or ‘sorry, I can’t help with that’, or “you’ll need to speak to ______”. While I was waiting at this large box retailer, the person in customer service answered the phone with ‘How may I direct your call?’ They couldn’t pass the customer off fast enough. Yet every single company touts their “customer service”. What customers want is to feel like their issue is YOUR issue as a company. They want someone to take ownership of their problem and see it through to resolution.
You don’t have to be an expert to give a damn. Those employees that understand this concept personally see to it that the customer ends up with the appropriate person who can solve their problem. They don’t make the customer start all over from the beginning, try to find someone else, and retell their story. Companies that are great customer service companies make sure to drill these points home to everyone. This isn’t ‘going the extra mile’, it should be what’s expected on a daily basis.
We find reminders every day of great customer experiences. I encourage you when you’re at lunch, at the doctor, Whole Foods/Publix, wherever you visit, compare those visits with how you believe customers feel when dealing with your company. Like I mentioned above, we don’t need surveys to tell us certain things. If you’ve been at your company for a while and know your people, I’m sure you have a good idea. Trust your instincts, maybe it’s time for some refreshers.
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Does Anyone Know the Skills Required For a Job?
Does Anyone Know the Skills Required For a Job?
When you first seek employment, do you know all of the ins and outs of the job you’re applying to do? Founder and managing member Ron Slee takes a look at skills in his learning post for this week: Does Anyone Know the Skills Required For a Job?
I have been manic about having Organizations Charts and Job Descriptions and Performance Metrics for Jobs for a long time. I have also always been able to have performance reviews with any teams that I led when I was an employee. For one-on-one discussions of performance reviews, I tried to put the employee at ease. I wanted us to be able to be completely honest with each other. It was reflected in my day-to-day activities as well. I was always “on the floor” walking around and talking with everyone. I guess I was interrupting their work but neither the employee nor I ever complained about my presence in their jobs and their lives. We were family from my perspective.
Today as I look around businesses today, I see organizations without inadequate numbers of employees. Push-push-push. More-more-more. People are complaining about the lack of loyalty that customers have toward their suppliers. I am constantly asked that question “What happened to loyalty?” The internet has changed everything. Many people today are writing about the problems with “WFH” – working from home. We have lost something that we will regret. I don’t agree with that comment at all. We are entering into a new era of work. Most small business has to have employees at work. At their place of business. They cannot work remotely at a coffee shop or a warehouse or a service shop. It is the larger corporations that are having the problem with WFH. They don’t like it. They think that the “office” is where life happens. We work collaboratively. We make friends and have adversaries. Sometimes we meet someone that we will marry. Everything happens at the office. Isn’t that something?
Our lives and our society depend on us going to the office.
WOW.
I truly hope that is not true. It is not true with what I do. It isn’t true with my daughter who teaches in the classroom. My grandchildren went to school virtually for nearly two school years. My granddaughter took advantage of it and loaded her schedule with the classes that would have been too far apart (distance-wise) for her to take back-to-back during her Undergraduate Degree. I don’t think that hurt her at all. I think it helped. My grandson learning virtually was something that he did better with than in the traditional classroom. There were fewer distractions. That would have been the same thing with me. Too many distractions. That is why I have been talking about a book titled “Indistractable.” How helpful that has been in how I organize my workload. But my grandson did very well with virtual learning.
Which brings me to what I wanted to talk about in this blog. Who has defined the job skills required for a job? I know. Education. Years of Experience. Gets along well with others. The usual stuff. But what skills are required? Can they use the telephone effectively? Can they solve problems? Can they sell? Can they manage an inventory? Do they know how to set up a warehouse, a distribution center? Can they manage a shop floor? Do they have critical thinking skills? Do they have analytical skills? Can they communicate well in writing and orally? Do they have leadership skills? Who has defined and clearly described the specific job skills required for a job function?
I will suggest to you most people think that those things are supposed to be handled in the interview. Alright I will go along with that for a moment. Who trained the person conducting the interview with the prospective employee? We have a problem here. In my opinion.
This shows itself up in our Job Function Skills Assessments. Experienced and talented people are surprised at their scores. The results that most people get are lower than what they thought they would be. When I discuss it with them, I ask them why they were surprised and they tell me that they do the job and have done the job for years. They are good at their job. They get promoted.
Let’s get specific then and talk about inventory management. I start by asking questions. They give me good answers. They think that they do a very good job. So, I ask them how long it takes to get a part. Their lead time. And everyone now, even during the troubles with the supply chain, says less than a month for most vendors. Then I ask if their inventory turnover is greater than eight times. They look at me as if I was from another planet. The point is that they have been doing the job that has always been done in the same manner. Is that what we want? What we need? Continuous Quality Improvement, CQI, seems have gone away for most of us.
I do the same thing with people in the service department, or product support selling or parts and service marketing. And everyone that got a score lower than they expected. Our assessments are evaluating the skills that the employee has to have in order to be able to perform that particular job function. Not how the job is being done but rather what the job requires. Instore Selling is not Order Processing. Repairs are not conducted in a job shop it is a planned and scheduled repair facility. Marketing is not simply brochures and trade shows. It is everything and anything that influences the customer to purchase something from you.
That takes me to the title of this blog.
We need to write a different description of what is expected of the employee in their specific job. That would help in every area of the employee – employer relationship. The trouble with this is the same as most other issues we face. We don’t have enough time to do it. We are not sure what the skills should be for that job. We hadn’t really thought about it before.
Think about this seriously. I sincerely believe it will make your life easier with each employee and it will really help the employee understand what is expected of them with more clarity. The employees will feel much better about themselves and what is expected of them. However, make no mistake, this is not easy to do. Perhaps that is why we haven’t done it before. It is too much like work.
The Time is Now.
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Friday Filosophy v.08.05.2022
Friday Filosophy v.08.05.2022
In Friday Filosophy v.08.05.2022, founder and managing member Ron Slee shares quotes and thoughts for consideration from Aeschylus.
Aeschylus was born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 km northwest of Athens, in the fertile valleys of western Attica. Some scholars argue that his date of birth may be based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was said to be a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica, but this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus’ plays.
As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes’ reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.
The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus’ life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, and the victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.
In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias, against Xerxes I‘s invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Aeschylus also fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus’ war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. According to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of asebeia (impiety) for revealing some of the cult’s secrets on stage.
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus’ younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus’ brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians. By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides. A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister’s son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
The death of Aeschylus illustrated in the 15th century Florentine Picture Chronicle by Maso Finiguerra
In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle (possibly a lammergeier or Cinereous vulture, which do open tortoises for eating by dropping them on hard objects[24]) which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to a misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus’s tomb. Aeschylus’ work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.
The inscription on Aeschylus’ gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:
The time is now.
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Safety First! But, Why?!
Safety First! But, Why?!
Guest writer Bill Pyles tackles OSHA regulations in his guest blog entitled “Safety First! But, Why?!”
Summer is here and this time of year I’d put some notes together for the next team meeting to give a safety update; specifically, how to recognize heat stroke. I cannot say enough about OSHA’s excellent heat index ap. Go to your app store and download OSHA/NIOSH Heat Safety Tool. Do it today, now!!!
Heat stroke is a killer that does not need to darken your doorway. As I write this the outside temp in central Florida is 89oF. The heat index is 102oF and into the “danger zone”. Another day in sunny Florida!
Here are some symptoms of heat stroke.
If you suspect a person has heat stroke, call 911.
Through my 48-year career, the one constant is safety. Let your guard down for a moment and you may get an unpleasant safety reminder. The other constant throughout the last 48 years is the barrage of safety memo’s, fact & figures, testimonies, yellow lines on floors and more. What was missing is the “why”. Too many times a safety inspection will reveal some infractions such as garbage in front of the electrical panel, spray paint left out on work benches, spray containers on tech’s toolboxes not marked or labeled, bench grinder “out of adjustment” or no lid on the shop trash cans. The shop manager will get the safety write up, make the necessary corrections and life (pun intended) goes on. But has the shop manager or the people working in the shop learned from the experience? My guess is no; other than forming opinions that the safety guy’s job is to make everyone else miserable, slow down production and nit-pick. He needs to get a “real” job and leave us alone!
Let’s look at some common safety infractions and discuss the “why.”
Please note that some of the items noted may have different or more safety regulations than noted below.
On a side note, I’ve seen the results of a grinding wheel exploding. It can cause serious operator injury. Usually, the wheel explodes due to being cracked or becoming unbalanced. There is no warning.
I’ve visited hundreds of shops during my career and usually the shop knew I was coming to visit. It did truly bother me that at times, the shop would shut down a day before my visit or a high-level OEM visit, to get the shop presentable. This was an indication to me that safety was more show then go. I’d spend more time with the shop manager to help him understand safety is what ensures we all go home at the end of the shift in just as good of shape as when we came to work. I’d take the shop manager and the techs around the shop for a quick look-see safety inspection. When I’d find a safety violation, I’d point it out, explain what the hazard could be and why a safety rule was in place to prevent the hazard. I wanted them to know the “why.” Equipment, shop tooling, facilities have no concern for your safety. You are responsible for your safety and the safety of those working round you.
Your family is depending on you!
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