How to Train New Hires on Culture

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The first customer I ever served resulted in a service failure.

Some of it was my fault. I said the wrong thing to a customer and he stormed off, grumbling about the sorry state of customer service these days.

Some of it was not my fault. I was sixteen years old and this was my first job. I hadn't yet been trained and didn't yet have the experience to know what to do. The person who was supposed to be training me had gone on break and left me to fend for myself.

It all worked out in the end. I learned from the experience, discovered a passion for customer service, and eventually learned how to train others. 

Things don't always go this way. Many employees develop bad habits as a result of insufficient new hire training. The results is poor customer service, low engagement, and high attrition.

We need to take responsibility for giving new hires the right kind of training if we expect them to deliver our brand of exceptional service. 

You can hear my story in this short video:

The Woeful Lack of Training

A 2018 study by the research firm Ipsos revealed that 31 percent of employees get no formal training.

This statistic is even worse for low-wage jobs (earning <$50,000 per year), where 36 percent of employees report they received no formal training. This group encompasses a majority of frontline customer service employees. 

Even the training that does occur may not be sufficient.

I routinely ask customer service leaders whether their company has a customer service vision, which is a shared definition of outstanding customer service. Typically, 40 percent or more admit there is none.

A vision is critical because it provides a common framework for training that describes your organization's unique brand of customer service. Without one, new hire training must focus on tactical procedures and generic customer service tips.

The best companies know this. 

New hires at In-N-Out burger are trained around a vision of quality, service, and cleanliness; you can see that vision in everything they do. Guests at The Ritz-Carlton naturally expect a different type of service than at In-N-Out, so Ritz-Carlton associates are trained on that company's vision, We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

 

Key Elements of Culture Training

An entire chapter in The Service Culture Handbook is devoted to training employees to embody the culture in their daily work.

Here are a few highlights.

Element 1: You need a customer service vision. Your training will be generic and unfocused if you skip this step. You can use this guide to create one.

Element 2: Create learning objectives for your training. Think about what you want your new hires to know and be able to do. I recommend setting an objective that employees will be able to answer three questions by the end of the training:

  1. What is our customer service vision?

  2. What does the vision mean?

  3. How does I personally contribute to the vision in my daily work?

Element 3: Develop activities to achieve your learning objectives. This is your chance to get a little creative, but make sure you can verify the learning objectives have been achieved by the end of the training.

 

New Hire Training Examples

Here are two sample training plans that have both been effective. Both training plans share the learning objectives described above (i.e. participants have to answer those three questions).

Sample #1: The Scavenger Hunt. I ran this exercise for new managers at a parking management company. 

The training started in the classroom, where participants were introduced to the customer service vision. We had a group discussion around its meaning and talked about the answers to the three questions.

Next, participants were split into small groups and each was given a list of locations to visit near the company's downtown headquarters. Each group was asked to take pictures of scenes that showed the vision in real-life. This included signage, employees interacting with customers, etc. The entire assignment could easily be completed in less than an hour, with the teams walking from location to location.

Finally, we gathered in the classroom again to look at everyone's pictures. The teams took turns walking us through what they saw and explaining how each image connected to the vision.

 

Sample #2: The Thank You Letter Challenge. I did this exercise with Clio, the winner of the 2017 ICMI Global Contact Center award for best culture. 

Employees were first asked to identify places where they saw the customer service vision before coming to class. This one was easy, since each person had a small sign hung at their workstation.

Next, employees were asked to describe the answers to the three questions in their own words. 

Finally, each person completed the Thank You Letter challenge. They started by writing a thank you letter to themselves from an imaginary customer. The letter reflected service that aligned with the company's customer service vision. Then participants were asked to read the letter each day for two weeks and try to earn feedback from a real customer that matched the letter.

At the end of the two weeks, we reconvened and participants shared their experiences. It was amazing how they were able to generate so many success stories! (You can try this exercise here.)

 

Take Action!

Start today by asking two questions:

  1. Do we have a customer service vision? (Y/N)

  2. Do we train new employees on the customer service vision (Y/N)

If the answer is "No" to either question, you'll see immediate results by adding that element to your training program.

Inside Perspective from ICMI's 2018 Best Small Contact Center

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) held its annual Global Contact Center Awards party this past May.

Gopher Sport won the 2018 award for Best Small Contact Center. (Contact centers with fewer than 75 agents are eligible.) It specializes in selling sports equipment to schools for physical education and athletic programs and prides itself on friendly service.

The company is a client of mine and I've been consistently impressed with the customer care team and it's commitment to service. Beth Gauthier-Jenkin, Gopher Sport's Vice President of Customer Care, shared some insight into what makes her team so special.

The Gopher Sport Customer Care team

Q: What is Gopher Sport’s customer service vision?

"Our CEO established the service vision about 5 years ago, which is to 'be the easiest company to do business with'.

"Our plain-language vision has served us well because its meaning is clear. As a company, we often use it in day-to-day conversations as we’re making decisions, asking each other: 'Does this direction, decision, etc., make us the easiest company to do business with?' Sometimes the answer is 'no,' and we have to rethink our plans."

 

Q: What do you believe sets your contact center apart in winning this award?

"We’ve had a customer-focused mindset for 70+ years.

"Our previous CEO, now Chairman of the Board, Joel Jennings, instilled a deep sense of customer commitment in our organization before differentiating with customer experience was the hot topic. 

"Company DNA aside, we’ve gotten good at balancing most aspects of contact center effectiveness. We’ve recognized the diverse gifts, skills, and aptitudes within our team and aligned them with key areas of performance and leadership. We’ve been able to lead, coach, and educate team members well. We’ve optimize resources through workforce management. We’ve used continuous improvement and performance management methods effectively. Many wins in these varied areas due to this diverse group of gifted people. 

"Lastly, we’re committed to continuous learning. That’s why we’ve soaked up so much knowledge from you Jeff!"

 

Q: How has the rest of the organization supported the contact center (and vice-versa)?

"The entire organization supports our Unconditional 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. 

"Unified support of this customer-focused philosophy, although the right thing to do, isn’t always easy on other teams. For example, large returns and product replacements can be negatives for our Product teams when it comes to maintaining margin targets. Our Quality team works to minimize quality issues and returns, but when customers can return product for any reason, at any time, this can be difficult. So as a company, we recognize and support the greater good, which is taking excellent care of our customers, versus maintaining team standards and KPI’s.

"The contact center supports others in the organization by working to balance customer needs with business needs. For example, we’ve partnered with our Distribution Center to help balance their workload when it comes to order fulfillment. If we only complete order entry after inbound calls and emails are handled, they’d have no orders to ship until 2PM each day. We continuously look at how what we do impacts others and balance the best interest of the customer with business needs, when possible."

 

Q: What are some challenges you are working on now?

"We are really interested in ensuring customer insights and feedback are communicated across the organization to keep improving the experience.

"In the past, we’ve sent information to other teams in hopes it’s digestible and actionable, with little success. This is our biggest challenge right now. We have to find ways to ensure the customer is heard, across the company. It seems like this should be easy, unfortunately, technology limits and resource constraints sometimes get in the way. We have to figure this out!

"We also continue to focus on attracting and retaining talented team members. The insights you’ve provided on an improved approach to onboarding and training our newest team members has been a game-changer. Modifying our approach has helped us take better care of these hard working people who want to be successful. This will continue to evolve. We have to keep improving in this area so we have the best people caring for our customers."

 

Q: How has the customer service assessment we did helped your contact center? 

"This could be an entirely separate discussion!

"It helped us understand our strengths and opportunities in such a clear, straight-forward way. Considering how we grow and improve can be overwhelming, so the prioritized list provided in the assessment was key. The assessment also provided a clear line of sight to key areas which ensure we’re aligned with our service vision.

"In areas we’re missing the mark, the assessment gave us practical, easy-to-implement action items so we become better aligned with the vision. The focus on hiring for culture fit is our biggest priority, and implementing your suggested improvements will continue to yield positive results and transform how we hire."

(Note: you can find more information on the assessment here.)

Winning this prestigious award was a big achievement for Gauthier-Jenkin and the rest of the Customer Care team. What's most striking is they aren't about to rest on their laurels. The entire team is focused on continuously building its service culture.

What Exactly is a Service Culture?

Advertising disclosure: This blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Think about the companies best known for customer service.

A few probably come to mind immediately. These companies have an undeniable service culture that helps set them apart. Yet it's tricky to put your finger on exactly what a service culture is.

This post gives you a definition, a word of caution, and a few examples.

Clip board with paper on it that reads "Company Culture."

Service Culture Defined

I met my friend Catherine Mattice for coffee when I started writing The Service Culture Handbook. 

Mattice is an expert on helping companies create positive workplace cultures and the author of Seeking Civility, so I wanted to get her perspective on my new project. She offered this definition of workplace culture:

"Corporate culture is the way an organization's members think, act, and understand the world around them."

So service culture is an organizational culture where there is a collective way employees:

  • think about providing outstanding service

  • act to provide it, and

  • understand how and why they do it

My shorthand definition is a service culture is one where employees are obsessed with customer service.

You can tell an organization has a strong service culture by observing its employees. Customer-focused employees go out of their way to help their customers have a great experience.

ServiceCulture-3dStacked.jpeg

Get the book

A step-by-step guide to getting your employees obsessed with customer service.

Available on Amazon

 

Caution: Beware of Inconsistencies

Intentionality is a key element of the service culture definition.

Brand leadership expert Denise Lee Yohn cautioned against inconsistencies between culture and brand in her book, Fusion. This occurs when a company tries to promote a certain brand image but its internal culture is really something else.

Wells Fargo is a good example. 

The bank touted its service culture for years, even when faced with a massive scandal. In 2016, it was revealed that Wells Fargo employees created more than two million phony customer accounts in an effort to meet sales targets.

Then CEO John Stumpf wrote to employees in September 2016 to assure them that Wells Fargo was customer-focused.

"Our entire culture is centered on doing what is right for our customers."

In reality, Stumpf had helped create a culture that focused on aggressive sales targets, not customers. The CEO was ultimately forced to resign and return $28 million in pay.

 

Service Culture Examples

The outdoor gear retailer REI is an excellent example of an organization with a strong service culture.

My wife and I once went shopping for camping equipment to take on a backpacking trip. We first went to Sports Authority, where a disinterested sales associate pointed towards the camping equipment aisle.

Sports Authority had a culture focused on making the next sale, not serving the customer. Schemes like stamping survey invitations with the suggested "Highly Satisfied" rating to boost survey scores were not uncommon. The company has since gone out of business.

Store receipt with survey invitation stamped "Highly Satisfied."

We realized we were in over our heads, so we went to REI.

Here we were greeted by a sales associate who was an avid backpacker. He enthusiastically helped us select the right equipment. The associate quickly built trust by recommending products we didn't realize we needed and talking us out of purchases that weren't necessary for our trip. 

This experience is very typical at REI. The organization's culture is focused on helping people enjoy the outdoors, and the service experience consistently reflects that.

Another example is In-N-Out Burger. 

The company has a service culture focused on three words: quality, cleanliness, and service. This culture was infused into the company from the time it was founded in Southern California in 1948.

Amazingly, McDonald's once shared those same three values with In-N-Out. The difference, as we now know, is McDonald's became focused on rapid growth.

That growth helped the company become one fo the world's most iconic brands, but it's service quality has lagged behind the industry for years. McDonald's placed dead last in the 2017 American Customer Satisfaction Index for limited-service restaurants.

 

Take Action

Creating a service culture in your organization, department, or team requires an intentional focus.

The first step is to define your unique culture by creating a customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that points everyone in the same direction.

From there, it's imperative to align your business around the culture. The goal is to use each strategic decision to reinforce the service culture while avoiding the mistakes of companies like Wells Fargo that say one thing while doing another.

Study: Executives Are Delusional About Customer-Centricity

There's a famous statistic that 80 percent of executives believed their organization delivered a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of customers agreed.

This comes from this 2005 report from Bain, so it's a little out of date.

A 2017 study by Capgemini Consulting sought to provide updated insight into the so-called executive disconnect. A total of 450 executives and 3,300 consumers were surveyed, though this study focused specifically on the digital experience. This includes searching for product information online, using a company's app, or searching for technical support information on a website.

The results?

Executives still believe they are doing well, with 75 percent saying their organization is customer-centric. Just 30 percent of customers agree. On the bright side, it has improved since 2005! 

That's still a pretty big disconnect. Here's are three key insights from the report.

A chess pawn looking in the mirror and seeing a queen.

Insight #1: Experience is a Differentiator

Let's say a customer is trying to choose between two products, your's and a competitor's. 

The customer visits each website to learn more about the product, watch some tutorials, and see which one best fits her needs. That aspect of the digital experience is a key part of the customer journey, so it's important to get it right.

Capgemini discovered that 81 percent of consumers will pay a premium for a better experience.

Last fall, I purchased an ecobee smart thermostat for a vacation rental property I own even though my initial choice was a more well-known competitor. The reason was ecobee's website was intuitively laid out and the company's helpful support gave me far greater confidence that their product would work as intended.

 

Insight #2: Better Experience Boosts NPS

This may be obvious, but it's great to have data to back it up.

Net Promoter Score, or NPS, tracks how likely a customer is to recommend your product or business to someone else. Many businesses grow revenue through word-of-mouth referrals, so this can be an essential metric.

The study found that companies that used NPS results to regularly make adjustments to business operations enjoyed an NPS score that averaged 14 points higher than companies that did not closely link NPS and operations.

This is an epidemic in the business world. It seems like nearly every company surveys its customers, whether its NPS or another model. Yet much of that data goes completely unused.

The lesson here is your survey can be really valuable, if you actually use it. Here's an online course on how to design and implement an effective survey.

 

Insight #3: Poor Experiences Hurt Business

Losing a customer is a big concern when someone experiences a service failure. Similar to other reports, the Capgemini study found that 20 percent of customers stopped doing business with a company after a poor experience.

This should leave two important questions:

  1. What about other 80 percent?

  2. What are your customers doing?

A study by Dr. Venessa Funches shed some light on what angry customers do when they continue doing business with a company:

  • 35 percent do less business

  • 70 percent spread negative word-of-mouth about the company

It's up to you to find out the answer to the second question, what are your customers doing after a poor experience.

One tactic that will help is to make sure customers can opt-in to a follow-up contact when they complete one of your surveys. This allows you to potentially save their business and gain valuable insight into what went wrong.

 

Take Action

Studies like the Capgemini report are fascinating because they provide general insight into the world of customer experience and customer service.

My advice to customer service leaders is to use this data as a prompt to check your own organization. 

  • How do your customers feel about their experience?

  • Is a poor customer experience costing your company revenue?

  • What can you do to improve?

How to Hire Employees Who Fit Your Service Culture

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

You've probably heard the adage, "Hire for attitude, train for skills."

It sounds good, but how exactly do you hire for attitude? Customer service leaders struggle with this one. Many rely on off-beat interview tactics they hear about in blogs and books, such as asking questions like "What kind of fruit best describes your personality?" Some just like to have a friendly conversation to see what sort of vibe they get from each person.

Researchers have confirmed you'd make better hiring decisions if you skipped these sort of interviews entirely.

You need a systematic process if you want to hire for culture fit. 

There aren't a lot of great examples to follow. In fact, the biggest challenge when I wrote The Service Culture Handbook was finding good examples for the chapter on hiring. (One of the best examples I know is Publix.)

This post is an update from a post I wrote back in 2014.

interview.jpg

Start by Defining Your Culture

The very first thing you need is a clear definition of your culture. It's pretty tough to hire people who fit your service culture if you can't describe that that is!

A service culture is defined by what's called a customer service vision. This is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that gets everyone on the same page. 

Let's imagine we started an online wine store that focuses on helping customers learn about wine and explore new wineries, varietals, and wines from different regions. Our customer service vision might be: We make it fun to discover great wine.

So people who work in our company should not only love wine, but definitely not be wine snobs. They should enjoy learning about wine and helping others experience the fun and joy of learning about wine, too. (I really want to start this business now!)

We can now use this vision as a basis for hiring people who will embrace our service culture.

 

Create an Ideal Candidate Profile

The next step is to identify the characteristics of an employee who fits your company's service culture. I use this worksheet to create what's called an ideal candidate profile.

This profile separates the characteristics we want in an employee into two categories:

  1. Must Have Characteristics

  2. Like to Have Characteristics

The must have characteristics are attributes a candidate must have or we would not consider hiring them. For instance, everyone we hire for our online wine store must have an enthusiasm for wine. They don't necessarily need to be an expert, they just need to really like learning about it.

A like to have characteristic is an attribute that would help us make a hiring decision but isn't essential. So we might not require our wine store employees to have extensive knowledge of different wine varietals, but a candidate who did have this knowledge might have an advantage over other candidates with similar qualifications.

hiringgrid.jpeg

One key test for your ideal candidate profile is to compare it to your existing employees. You'll need to revise your profile if you have any successful employee who did not possess one of the must haves when they were hired.

 

Devise Screening Tests

The final step in creating your hiring process is to devise tests to screen candidates for each item on your ideal candidate profile.

The most common way to do this is through interview questions. Each question should be designed to uncover something specific. You should also have a clear answer key before conducting the interview.

For instance, we could test our online wine shop candidates for the "enthusiasm for wine" characteristic by asking them to tell us about a recent wine tasting experience.

A answer that indicated a culture fit would be an enthusiastic story about discovering new wine, such as going wine tasting at a local winery or wine bar. A poor culture fit answer would be someone who hadn't tried any new wine recently, admits they don't really like wine, or describes a story that sounds more like going out and partying.

I highly recommend Janis Whitaker's excellent book, Interviewing by Example, for clear guidance on how to write effective interview questions.

There are other ways to test an employee's qualifications besides interview questions. Here are a few examples:

  • Resume or LinkedIn profile

  • Skills assessments

  • Small project

We might screen potential wine shop employees for the "continuous learner" attribute by  looking for recent training classes, certifications, or education on their resume or LinkedIn profile. These don't necessarily need to be wine related since any recent learning indicates this person is likely a continuous learner.

Some companies have customer service employees respond to a realistic customer email to gauge both their writing style and resourcefulness. Assessing skills through a small project is another great way to learn a lot about a candidate.

 

Take Action

Assess your current hiring process by asking these three questions:

  1. Does your company (or team) have a customer service vision?

  2. Do you have an ideal candidate profile?

  3. Do you have screening tests for each characteristic on the profile?

The answers will help you decide where to start. You can learn more and see additional examples by viewing this on-demand webinar from ICMI.

Does Your Company Have Too Many Missions and Visions?

The vice president shared a draft of her company's new values project.

She had been working with two other executives to create them. They had come up with nine after several brainstorming sessions.

On paper, they looked good. These were solid, reasonable values that were all straight out of the corporate values catalog. Nothing controversial. 

There were two problems. 

The first issue was the company already had a lot of cultural artifacts. A cultural artifact is something that helps people understand your organization's culture, like a mission, vision, or set of values. 

This company already had a lot:

  • Mission statement

  • Service promise

  • Service motto

  • Brand tagline

Now, they were planning to introduce a new set of values on top of everything else. Which led to the second problem.

Some of those nine values weren't accurate. Communication was number three on the list. "Oh, we suck at communication!" said the vice president.

Perhaps you face a similar mess. Here's how you can untangle it.

Focus vs. Confusion

Companies' cultural artifacts frequently feel empty because organizations often have too many or the existing ones are inauthentic.

In the rush to create another tagline, motto, or corporate vision, nobody takes the time to decide what one statement is the most important or ensure all the artifacts are in alignment.

If everything is important, then nothing is important.

In The Service Culture Handbook, I related the story of a restaurant chain I worked with that had too many cultural artifacts.

It had a mission statement, a brand promise, a set of four service promises, and a list of 17 service standards that waitstaff were expected to follow with every guest.

Employees weren't quite sure which was most important. 

This was especially challenging since some of these cultural artifacts didn't clearly support each other. For instance, the mission statement described a desire to create amazing experiences while the service standards emphasized up-selling and efficiency.

At an executive retreat, I posed the question to the CEO, his executive team, and the general managers of each individual restaurant: which cultural artifact is most important?

There initially wasn't a consensus, but it led to a good discussion. The group finally agreed that the mission statement should be the primary guide for the employees. 

Next, they decided to rethink their existing cultural artifacts. Some were eliminated while others were simplified and aligned with the mission. The 17 service standards were slimmed down to 10. 

The restaurant chain's leadership team then communicated the revised artifacts to employees with a renewed emphasis on the mission.

Not surprisingly, service quality improved once employees had a consistent understanding of what outstanding service should be.

 

Where a Customer Service Vision Fits In

In customer-focused companies, the most important cultural artifact is a customer service vision.

A customer service vision is a shared definition of outstanding service that guides all employees' actions when it comes to serving customers.

What if your company already has some pretty important artifacts?

When my clients face this challenge, I usually suggest two options. Option one is to make one of your existing artifacts do double-duty as the customer service vision.

In many companies, the organization's mission, vision, or values is also the customer service vision. There's no need to add yet another statement to the mix!

For example, take a look at REI's mission statement:

At REI, we inspire, educate and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship.

This is why the company exists (hence, the mission), but it also paints a clear picture of what type of service employees should strive to provide. Go visit an REI location today and you'll almost certainly find enthusiastic retail associates who will try to help you enjoy the outdoors!

In some cases, none of my clients' existing cultural artifacts are particularly inspiring. (They decide this, not me.) That's when I suggest a second option: replace one of your existing artifacts with the new vision.

I recently helped a client do this and it was amazing how much the new vision energized employees.

 

Take the Three Question Test

Here's an easy way to tell if a cultural artifact is actually relevant.

Select one of your cultural artifacts (mission, vision, values, motto, tagline, etc.). Talk to a random sample of employees and ask them three questions about that artifact:

  1. What is it?

  2. What does it mean?

  3. How does it guide the work that you do?

You can tell the artifact has virtually no meaning if employees aren't aware of it or can't give consistent or clear answers to those questions.

In customer-focused companies, every employee can give a consistent answer to the three questions when asked about the customer service vision.

You can learn more about customer service visions and how to create one here.