What is the secret to how
companies like Disney,
Nordstrom and Ritz-Carlton get thousands of employees to consistently execute
world-class customer service
while most companies struggle
with teams of 15 to 50 people?
The answer is simple —
employees. You count on your
team of people to deliver service, and often, there is a lack of
service aptitude.
So what constitutes superior
service? The answer depends
on who you ask. Without proper soft-skill training, superior
service is relative to one’s life
experience. Where has he or
she traveled? What has he or
she experienced? What manners and code of behavior was
this person taught at home?
Most likely, there will be a discrepancy between your vision
of customer service and any
new employee’s vision.
The good news is that service aptitude can be learned
and improved.
At The DiJulius Group, we define service aptitude as “a person’s ability to recognize opportunities to exceed a customer’s
expectations regardless of
the circumstances.”
The key to that definition
is the last four words —
“regardless of the circumstances.” High service aptitude is not as critical on
your slowest day of the
week or on a day when
everything is running
smoothly, but true service
aptitude is revealed in a difficult situation, such as
when you are short-staffed
or in a crisis or when service recovery is needed.
Think about it this way.
For months, you have
been promising your spouse a
getaway for just the two of you.
Finally, you are spending three
days in the Bahamas. The two
of you are sitting by the pool,
ordering piña coladas and reading gossip tabloids. Life couldn’t
be better.
Meanwhile, back at home, your
company just dropped the ball
on your platinum-VIP customer.
The only person on the scene to
handle the situation is your most
recently hired employee.
Still having fun? Still relaxed?
Unfortunately, the simple
truth is that our most recently
hired, least-trained and lowest-paid employee deals with our
customers the most.
Although most people enter
the business world with a very
low service aptitude, it can
increase dramatically with the
proper training program in soft
skills and with continuous training in customer service. However, most companies spend the
vast majority of their training on
the technical side of the job,
usually because they are hiring
reactively, filling an empty position with a warm body.
One of the best tools for
measuring if an employee’s
service aptitude is high enough
to start interacting with a company’s customer is some sort
of employee service aptitude
test. We created our own called
the E-SAT. It is composed of 50
to 75 multiple choice questions
about the most common situations that may arise between
the employee and their customer, ranging from non-negotiable standards, service
recovery, and above and beyond
opportunities to uncomfortable
and awkward situations that he
or she may encounter.
At our company, we administer the test before and after any
new employee goes through his
or her initial training. This way,
it monitors how service aptitude
has increased. We do not allow
any new employees to start
working in their actual position
or interact with our guests without scoring a perfect 100 percent on the test.
The actual questions on this
type of test will differ based on
your company, its services and
the position for which you’re
testing or hiring. The important
thing is that an E-SAT will help
you ensure that your employees deliver the type of service
you expect them to every time
they interact with a client or
potential customer.
But it’s not just the front-line
employees who need to increase
their service aptitude and require more soft/people-skill
training. I have worked with
hundreds of businesses as well
as professionals, such as
accountants, financial advisers,
consultants, lawyers, programmers and doctors, all of whom
are extremely skilled and
trained technically but are not
strong at customer/client services and knowing how to build
relationships. Every employee
— front line, administrative, professionals and, yes, your management team —needs some
customer experience training.
So what is the service aptitude
of your organization? Do you
assume it is high enough or are
you taking steps to ensure it is
top notch by measuring it and
training your team?
Look at your employees and
you’ll know for sure.
JOHN R. DIJULIUS III is the author of “Secret Service: Hidden Systems That Deliver Unforgettable
Customer Service” and “What’s The Secret” (due out April 2008). He is also president of The DiJulius
Group, a firm specializing in giving companies a superior competitive advantage by helping them differentiate on delivering an experience and making price irrelevant. Reach him at [email protected].
