Coffee Hangout with Micah on Oct 19 at 11:00 AM EST: Building a customer service culture 

Fourth question for today is here below. To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question Q4, start your answer with A4 and use the quote the option.

Q4: How do you go about inspiring a team to offer personalized customer service/"wow" customer service to make your customer feel special?

Last question for today is here below. To answer a question, tag the answer with the corresponding number. For example, if you are answering this question Q5, start your answer with A5 and use the quote the option. 

Q5: Give us examples of your favorite organizations that have built a great CS culture
 

A5:  I think I want to start by acknowledging that there are great B2B organizations that have built great CS cultures but that most of us will never know about because they’re outside of our own niche industry-wise. 

That’s why my list is going to be B2C companies that everyone at least potentially knows about. 

Nordstrom (department stores) 

Apple 

Amazon (But this is a WEIRD one because they’re so anti-employee) 

MANY of the hospitality organizations: Marriott, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (now part of Marriott but still distinct), Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Makeready, and more 

Delta Airlines (I know this is a controversial pick) 

Southwest Airlines

Q5: Give us examples of your favorite organizations that have built a great CS culture

A5:  I think I want to start by acknowledging that there are great B2B organizations that have built great CS cultures but that most of us will never know about because they’re outside of our own niche industry-wise. 

That’s why my list is going to be B2C companies that everyone at least potentially knows about. 

Nordstrom (department stores) 

Apple 

Starbucks

Amazon (But this is a WEIRD one because they lag so far behind in EMPLOYEE treatment)

MANY of the hospitality organizations: Marriott, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (now part of Marriott but still distinct), Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Makeready, and more 

Delta Airlines (I know this is a controversial pick) 

Southwest Airlines

Virgin Brands (many of them)

And let’s not forget:  FRESHWORKS!

Q5: Give us examples of your favorite organizations that have built a great CS culture

A1 I honestly beleive that hiring for a culture fit is more important than hiring for skills itself. Not to say that skills aren’t important, but an employee with a poor culture fit can have repurcusions that are deeply damaging. It’s extremely imperative that hiring managers have ways of identifying who fits culturally.

A1: 

We can agree on one thing: Culture matters!

Culture fit on the other hand? Not so much.

We all know how much important it is to hire. But in the day and age of asking people to bring their whole self to work, and working without any biases, it seems to a challenge to accommodate everything. 
 
I’m quoting from a blog that my friend at work penned. 

“Just hire someone on the strength of their skills and monitor for culture strength later. People are curious beings that change every day and the person you interviewed won’t be the person who joins or the person you promote six months from now. Internal and external forces can change people so it’s best to not bank on the impressions you draw from a general conversation. Instead of investing time in looking for a culture fit (your impressions may or may not be accurate), you could just monitor for culture strength and take action if they’re detrimental to other people’s morale”

But if you insist on searching for something aspirational during a short job interview…I suppose you could look for a value fit. 

Source: https://www.freshworks.com/hrms/culture-fit-outdated-blog/ 

I’d love to hear @Micah Solomon and @manns have to say about this, but here are my two cents:

• The culture has to permeate across the org- and for this, all of goals, mission, vision, training programs, management philosophy have to be on the same page. The customer service oriented culture would have to reflect in every single thing the Company does.
• The intangible but often overlooked element of employee welfare is another significant factor. Happier employees ensure happy customers.
• Incentivising curiosity would also go a long way in ensuring a successful customer service orientation.
   

A2: When a team comes together and participates in conversations like one unit, that’s the key to great CS culture. To achieve that, team should be constantly be:
- Rewarded for delighting customers
-  Building an attitude to deliver what right for the company AND the customer
- To be more inclusive and welcoming at all times, change mentors once in two weeks so they get a chance to talk to others on the team and 
- Share feedback instantly with the right team members

A3: Customer service thrives on certain innate qualities. As teams grow and there is a demand for more hands on the team while you’re pressed for time, it becomes a challenge to test the following.

1. Ability to communicate and talk to others

2. Empathy

3. Should be a natural helper

4. Be a team player and enthusiastic in nature

5. Be willing to learn even if initially clueless

If any of these qualities are not met enough, then the team would struggle in my opinion. So, hiring mistakes are something that become difficult to deal with. 

Thanks so much, @akshara.sruthi and @rhea.desouza and @annapoorna.venketaraman  / @annapoorna.v and @SanaSiddiqui for organizing this, and thanks to everyone who participated!! 

@alyssia.correa, 

I think this is a really tricky one.  SO MANY OTHER factors affect the bottom line (and the top line as well) that saying customer-centricity boosted our revenue is a hard correlation to make in, say, any particular quarter. 

I think the key here is to remember that customer service truly is the new marketing, and it is so much more powerful among today’s customers than the old Mad Men-style marketing. 

Customers make their decisions now based on their experience with you, their colleagues in their industry’s experience, their offline friends, and the people they listen to online.  THAT is powerful.