The Elite Service Culture™ - a strategic approach to sustained team success

Maya Angelou is quoted to have said, "people forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people do not forget how you made them feel.” If you have had one of these feel-good moments, you likely encountered characteristics of the Elite Service Culture™.

The Elite Service Culture™ does not exhibit itself as a positive experience one day and ordinary the next, there is consistency among events. While every customer interaction is a combination of people, processes and tools, the people aspect is the most impactful variable of the customer experience and at times can compensate for other deficiencies. When a customer experience reaches the "feel good” status, it is more likely associated with a repurchase or recommendation to a friend.” Let’s explore corporate culture, the building blocks of the Elite Service Culture™, as well as the measuring of a culture.

What is corporate culture? It is the way a company’s employees think, act, and interpret the workplace, just like a personality. Are there good and bad cultures? Yes, yet I prefer to identify the range from healthy and productive to unhealthy and less productive. Healthy cultures often strengthen stakeholders’ position while the unhealthy erode it.

What is team culture? By the most basic definition, a team culture is made up of the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a team. It is how teammates interact, work together towards a common goal and how they treat one another. Adherence to a goal, respect, and resilience are often prominent characteristics of team culture. These attributes could be healthy or unhealthy, productive or non-productive, and even positive or negative.

What is a service culture? A simple definition is serving customers with the intent to meet their needs in a manner that achieves satisfaction. More precisely it is the culture associated with a customer service organization providing client support with emphasis on providing quality services with positive intent. This culture looks at the customer as important, the primary reason they are in existence. The service culture should be aligned with the leadership and corporate goals / objectives, or its survival will be continually challenged.

What is the Elite Service Culture™? It’s the culture associated with a customer service organization serving clients in a manner that is team-based, consistent, and of high quality. Tasks performed effective focused to make the customer feel good, thus creating a positive customer experience that is often shared with others. The delivery of the customer experience is performed as a priority and the relationship with the customer is valued. The service provider ultimately creates loyalty, and when buying decisions are to be made, the customer looks at the service provider as indispensable to their operation, hence enhancing the renewal and building of the business.

In no order, below are prominent characteristics of the Elite Service Culture™ environment:

• Clear and well-defined purpose, objectives, and goals – a common language
• Trust, respect, openness, sharing, personal / team growth and collaboration
• High levels of ownership and accountability
• Clear and respected Standards of Performance and Code of Conduct for all, no special rules for leadership
• Strategic communications, succinct, transparent, governed to avoid saturation, and sharing team performance
• Employees are valued partners, and there is alignment of objectives and values among the team
• Friction points are discussed and resolved; all voices are heard
• High levels of productivity from teamwork synergies
• Promotion of creativity, entrepreneurship, and empowerment – a state of "flow”
• Promoting health and wellness
• Sense of healthy pride and celebration of proper behaviors
• Warm and inviting workplace
• Devoid of harassment, bullying, favoritism / nepotism
• Devoid of silos and cliques, especially management
• Devoid of fear and intimidation, verbal and or non-verbal

I think back to when I first learned the business concept of customer service and the impact it had on me. At ten years old I delivered newspapers before school each day. I knew I could just deliver papers each day and make $3 dollars a week in tips or take a different tact and increase my earnings to $6.00 a week, (yes, this was a long time ago). My takeaway was, I could double my income by taking intuitive steps toward improving the customer experience. These steps included each touchpoint: building a relationship with each customer, being polite, understanding and meeting needs, bringing predictability through consistency, and going above and beyond to exceed expectations (e.g., delivering to their door instead of the mailbox).

I reaped the benefits of making friends, satisfying customers, and improving my financial reward. The only problem was, I was a one-man culture and when I needed someone to fill in for me on occasion, the quality-of-service delivery decreased, and I had to answer for it. I took these lessons into my career and learned the importance of not only providing elite service, but to ensure teammates deliver the same quality services on a consistent basis.

Through experience the importance of the Service Value Chain was confirmed: hiring the right teammates, proper training, creating engagement with the understanding that engaged teammates are most productive and drive customer satisfaction which ultimately leads to customer loyalty; revenue and profitability follow.

In business today, culture is often a buzz word, one discussed frequently yet efforts toward building are not always present. If a heathy culture is desired there must be strategic intent to accomplish this task. The pinnacle is the Elite Service Culture™. When in place, this healthy culture will allow a company to maneuver through challenges with a higher level of ease and agility. As in life, reflection is imperative to maintain desired outcomes.

How does one measure the quality and resilience of their culture? While there is a tactical manner to measuring, again the areas of focus fall into people, processes, and tools. Under each of these categories are calculated questions to be asked of all stakeholders, inside and outside the company. Each level of an organization is approached in a strategic manner. It is common to hear leadership respond with what they want the culture to be as opposed to what is truly being experienced on a day-to-day basis by teammates. For example, leadership focus should be on challenges, their response to challenges, strategies, programs, objectives, and vision.

The focus on those not in formal leadership roles is quite different. Their focus is more on engagement, teamwork, communications, productivity, perception of guidance, objectives, growth opportunities and their ability to perform their role. During the measurement activity, issues will be identified as "culture chillers”. To maximize sustained success of the Elite Service Culture™, actively pursuing culture chillers is formalized. ADAPT has a wide-ranging list of culture chillers that are actively considered during the design phase.

While service organizations have similarities, there needs to be respect to business nuisances. Continuous improvement is imperative, as challenges are present in every business. Having an established and healthy culture, the Elite Service Culture™, will allow a company to get through the rough times and further differentiate themselves from others.

What is your corporate culture? Think about it, if someone spent a week with your team what would they say is the character or personality of your culture? Minimize the heavy lifting associated with business and build your culture to enhance your corporate capabilities – performance will follow.

"Building your culture builds your legacy”

Written by ADAPT Service Consulting Staff

Link: ADAPT Service Consulting

Who is ADAPT:

ADAPT Service Consulting is a firm that provides expertise and professional advice to "Service Organizations”. The ADAPT staff are industry recognized professionals embedded in the service community. They have successfully developed award winning service organizations to be best-in-class, exceeded corporate objectives and function as a competitive advantage. With decades of experience in the service business, ADAPT takes an exclusive approach leveraging their experience, knowledge of service fundamentals and creativity to enable service organizations to succeed in today’s dynamic business environment and reach the pinnacle, The Elite Service Culture™.