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The Customer Service Group’s
Service Starters

Dear Subscriber,

In this issue, our editors answer two important questions: how are managers recognizing and rewarding the hard work of their frontline reps and how they are keeping key messages and concepts at their reps’ fingertips?

Here are their idea starters. As always, these ideas are brief and meaty, to stimulate your own thinking and action.

Idea Starter #1 — Recognizing superior performance

Why do some employee recognition programs inspire pride and loyalty, while others breed skepticism and envy?

Our print publication Customer Service Newsletter suggests that the recognition programs that work are fair, inclusive, peer-driven and performance based.

The California Public Employee Retirement System has developed a program that incorporates all of these elements into three distinct types of recognition. It’s a useful framework for anyone struggling to create a program that successfully motivates frontline reps. Here’s how CalPERS defines the three types of recognition:

• Day-to-Day Recognition. “Positive feedback (verbal or written) that goes directly from one person to another. It can be as simple as saying thank you to someone you work with, or writing a short note that tells a person you recognize the value of his or her contribution.”
• Informal Recognition. “Non-structured recognition given in an appropriate and timely manner to recognize the accomplishment of a specific goal; to reinforce a specific behavior and provide an example to others. It’s flexible and can be tailored to meet the needs and preferences of individuals or groups. Tangible items are typically more memorable, i.e., an event, celebration, or small memento like a balloon or coffee mug to serve as a symbolic reminder.”
• Formal Recognition. “A structured and defined process, which includes an organization-wide nomination and selection process. Given only once or twice per year and so not timely to the achievement/performance being recognized. Typically more costly, as award items may include cash bonuses and/or personalized fine merchandise or trophy-type items that are usually presented with a high level of public display.”

Idea Starter #2 — Keeping your message top-of-mind

Acronyms, those words in which each letter represents a word or phrase, can help your reps focus on their main goals. For example, a consulting firm uses the word LEAP when conducting training in how to handle upset customers. The letters stand for:

L = Listen
E = Empathize
A = Ask
P = Produce (results)

Similarly, some Bank One branches post the word GUEST in each teller’s workstation. In this case, the word GUEST stands for:

G = Greet
U = Use customer’s name
E = Eye contact
S = Smile
T = Thank

I hope that these idea starters have given you some food for thought until the next edition of Service Starters.

Sincerely,

Mary Dalessandro
Editor, Service Starters

 

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