Clients expect an organization’s FAQs to be accurate, current, and reliable at all times. In fact, precise FAQs are as critical to an organization as its product or service. Such accuracy allows customers AND employees to make careful and exact decisions that impact quality of life.
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What’s one of the best ways to foster creativity and growth in the workplace? Dismantling silos and building internal bridges.
Members of various corporate C-Suites are beginning to recognize that silos are a major factor that prevent companies from hitting growth and profit targets. Not only that, they understand that silos are partially responsible for key employees not reaching their full potential and losing them to competitors.
The term ‘silo’ has been used in the corporate arena for the last 30 years. It is borrowed from what we know as farm silos which store grain for farmers. When you look at farm silos, they have no windows, they have limited points of entrance, and in older silos, the grain cannot be easily extracted. How ironic. The instrument that is used to store a product to sell at a later date for profit is the same instrument that obstructs the full life and fervor of the farm. The same is true when applied to companies.
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During one of my recent training sessions, several participants were surprised to hear me say that employees, not customers, are a company’s most valued asset. Customers are second.
When employees understand and champion the corporate mission, vision, and core values, their work will reflect what they believe in. They will be engaged and motivated…in fact, they’ll give such incredible experiences that customers will want to keep coming back to buy more goods and services. Employees are the key to creating loyal customers and an endless referral source.
Obstacles to delivering exceptional service present themselves in a number of ways. Remained unchecked, they’ll quickly become difficult challenges to hurdle—ultimately leading to poor sales and lean profit margins.
So, how does one overcome such hindrances? One of the best ways is to ask clients a simple question: “What obstacles prevent you from having great experiences with us?”. Caution: This is an open ended question that basically asks, “what are we doing wrong and how are we preventing you from doing more business with us?”. Do NOT ask this question if you aren’t prepared to hear completely honest and hard answers. Customers are eager to give their opinions; that said, their opinions may be offered in a manner in which you may not be ready to receive. So, brace yourself. Get ready. Make a plan for change and implementation.
Make time for you and your team to work on fresh ideas about customer satisfaction. Focus on typical customer irritations such as:
Ask almost any company in any industry right now if they are having difficulty finding skilled employees and/or retaining their best employees and you’ll probably get an earful of woes they are facing.
One of the ways to attract and retain excellent workers is to be loyal to them. How, you might ask, does one make THAT happen? Well, one way is to treat employees in the same manner that you treat your best customers/clients.
Let’s take a closer look. To get consumers to stay with you, it is important to:
