Does Your Training Support You Goals?

This is an excerpt from the book “WAYMISH: Why Are You Making It So Hard for me to give you my money?” 

We introduce a supermarket cashier to her job by showing her how to scan, how to handle change, checks, credit cards, returns and other necessary basic routines.  We teach a new salesperson about the products, prices, terms, forms to fill out, commission and expense routines.

Managers spend their time on the phone, writing and reading memos and reports, dealing with personnel and customer problems, going to meetings and occasionally thinking and planning.

All of these activities are necessary.  But if we are concerned with extraordinary service, we have to put them in the context of the primary purpose of every employee, at every level - to create and maintain positive customer relationships.

Peter Drucker said it forty years ago -
The purpose of BUSINESS is to create a customer.

Start your orientation, training and performance measurements not with activities but with customer relationships.

With this approach of creating customer relationships as your base, the activities fall into their proper place - as TOOLS, not end in themselves.

Teach people to smile, be cordial, when dealing with customers before you teach them to scan.

Teach people to listen and acknowledge feelings of others before they become product experts.  Feelings come first.

Teach people to ask questions before they give advice.

Investigate how an employee who is working on a report,  straightening inventory, counting cash, or handling a personnel matter treats an encounter with a customer.  If the answer is; the customer is interrupting the REAL work or is a distraction from the REAL job - prepare for the invasion of the WAYMISH!

And to improve the probability that your training will be used by the right people, spend a lot of time hiring people who feel comfortable with a service attitude.

WAYMISH is a great source for some very good Customer Service strageties and tips.  For more information on WAYMISH:  Why are You Making it so Hard for Me to give You Money visit here.  Or you can buy now on my 100% secure server.