Slainte! A View from Business
In a historic step forward, ICD Partnership Ltd and training delivery partners, QUEST (Scotland) Ltd sealed a strategic alliance in the aptly unique surroundings of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in central Edinburgh on Thursday 2nd April. Closely aligned by values and passion about driving up customer service, the mission is to remain focussed on a core capabilty which goes beyond the training of frontline staff in delivering the customer experience by ensuring the necessary skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes are in place behind the scenes.
"Mens Sana in Corpore Sano" or, "a healthy mind in a healthy body" is an ancient credo which has particular resonance in these current testing times.
Joint ICD MD, Russell Biggart (seated on the far right of the picture) reiterated the need for all organisations to adapt, improve and remain focused on their customers, in order to survive the current difficult trading conditions. There was unanimous agreement that the stress and tensions of such times can certainly have a negative impact at the level of the individual. Further, failure to address this adequately almost inevitably impact on the productivity of the organisation and eventually the customer experience.
Douglas Rice, Commercial Director for CIGNA healthcare (third from left) shared the latest workplace statistics that show a correlation between rising absenteeism in relation to a number of factors, including stress and behavioural trends in our society. Anecdotally we are probably all aware of the impact on ourselves and colleagues of the changing behaviours that accompany these strange times. Pressure of longer working hours (or reduced hours), covering more duties and responsibilities, job threats, redundancies etc. added to the impact of issues with diet, exercise, sleep etc. are literally killing us!
The True Cost of Stress and Behaviour on Business
It is staggering to see the true cost of stress and the resulting behaviour to our economy in terms of lost productivity, not to mention the impact on home lives, health, longevity, relationships and self-esteem. Fortunately there are some interventions that are more easily put in place, as well as the strategic approaches required to adapt the workplace culture and address the motivation of staff.
Bernard Murphy, General Manager (second right) of the Gleneagles Resort Hotel, famed for its spectacular setting and facilities, award winning spa and and host to the 2014 Ryder Cup provided a fascinating presentation describing how in practical terms his management team have addressed the very real challenges in maintaining their reknowned customer experience through a combination of occupational health, management style, employee benefits and other creative interventions.
While there is definitely a role for selecting staff with the right skills and knowledge, attitude is the key recruitment criteria for most businesses. With the right attitudes, training can deliver the skills, knowledge to support the right behaviours. However an element of creativity is also required to make the experience exceptional and personalised for customers. Creativity is what underpins the capacity of staff to understand how to react in different scenarios.
At a human level stress can manifest itself in many different ways. Right now, for example, it is unrealistic to expect employees to leave their worries and stressors at the door and then become "someone else" when they clock in. Sometimes by our working practices, the environment, expectations and management style, we exacerbate the strains for employees and so finding solutions to the very real issues of employee absence, under-performance, staff turnover, demotivation or disciplinary matters requires some creativity too.
Providing the opportunity for time and space to really understand the underlying feelings and requirements of staff and customers goes a long way to pointing out the interventions needed to ensure that "happy staff produce happy customers". This may mean facilitating opportunities for staff, managers and leadership teams to find the time and space to allow creativity to flow - let's face it we seldom have our "lightbulb" moments in the midst of a meeting or at our desks.
QUEST (Scotland) Ltd, Laura Mason continues in that theme, taking it back into the popular debate in terms of organisational development between how much impact training alone can make and when it is time to address underlying processes, leadership and management roles, infrastructure etc. Creating more effective leadership, a customer centric culture and customer journey and the infrastructure that supports this menas starting at the top of the organisation. Where training is often applied is at the front end. Laura's view is that to create a real return on investment from training frontline staff, you have to have the other enabling pieces in place.
A Taste of Success to Come
Following closely on the heels of our launch event in Edinburgh it was the turn of Dundee's West Park Centre to showcase their service excellence for special guests of Quest Scotland and ICD. We chose West Park because they have many of the necessary components in place to deliver a consistently good service and so are a good example of managers and staff that "walk the talk".
Delegates were given a choice of 4 taster sessions conducted by Laura Mason, Russell Biggart and Liz Moody with a break for an excellent lunch and networking in between. The focus of these sessions was varied but sampled the aspects that our Customer Experience masterclasses go into in more detail, namely:
1. How can we get frontline staff engaged in improving the quality of service to customers which is fun, memorable but encourages an attitude of continuous improvement? What role do managers play in that?
2. We all know good experiences when we have them but what is it that lies behind the experience that makes it work well, time after time?
3. Expecting staff to step up to the mark at every interaction with customers often comes down to their attitudes and motivation - how do we maintain a positive culture and ensure that this rubs off on how they treat customers?
4. When the customer experience is poor, we can be quick to point at staff when in fact there are a myriad of reasons - systems, information, structures and our culture that are the root cause of problems. Training can help but it isn't always enough - what's the symptom and what's the cure?
From the evaluations we got a really positive response that confirms our own research and client feedback that there is much work to be done in the area of improving the customer experience.
If you would like to develop any of the ideas mentioned above. to attend or host a masterclass, discuss a training need or pursue any of the issues and challenges for your organisation please contact info@icd-partnership.co.uk with your details in the first instance whereupon we'll be delighted to call you.
For further information on the following, please click on the links:
Customer Experience Management Masterclass Series