People say you can judge a business by the way employees work when a boss or a manager is away. How management respect staff will impact how employees act and their level of respect for management. To gain respect, employees and management must be engaged in a company’s values.
The success of any service-based business, whether that’s retail, banking or real estate, depends on the attitude and passion of employees. Employees can be productive but have a “just do enough to get the job done” attitude. It’s noticeable when someone’s heart is not in a job – it’s noticeable to customers as well as management.
A tip for employees, your intentions speak far louder than your actions. Have the best intentions and it will naturally be noticed.
In our business, our delivery drivers are a significant part of our exceptional customer service offering. There’s a difference between a delivery driver who just drops off an appliance to the front door to someone who legitimately wants to make a customer’s life easier.
For instance, on an Appliances Online delivery for a microwave, our delivery drivers called the customer contact when they were on their way to tell her that they were close. The contact informed the delivery drivers that the recipient of the microwave had actually just undergone chemotherapy and couldn’t be disturbed until the afternoon because she needed to rest.
From their own initiative the drivers rearranged their whole day’s schedule to deliver the microwave in the afternoon. Once at the lady’s house they noticed that her fridge door and the cupboard above the microwave weren’t level. They took it upon themselves to re-hinge both as well as fixing the trim kit. That’s going above and beyond and having good will.
This level of service can’t be replicated unless giving 110% is something that is ingrained within your employees. The key to having engaged employees stems from having company values the whole business strives towards and the boss or manager lives and breathes.
We have nine core values at the Winning Group that we encourage all employees, including myself, to consider when interacting with each other, whether they are on the same level or interacting with senior management and, importantly, with customers.
These include:
1. Impress every customer
2. Embrace change
3. Own your role
4. One in, all in
5. Family matters
6. Be respectful
7. You’ve got to be kidding
8. Assume every problem is solvable
9. Be proud of your differences
A business that has good intentions and staff that care about the customer, will always have a better service offering. So take the time to develop core values that employees can engage with and aspire to – customers will notice!
John Winning is CEO of Winning Group: Appliances Online, BigBrownBox.com.au, Winning Appliances, and Handy Crew.
