ThankingCustomers.com

Thank you for answering the question - "How Are We Doing?"

"Failure to thank or keep customer recognition and appreciation at the forefront on a daily basis can create lapses in service and focus at the points of delivery"........

........ A practice that formalizes thanking customers serves to remind (daily) all service team members of their needs. Needs critical for the team to win, they must begin at the point of delivery and flow continuously to management. The tool is not a system or program so requires no implementation - you just do it! You can do a trail with one or several teams.

...... "Thank you is a focal point for recognition, in words and actions"

ThankingCustomers.com is not hospitality or customer focus training, although it will help reinforce such training by building learning, involvement, and communication of customer and organizational needs to everyone....everyday! It is creating a practice or atmosphere for customer recognition, appreciation, awareness, and knowledge involving everyone on the team. A dialogue not only with customers but fellow team members and collaborative groups as well. A working backwards approach, which begins with teams that provide services and products. The practice endeavors to answer the question for everyone "How are we doing?" and address the issues of customer care.

Start the practice with the number of teams in the organization to meet your specific needs and wants. It should stay based in operations but can grow to gain support from all facets of the organizational operating system, including every team. It is also changeable, in the content of the feedback, in the measurement, and in the involvement. The important thing is not to violate or stretch the dos and don'ts, for they root the actions of the practice itself in human relationships.

As a best practice, it has application to most all industries because it is rooted in human relationships - for providers, partners and customers. It is in growing these three multiple relationship areas that builds and maintains the long-term focus. The key word is maintaining, because this is where most operational projects or programs have trouble. They may create "customer focus", "customer satisfaction", or customer feedback" using customer training or programs as a "means" to build focus, satisfaction, and/or feedback as an "end", often to see it wane in the long-term. These programs usually are associated with a single relationship area at a time such as "customer service", "teamwork", or "partnering"

The "thanking" practice uses a process of recognition through "asking" to maintain focus, satisfaction, and feedback as "means" or activity directed towards the customer as the "end". For example, if as a front-line manager I can learn a skill, or leadership activity, to create feedback, satisfaction, and focus not only among my team members and customers (customer service) but also between fellow team members (teamwork) and members of other internal and external teams (partnering) then I have a tool for maintaining "how" to get "what" management needs done operationally for customers. Difficult? No basic - simply ask, share, measure, recognize and thank so as to involve team members, customers, and partners. Then practice, practice, practice - as with any skill.

Using a tool, the practice is applied directly to operations - as a creative idea - with one or several teams without changing a single thing the organization is currently doing. Team leaders can learn the tool as a career development skill and initiate the practice with any team, current or future. Management provides support and knowledge to tie awareness of customer needs and organizational needs, pulling the focus up through the organization.

It is a practice with at least a forty year history whose time has come again. But this time, bottom-up as opposed to top-down with management in a support role ensuring that providers both succeed and benefit from the experience. It is about helping team leaders both to be better coaches and focus their teams on the customer for the long term. Providing the opportunity to take increased ownership of customer relations and retention while building team relationships in the the process.

The 6-step sequence is a "tool" for operations and not a system or program. This means the leader just does it. Does not require any additional resources. No meetings, training, implementation is needed. In fact, it is important that not one thing is changed in what a team or organization is currently doing.

A back-to-basics approach, the tool puts people first in a proactive effort to put the proverbial horse (customer focus) before the cart (an organization's service/product delivery systems) in paving the way or being a catalyst for operations. Rather than behind the cart, or daily operations, and stimulated as a result of. The tool is based on peer review, one of the strongest motivational factors in any team relationship, and fosters relationships both among team members and customers alike.

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Contact me by e-mail: george@thankingcustomers.com