The only thing harder than delivering excellent customer
service consistently is motivating someone else to deliver
excellent customer service consistently. Customers are more
demanding than ever. Professionals are more difficult to
hire and retain than ever. Splitting an atom might be easier
than rallying an entire organization to Wow customers. Yet,
some organizations succeed. Four motivation strategies can
help your organization succeed too…one professional at a
time.
Ironically, as managers the first professional to
motivate is ourselves. If we lack motivation, employees will
lack motivation. Motivation occurs from the inside out. If
we want to motivate someone, we have to communicate to their
inside. Emotions communicate on a deep level from inside to
inside. This is why one bad apple spoils the bunch. It’s
also why one excited manager can mobilize a team to move
mountains.
Dig deep. Feigning excitement is impossible because
people’s insides come equipped with an infallible
phony-detection system that is always on and has an amazing
range of reception. Are you genuinely excited about the work
your team produces? Whether we manage rocket scientists or
the custodial staff, we need to fall in love with our team’s
contribution. A rah-rah attitude at the staff meeting,
ho-hum attitude everywhere else will quickly be discovered.
Hire Motivated Professionals
It’s easier to hire motivated professionals than it is to
motivate professionals. Experts assert, "Hire smart or
manage tough." A COO of a healthcare organization I worked
with declared, "We only hire people with ‘It’ here. ‘It’ is
a pathological disease to want to serve people."
Do you believe that professionals exist who would revel
in the kind of work your team produces? The answer is… they
do exist. However, if we are not excited about the work our
team produces, we will never attract and hire people who are
excited to do it because like attracts like and birds of a
feather flock together. Consider that Disney esteems
cleanliness. They hire only street sweepers and house
cleaners who delight in cleaning. Result: Disney parks and
resorts are immaculate.
Measure
Are you keeping score? How long does it take, when two
people are hitting tennis balls back and forth, for one of
them to suggest playing a real game? What happens to the
level of play as soon as the game begins? Is your department
perpetually warming up, hitting balls around? Or are you
playing for real?
Measure something, but make it relevant to your
employees, your customers, and your bottom line. Measuring
performance biases employees’ energy like a highlighter
biases the eye on a written page. Highlight too much and we
overwhelm. Highlight the essential nuggets and we assure
attention to the highest priorities.
Measurements motivate employees for different reasons.
Some employees are very competitive and thrive on
distinguishing their performance from others’. Some are very
competitive and thrive on distinguishing their own future
performance from their past. In other words, they compete
with themselves. And some employees are not competitive at
all. They are very dutiful and focus their energy on
whatever is highlighted for them.
Institute Profit Sharing
Tie the measurement to a reward. An adage predicts, "What
gets rewarded gets repeated." Robert Bosch- German Inventor,
Industrialist (1861-1942) stated, "I don’t pay good wages
because I make a lot of money. I make a lot of money because
I pay good wages." If you want to motivate employees even
more, reward the results you reap from measuring.
Sales professionals receive commissions based on their
measured results: sales and sometimes repeat business or
renewals. What about everyone else? A manager of a printing
company told me that he measures wasted paper. He sets a
goal for "waste". If the production employees meet or exceed
the goal by producing less waste, the company splits the
profits with them. My auto service center informed me that
their sales, service, and auto body departments administer
customer satisfaction surveys to every customer. If,
together, they hit or exceed a certain predetermined
satisfaction rating, they all receive enhanced benefits and
bonuses from corporate.
Rewards add precision to measurement inspired motivation.
If we want salespeople to simply make sales, we emphasize
the first sales commission. If we want salespeople to create
relationships and long-term accounts, we emphasize the
backend commission. By rewarding team measurements, we can
influence internal customer service in addition to
individual service efforts.
Summary
To motivate employees, be an exemplar. Being an exemplar
will enable you to attract and hire highly motivated
employees. Focus employees’ energy through measurement and
reward strategies. Then…listen for the "Wows" to start
coming in. Mary Sandro
