The irony of customer service is that the store staff are trained and expected to deliver great service but invariably the systems and processes are counter to this intent. More importantly, the staff are rated, recognized and rewarded largely by the managers and the supervisors instead of the customers.
In this convoluted as also slightly confusing scenario, the high school pass or college dropout staff is expected to deliver customer delight. It is a wonder that they manage to do whatever little that they are able to deliver.
A simple maxim for success and leadership is “Walk the talk”. In line with this thought I suggest a simple and highly effective system of staff recognition which could even be linked to their incentives and other rewards.
Let the customers rate the store staff on the basis of stars for good service. This is a typical Retail idea in terms of minimal costs, easy to implement and would be highly effective. All it requires is some supervision to ensure that no one is misusing this system. Although some might debate that there would be variances in the expected standards of service from customer to customer, the same variance would also equalize the rating in this system over a period of time.
CLICK here to read about the details of this idea in my ET article and share your views and comments.
