Building Customer and Employee Allegiance

By Paul R. Timm

Building allegiance pays huge dividends that go right to your bottom line: profitability and personal achievement. Applying the ideas in this book will make you and your organization more successful.

Bold talk, you may say. But I can back it up. This brief e-book is packed with straight talk about keeping and growing two of your company’s greatest assets, customer loyalty and employee engagement. Let’s see if this may be right for you.
Are you a business owner, leader, manager, or supervisor wrestling with challenges like these?

• Your success hinges on the service your customer-contact employees give. Perhaps these employees are teenage kids or poorly motivated workers in entry level jobs, who seem oblivious to how they come across to others.
• You have given pep talks about “giving great service” but aren’t really certain about what specifics actions can actually get your people to do that.
• You get frustrated by the number of one-time customers you never see again. Hustling after new customer sales feels like getting nowhere on a treadmill.
• You get tired of pouring money into advertising and promotions that lead to few ongoing customer relationships.
• Your employees seem too often checked-out or disengaged, doing only the minimum work with little enthusiasm.
• You lose good workers to other companies. Employee turnover is killing your bottom line and eating up your time.
• You are slammed with things to do and your constant hands-on coaching of employees to give good service isn’t sustainable.
• Your company has good intentions and pithy slogans about giving great service but translating those into actual tactics has been elusive.

Do any of these descriptions resonate with you? Welcome to today’s world of business.

Now, a little about me. Don’t be sidetracked by the PhD after my name. I’m not going to deliver a bunch of management or psychological theory. There is a place for such theoretical work, of course, but this book gives you theory-based ideas as plain talk in ready-to-apply form. It does not try to analyze the complexities of human behavior and management. It focuses on a target that is clear and achievable: building the allegiance of customers and employees.

The material in this book is based on my 30+ years’ experience teaching business people how to succeed. I have published more than 40 books on customer service (including a best-selling text that sells for ten times as much as this e-book!), management, communication, and related topics. I have taught these skills to thousands of business students at universities and executive MBA programs in the U.S. and Europe. I have worked with companies of all sizes to create strategies for building allegiance.

This book shows you how to translate your good and honorable service intentions into winning actions that:

• Reduce the profit-eating costs of lost customers and disengaged employees
• Solidify long-term repeat business, loyalty, and profitability
• Recover potentially lost customers and valued employees
• Exceed your customers’ expectations in value, information, personality, and convenience
• Activate a simple process for generating a constant stream of ideas that ensure competitive advantage

I know you will find solid, workable advice that will improve your results. So, thank you for reading and let’s get on with building customer and employee allegiance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul R. Timm
• Release date: Oct 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311946935

Paul R. Timm

The author of over 40 books, Dr. Paul R. Timm is an expert and authority on a variety of topics including customer service, communication, meeting management, self-management and human relations. His speaking, training, and consulting in Customer and Employee Allegiance show specific processes for boosting organizational success by retaining high-profit customers and high-value employees.Having spent over 27 years teaching and coaching in a variety of organizations, Timm’s insights can break through the barriers that hold companies back from making the profit-enhancing changes needed to boost customer and employee loyalty.All of Dr.Timm’s writing, training, video programs, and consulting focus on practical, realistic actions you can take starting immediately to make a significant difference in organizational and personal success.He earned university degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY), Ohio University, and Florida State University. Dr. Timm has taught at three major universities. Most recenlty, he held the rank of professor and served for many years as Chair of the Management Communications Department at Brigham Young University.On the personal side, Dr Timm is an endurance athlete. 35+ Triathlons (swim/bike/run) including three Ironman 70.3 races. Consistent age group podium finishes. Qualified for world championship, 2014. Six full and 15 half marathons. Golf. Pickleball. Weight training. Ballroom dance.

Book preview

Building Customer and Employee Allegiance*

Paul R. Timm, PhD

*Allegiance: Devotion or loyalty to a person, group, organization, or cause

Copyright 2014 Paul R. Timm, P

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

WE HAVE EVERY INTENTION TO GIVE GREAT SERVICE. WE REALLY DO.

Chapter 2

THE NATURE, CHALLENGE AND TERRIBLE COSTS OF CUSTOMER TURNOFFS

Chapter 3

Y’ALL COME BACK . . . RECOVERING DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS

Chapter 4

CREATE A POSITIVE IMBALANCE WITH CUSTOMERS

Chapter 5

BUILD ALLEGIANCE BY GIVING CUSTOMERS A-PLUS VALUE

Chapter 6

BUILD ALLEGIANCE BY GIVING CUSTOMERS A-PLUS INFORMATION

Chapter 7

BUILD ALLEGIANCE BY SHOWING CUSTOMERS YOUR A-PLUS PERSONALITY

Chapter 8

BUILD ALLEGIANCE BY GIVING CUSTOMERS A-PLUS CONVENIENCE

Chapter 9

ACTUALIZING YOUR A-PLUS CUSTOMER ALLEGIANCE STRATEGY

INTRODUCTION

The first question you are probably asking is, "What’s in this book for me?" It’s okay. It’s a good question and you aren’t hurting my feelings. In fact I’m really glad you asked and here is the answer: Building allegiance pays huge dividends that go right to your bottom line: profitability and personal achievement. Applying the ideas in this book will make you and your organization more successful.

Bold talk, you may say. But I can back it up. This brief e-book is packed with straight talk about keeping and growing two of your company’s greatest assets, customer loyalty and employee engagement. Let’s see if this may be right for you.

Are you a business owner, leader, manager, or supervisor wrestling with challenges like these?

• Your success hinges on the service your customer-contact employees give. Perhaps these employees are teenage kids or poorly motivated workers in entry level jobs, who seem oblivious to how they come across to others.

• You have given pep talks about giving great service but aren’t really certain about what specifics actions can actually get your people to do that.

• You get frustrated by the number of one-time customers you never see again. Hustling after new customer sales feels like getting nowhere on a treadmill.

• You get tired of pouring money into advertising and promotions that lead to few ongoing customer relationships.

• Your employees seem too often checked-out or disengaged, doing only the minimum work with little enthusiasm.

• You lose good workers to other companies. Employee turnover is killing your bottom line and eating up your time.

• You are slammed with things to do and your constant hands-on coaching of employees to give good service isn’t sustainable.

• Your company has good intentions and pithy slogans about giving great service but translating those into actual tactics has been elusive.

Do any of these descriptions resonate with you? Welcome to today’s world of business.

Now, a little about me. Don’t be sidetracked by the PhD after my name. I’m not going to deliver a bunch of management or psychological theory. There is a place for such theoretical work, of course, but this book gives you theory-based ideas as plain talk in ready-to-apply form. It does not try to analyze the complexities of human behavior and management. It focuses on a target that is clear and achievable: building the allegiance of customers and employees.

The material in this book is based on my 30+ years’ experience teaching business people how to succeed. I have published more than 40 books on customer service (including a best-selling text that sells for ten times as much as this e-book!), management, communication, and related topics. I have taught these skills to thousands of business students at universities and executive MBA programs in the U.S. and Europe. I have worked with companies of all sizes to create strategies for building allegiance.

To go back to your original question, here’s what’s in it for you. This book shows you how to translate your good and honorable service intentions into winning actions that:

• Reduce the profit-eating costs of lost customers and disengaged employees

• Solidify long-term repeat business, loyalty, and profitability

• Recover potentially lost customers and valued employees

• Exceed your customers’ expectations in value, information, personality, and convenience

• Activate a simple process for generating a constant stream of ideas that ensure competitive advantage

I know you will find solid, workable advice that will improve your results. So, thank you for reading and let’s get on with building customer and employee allegiance.

By purchasing this e-book you are eligible for a $500 discount on training or consulting services by your author. (Contact Dr. Timm via LinkedIn.com for details) (Offer subject to availability.)

Chapter 1

WE HAVE EVERY INTENTION TO GIVE GREAT SERVICE.

WE REALLY DO.

If 90 percent of companies say customer service is their differentiator, then it’s not a differentiator, it’s an expectation.

THE WAY IT IS . . .

Tommy must have had a bad date last night, and Sarah is walking around like a zombie. Come on people! We have customers, and they deserve to be treated right. Greet them. Smile. Take their orders. Get their food. Engage in cheerful banter. This stuff isn’t rocket surgery. Just treat our customers like guests.

Harry was totally exasperated as he cheered on his crew to serve the lunchtime crowd at Harry’s Burgers and Deli (motto: Best Burgers, Friendly Service). The excellent food and low-priced lunch specials brought people in, but, for many, it was a one-time visit, despite the food quality. The motto was only half right.

Who knew it would be so hard? Are my employees really this oblivious? If they don’t shape up, I’m going to go nuts—and lose everything I’ve put into this business, Harry told his wife. I get so tired of riding them all day that sometimes I just want to fire the lot and start over. But I can’t pay any more than I do, and the next batch of workers won’t be any different. Plus there’s the hassle of hiring and training from scratch. How the heck can I get people to give decent service?

The fictional Harry’s story is pretty typical. As customers, each of us has experienced mediocre service marked by an apparent total lack of caring. Many businesses hire ineffective staff (sometimes inexperienced teenagers or folks lacking in customer contact skills). But that’s no excuse. In fact, we are all inexperienced and lacking skills at one point in our careers. So what can managers like Harry do? What can you do to keep good customers and employees and enjoy success?

This book shows you specific, easy-to-apply tactics and processes win customer allegiance. Such allegiance results in people doing business with you freely, repeatedly, and, dare we say, enthusiastically. Whether you are the supervisor in a small business, manager of a fast food restaurant like Harry, or leader of any department or work team your actions will largely determine the success of you and your organization.

The skills for winning allegiance set you apart from many well-meaning, but less effective leaders. Almost all leaders say they believe in and seek to achieve excellent customer service and many companies spend huge amounts of money chasing that achievement. Their results, however, are mixed at best. Sometimes they fail outright.

If companies care as much about customers as they say, why is it that they lose on average, half their customers in five years? Why—despite continuous improvements in the quality of manufactured goods, negligible price increases (in some industries like technology, price reductions), and unending rhetoric about treating customers right—is customer satisfaction actually declining?

On the employee side, every company wants to be a great place to work, attract top talent, and provide an outstanding work atmosphere. They’d all love to appear in magazines as one of the Best Companies to Work for. Yet employee turnover historically averages 12 percent a year across all industries and is much higher in some (such as fast food restaurants like Harry’s.) Employees also vote with their feet and choose to work at places they enjoy.

This chapter begins with a look at the disconnect between good intentions and service reality found in many companies. Then we will expose the ways that companies actually fake a sincere interest with shallow and ineffective efforts. Finally, we will discuss stumbling blocks we need to target first—the kinds of past thinking that ranges from ineffective to counterproductive. Putting those to rest gets us set up for the rest of the book which gives you explicit actions you can apply immediately.

So, let’s begin by exposing some of the ways leaders and organizations get little service improvement despite their good intentions. They may really think they are doing the right things as they throw resources at programs and ad campaigns and consultants and training—all of which produces little lasting good. That disconnect between good intentions and the reality of their service quality becomes stark and, at times, embarrassing. Here are the ways they go off the rails.

CONFUSING SLOGANS WITH STRATEGIES

Leaders commonly launch organizational change efforts by developing a vision statement of where they want to go. They think carefully, and sometimes at great length, about precise phrasing that provides, they think, a laser focus. While developing such a philosophical footing may have merit, you should not confused this with progress toward the deep change that produces ongoing service excellence.

Phrased another way, crafting a cleverly worded slogan is not the place to start our journey toward winning customer allegiance. I’ve seen too many such slogans. They don’t accomplish much.

For example, a few years ago a bank’s billboards and television ads touted the slogan: Currently giving 110%. When I asked a teller at my local branch what that meant, she looked at me with a blank stare and said, I don’t know. I just read the sign on my way to work. Does this bank value its customers? Are its employees on board with a coherent service strategy? It doesn’t seem like it, despite their new slogan and ad campaign.

Likewise, simply telling people to be nice and serve well does little—especially if the supervisors and other staff are unwilling to model be-nice, serve-well behaviors themselves. (Our friend Harry may be guilty of this as he constantly criticizes his staff.)

I visited a well-known fast-food chain and found it strange that absolutely no one working there smiled. Their greetings were mechanical; the food delivery was prompt but unfriendly. Then it struck me: the manager (the only adult) labored with a Grim Determination. Her demeanor said that she ran a tight ship and that no frivolous behavior would be tolerated. The young employees conveyed all the charm of galley slaves. Does that fast-food chain want to send the message that employees are not to enjoy their work or that smiling is forbidden? I don’t think so. But that is the result it got—along with horrendous turnover of its employees.

And, if you’ll permit me one more food service business example (we’ll talk about other kinds of businesses in a minute): An upscale coffee shop had two people taking orders and money from the lines of customers waiting. But waiting was the true order of the day. After the customer’s order was shouted out, the one young woman charged with actually producing the coffee concoctions was hopelessly bogged down and became the target of widespread grumbling from customers who waited—and waited—for their java. Does this well-known coffee chain have good intentions to serve its customers? Of course it does. Did they show it? Not today.

And then there was this non-food-service-business company (as promised) with good intentions, but not so much application:

A friend bought a television from a big-box electronics store. She got a good price and even sprang for the extended warranty package. After one year, the TV developed the annoying habit of shutting down every 15 minutes. The repair technician came to her home but was unable to fix it. He then took the set to the shop, where it lingered for three weeks, never, according to the repair people, exhibiting its quirky behavior. Returned to the customer, the set immediately resumed its narcolepsy.

Calls to the store resulted in endless debate about the fine points of the warranty with a man who claimed to be a customer service supervisor. In short, he wouldn’t budge. He frequently put the customer on hold and came across as totally unsympathetic. The subtext of his message was, I sure hope this woman just goes away. Well, good news. She did go away. And she took with her anyone who would listen to her tale of endless wrangling over a television set.

The store’s name was itself a slogan. It had a simple two-word brand that conveyed value and service. But it spent more time and money stonewalling the customer than it would have cost to replace the defective set. For refusing to make good on a $270 television, they permanently lost this customer. Does the retailer have carefully worded pity motto about its great customer service? They do. Did live up to show it? Not to this customer.

What