“I can’t do that, ma’am.”
Ever heard those words or something similar from an employee of a business you’re patronizing? Whether you’re calling your insurance company or dining at a restaurant, those words are all too common.
They’re also, for the most part, grammatically incorrect because it’s most often not an issue of “can’t,” but of “won’t.”
It’s not that most of these employees don’t want to help. Often they do, particularly if there’s a tip at stake, but they’re not empowered to do so. Maybe they’ve been told by management they can’t or maybe they just assume they can’t because management says “no” to other personalized requests. Whatever the root cause, if you run a business and want to delight your customers, you need to empower employees to do right by them.
3 Tips for Empowering Your Employees
Employers worry if they empower employees to make decisions that affect the bottom line, they’ll end up discounting everything, or worse, make lousy decisions. With parameters, and an understanding of your business goals, this won’t happen. If it does, you’ve made a bad hiring decision.
Give Them a Simple Purpose/Guide
In one sentence tell your employees what goal you have for each customer interaction. For a hotel it might be “that visitors have the kind of stay they brag about.” It doesn’t have to be beautifully written, just easy to understand. What do you want for each customer? Once your employees know, they can look for ways to make that happen.
Measure Results Visibly
Find a fun way to measure the effect it’s having on your customer service. Some restaurants use stars on uniforms for each customer compliment received. Give employees a visible reason to strive for better customer experiences.
Create Empowering Dynamics
In the book Amaze Every Customer Every Time, the author suggests using the metric it only takes one (person) to say yes, and two to say no. This means management approval is not required to say yes to a customer but it is required to say no, allowing the business and employees to say yes more often.
If this doesn’t work for you, consider another stipulation such as anything under $25 goes. If what the customer is requesting won’t cost the business more than $25, then do it. You can create your own stipulations, but make sure they are easily communicated to your employees.
Finally, when your employees make decisions on behalf of better customer service, don’t punish them. If they made the wrong decision (such as the excessive taxing resources for little benefit) don’t belittle them. Explain to them why the decision wasn’t in the best interest of the business. (For instance, if the decision was costly, and it didn’t keep the customer.) This way they can learn what goes into making a better decision, instead of fearing your reaction to their next decision.
Empowering employees helps them enjoy occasions of delighting the customer. It makes them feel like they have the opportunity to improve someone’s experience. This can be very intoxicating and feel great. It also allows them to have more confidence in their decisions. For the customer, it builds trust with those who are serving them because they realize the employee has the power to affect the solution and they needn’t run to management for approval. Help your employees grow and give them power to make your customer’s day.
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