Welcome to the January 18, 2006 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1.   Excellent Customer Service: Get The Spirit

The great writer Robert Frost once said, “Isn’t it a shame that when we get up in the morning our minds work furiously – until we come to work.”

I can’t help thinking that Mr. Frost must have been the victim of a really bad customer experience when he said this. I wonder what he’d say today! The contrast between exceptional and horrible service is just remarkable these days.

Last week during lunch I asked my waitress to refill my coffee cup. That seemed like a simple request. Several minutes later I asked again. A few minutes later, I asked a third time. Each time the waitress acknowledged my request. In return I received a few glares but never my coffee.

Just a few hours later, my mother asked me to accompany her to the dentist. She called at 3:30 PM to check if the doctor was on time for her 4:00 PM appointment. No one answered. She called again. Still no one answered. Finally the receptionist returned her call and recommended she come after 4:30. At 6:15 she was seated.

By contrast, I flew to Florida on Southwest Airlines. Once considered the no-frills airlines with their “cattle-herding” first-come seating and peanuts substituted for meals, nearly every competitor has cost-cut their way down to Southwest’s level of service. While they matched with deftness fare cuts and peanut-for-peanut, they have not been able to match service quality. In the meantime nearly all of Southwest’s competitors have gone bankrupt or just became names in the history books. Southwest instead has enjoyed 32 years of consecutive profitability and is consistently honored as one of America’s most admired businesses. They own the number one slot for fewest customer complaints and consistently receive awards for customer loyalty.

What makes Southeast Airlines so different? Much of the credit has to go to the leadership of founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher. Kelleher’s strategy was simple: competitors can cut costs. They can provide excellent service. But what they can’t do is duplicate the inspiration that creates a culture. Kelleher believes “spirit comes from the heart, not the head.” Creating a culture where people are truly the greatest asset isn’t a human resource program or a marketing slogan printed on banners but a way of living and doing business. Customer service isn’t something you train people to do. It is what they do because they want to do it.

Walk into any business meeting or networking event with business owners and managers and you’ll likely hear how difficult it is to find “good” employees. Maybe that’s because all the good employees want to work for Southwest Airlines and companies like it. While thousands of business struggle to fill vacancies and retain employees, Southwest Airlines received 225,985 resumes in 2004 and hired only 1706 of them.

Other businesses can learn a lot from Southwest. First you can create all the strategic and business plans you want but results will come from what Kelleher refers to as “audacious commitment”: putting employees first, customers second, and shareholders third. By treating employees well, customers will come back, and that’s what makes shareholders and owners happy.

Southwest’s business is people. Southwest’s mission statement is simple – it deals solely with people. That hasn’t changed from 1971 when they employed just a few dozen employees to today’s employee base of over 31,000. Southwest values their people as people, not employees. Southwest employees understand people is its business and they buy into it.

Management at Southwest understands that not every candidate has the spirit or skills to fit into the culture. They know a particular personality fits into their culture and they don’t compromise hiring and retention under any circumstances. This is amazing because in spite of being over 80 percent unionized, Southwest airlines enjoys a very collaborative relationship with labor.

What can you learn from Southwest? To differentiate yourself from the competition, stop giving just lip service to customer excellence. Customer excellence starts with a focus on people, first your internal employees, then your external customers. Set the bar high for employees; hire candidates who fit the culture and don’t make excuses for delivering anything less than exceptional customer service.

“Don’t ever doubt in the customer service business,” Kelleher explains, “the importance of people and their attitudes.”

2.  Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

We've all heard the excuses:

"My computer is down."
"We're short-handed"
"I'm all by myself."
"The salesperson didn't give me the right information"
"I've been off work. Please bear with me."
"I'm just filling in."

Customers are tired of the excuses employees give instead of delivering excellent customer service. "Excuses, Excuses, Excuses….For Not Delivering Excellent Customer Service - and What Should Happen!" is an excellent pocket guide for every employee. This book highlights 117 excruciatingly-painful-but-all-too-common Customer Service Excuses followed by common sense recommendations and insights to delivering exceptional customer service.

This book is for any company, business, or organization that deals with customers and has a passionate desire to survive. We’ve all been customers ourselves, and we’re tired—tired of inadequate service, a lack of concern, and a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. We’re tired of being told everything under the sun except that which we long to hear, “How may I help you?” followed by the appropriate action. This book is about excuses we both hear and use for not giving excellent customer service and how to shoot those excuses down.

Order Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

3.  Customer Service Skills Profile

This easy-to-use assessment solves one of your biggest headaches in customer service - ensuring consistency in your staff's performance.

How? By giving employee a clear picture of their unique strengths and areas they need to work on - and the motivation to acquire all the skills of an all-around good customer service giver.

Employees can rate themselves in seven competency areas widely considered to be critical to the ability to provide exemplary service.

For more information about customer service excellence:

4.   Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 497 to # 498

Don't miss day-to-day updates on Perfect Labor Storm. Save the Perfect Labor Storm blog to your favorites.

Fact #495: The U.S. population is projected to grow 42% to about 420 million people by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau. This compares with a forecast drop of 10% in Europe and a hefty 21% plunge in Japan.

Fact #496:  85 percent of adult Americans have at least a high school degree today, up from just 25 percent in 1940. Similary, 28 percent have a college degree, a fivefold increase over the period. Today's workforce is the most educated in the world.

That is all about to change. As recently as 1980, the U.S. workforce was 82 percent white. By 2020, it will be just 63 percent white. Over this 40-year span the share of minorities will double to 37 percent and that of Hispanic workers will triple to 17 percent. (Source: Nation at Risk)

The problem is that both Hispanics and African Americans are far less likely to earn degrees than their white counterparts. If these gaps persist, the number of Americans age 26 to 64 who don't even have a high school degree could soar by 7 million to 31 million by 2020. Meanwhile, although the actual number of adults with at least a college degree would grow, their share of the workforce could fall to 25.5 percent. (Source: Nation at Risk)

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - Only $7.95.

5.   Supervisory Skills Boot Camp begins February 21, 2006

Ever since Success Performance Solutions introduced Managing to Excel in 2002, hundreds of Central PA supervisors and managers have been learning and developing proficiency in the twelve competencies that highly effective managers and supervisors have that average performers don't.

Success Performance Solutions will offer Managing to Excel workshops beginning in February 2006. Each workshop will be limited to 6 supervisors. Topics will include Settings Goals, Time Management, and Scheduling Work.

Read more about Managing to Excel.

Learn more about Managing Your Job/Managing to Excel workshops,

Managing to Excel is also available for purchase by in-house trainers and human resource professionals. The per participant cost per program is as low as $20!

6.  CriteriaOne Train-the-Trainer: Job Benchmarking and TotalView Certification

The next CriteriaOne Train-the-Trainer is scheduled for February 2 to 4, 2006 in Lancaster, PA. Learn to identify and assess essential core competencies, select the right psychometric assessments, and develop behavioral event interview guides in just 3 days.

Register for CriteriaOne Train-the-Trainer  today.