Imagine that you are walking up to the counter at your local store to pay for that new cast iron pot. You hand over your coupon, and just as the cashier is transacting your purchase, your significant other rushes up with a last-minute item. You look at the cashier for options and she says, “Well, you can always come back.”

You don’t have to imagine it, this scenario actually happened. There were a number of options available, such as reversing the sale and ringing up the merchandise again with the new item, but the employee did not offer any of these options.

Do similar scenarios play out in your company? Building a customer-service culture is more than orienting a new employee for a week. To successfully implement a customer-focused culture, leaders must intentionally cultivate the service mindset in their teams.

To build a customer-centric culture, business leaders can start by asking these questions:

1. What is your company’s customer-service vision?

Your customer service vision doesn’t need to be long to be effective. As the business leader, you may have beliefs or ideals about customer service so it’s important to communicate them to your team. Most importantly, if you haven’t defined the type of experience you want for your customers, involve your team in creating the vision. The more they are involved, the greater the buy-in for the very things they recommend.

2. Who is your customer?

It may be an obvious question, but one that can shift your thinking. In a customer-focused culture, leaders acknowledge both external and internal customers. External customers are people who pay for your products or services. When designing systems, brainstorming problems, or creating solutions these are the customers you design for. However, if you build systems with only the external customer in mind and wonder why the system you just built doesn’t work internally, it’s because you are not looking at your employees as a customer. In a customer-centric culture, if you provide a service for another internal department, they are your internal customer.

Are you creating a culture where your employees interact with one another as they would a customer? If the answer is no and you’re wondering why your team doesn’t have each other’s back, you have your answer. They’re not looking at each other as internal customers.

3. Are you hiring for customer orientation?

As the old adage goes, you can teach friendly people but you can’t teach people friendly. If you want to focus on developing long-term relationships with your customers, you’ll want their experience to be a helpful one. Make sure your hiring process is designed to attract the service-centric talent.

4. Are you investing in continuously developing your team?

Investing in and training your team members is not a one and done. Everyone needs to know how their role impacts the internal or external customer. Set a time on your monthly team meeting to review a company standard and the specific behaviors the employees are expected to deliver that’s consistent with your desired vision and culture.

5. Are you celebrating and recognizing customer-centric employees?

When you notice a team member demonstrating your values or standards, acknowledge and recognize it. It can be as simple as highlighting how the employee helped the internal or external customer in a company newsletter or on your social media page.

6. Are you modeling your standards?

Treat your team the way you want them to treat the customer. If you’re seeing an incongruence, ask yourself if you’re modeling the very behavior you want to see and if you have adequately trained your team members.

7. Are you asking your customers for feedback and taking action on their feedback?

The most valuable feedback comes from your internal and external customers. Call them to see how things are going for them. While you connect with them, let them know the improvements you’re implementing as a result of their feedback.

8. Are you empowering your team?

Identify what is specifically allowable so the team member understands all of the possible options that are available when working with the customer. When they know the options, they can use them to solve a customer concern. It’s also important to roleplay with them while being trained so they recognize the scenario and know which option to provide to the customer.

As your business grows, you will need to rely on your staff. A well-trained and a continuously developed staff ensures your company retains every single sale and cultivates an exceptional customer service culture.

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