Most of you know Kim McCutcheon from our team at Graff. She’s the one that works magic for all our Graff Online Subscribers behind the scenes and she’s the one that comes to our subscribers’ rescue with speedy responses and resolutions to anything and everything! Kim represents the best in customer care at Graff.
Kim has recently endured a long and not-so-smooth kitchen renovation. She has shared some of her horror stories with me along the way. She’s on the other side of it now, but she mentioned something to me yesterday that really summed it up quite well. The importance of taking pride and ownership in the work we do…if only we saw that approach across the board in retail, service industry, medical industry…everywhere! What would be the customer or client experience if we all took pride in what we do? What would be the customer experience if we ‘owned it’? Right down to our part-timers.
What if there was a sense of ownership across our entire frontline team?
Kim’s story of her reno is not unlike some renovation experience we have all had. It’s a shame, but it’s an industry full of stories from clients that include cases of sub-par work, not honouring deadlines, cutting corners and in some cases, not even completing the work. In retail, we have all had (and continue to have) lack lustre in-store experiences. Not being able to find anyone to help, being ignored, not being listened to, being rushed into a purchase or even being sold something we didn’t even need. What causes this? There are many elements at play that lead to these kinds of experiences, but really it’s a pile of excuses. Kim’s point of taking pride in what we do and more so, having a sense of ownership would go a long way to creating a much, much better customer experience.
Do pride and ownership come from within though? Can this really be trained or coached?
The answer is YES! It’s what we do for our clients at Graff Retail! Sure, some people just show up and have this inherently. You’re lucky if you find these types. The majority of us need leadership, on-going training and coaching, recognition and rewards, clear understanding of standards, goals and be held accountable to generate a sense of pride and ownership in the work we do. Basically, if you don’t nurture it, it isn’t likely to come naturally for most of us.
This begs the question…What does your organization have in place to nurture the people that make-or-break the experiences your customers have when they shop with you?
Kim hit the nail right on the head this week. “If the guys had a better attitude or took more pride in their work, it would have made all the difference to me.” “If they took ownership of my project and I could feel that they cared, I could have accepted some of the common challenges of the reno experience.”
If you don’t have anything in place to nurture (i.e. train and develop) your teams, we can help in many ways. If you want your teams to actually ‘own the customer experience’ inside your stores each and every time they interact with your customers, give us a call or book a demo today!
