Bringing Service Excellence to Life!
03/23/04
Alison Jones, Customer Services Manager for Volkswagen UK, does a great job of communicating the fulfilling tension of emotions that comes from continually delivering on one's mission: "'To improve the service that Volkswagen provides to its customers and the experience that the customers have.' This statement...is a good summary of what we are working so hard at. Our roles are all constantly driving towards this goal, and because it has the word 'improve' in it, it is obvious that this can be a never ending process. This can make the environment feel frantic, busy, relentless, difficult, and when you are feeling low those feelings come to the fore. But it is also what makes it a rewarding, empowering, exciting and lively place to be, and it is those positive thoughts and feelings that make it the great place to work - the buzz you get when a customer or retailer says 'thank you for your help', the adrenaline rush when a solution is found to a difficult issue; the thrill of finally clearing the paperwork from your desk for a project that has taken months to finalise. No one is naïve enough to say there will never be any low points for any us, but we should all be determined to ensure that the positive thoughts, successes and achievements outweigh the negative ones."
Too many times we leave our vision statements up on the wall and fail to make it a living force in how we lead and serve. Good leaders find a hundred compelling ways to energize and enliven the messages that ground them. Business leaders too often stick to the facts and the monthly numbers. Though important, they don't capture the emotional connection to the people they lead. In service jobs that can easily regress into a dulled autopilot, people need to be reminded of and allowed to feed off of those exciting moments when service magic happens. Those moments can provide motivation for hours, even weeks. Bouncing back from the tough days and the tough clients is easier when we know how it feels when a mission is working. What can you do to enliven your vision, mission and values for your team this week?
A PAULSON QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"In service jobs that can easily regress into a dulled autopilot, people need to be reminded of and allowed to feed off of those exciting moments when service magic happens." --Terry Paulson, Ph.D.
MONDAY'S MIRTHFUL MOMENT
Dr. Loren Ekroth, author of "Conversation Pieces," www.conversation-matters.com provides this weeks Mirthful Moment--NEW WORDS FOR 2004! Enjoy these essential additions for the workplace vocabulary
BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.
GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.
OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.
WOOF'S: Well-Off Older Folks.
When you keep your eyes open for mirth, you just may find it! Hope this kicks off your morning and helps get your mood adjusted for the week. Now, get busy MAKING CHANGE WORK and have some fun along the way!...