Chapter 3-Culture and Communication - Retail

Developing a culture committed to service
Customer Service
Toolkit for Retail
Chapter Three: Culture and

Communication
Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010
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Chapter Three: Culture and communication

1. Why are culture and communication important?

1.1 Purpose
1.2 Benefits
2.
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6

Demonstrate service leadership
Empower your service managers
Communicate effectively to your employees
Talk with, not to, your employees
Develop a customer service champion program
Ensure communication across the organisation
Culture and customer service
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1. Why are culture and communication important?

1.1 Purpose
An organisations customer service level is only as good as its worst customer
service employee. As such, customer service initiatives have to address employees
first. For employees to have the right attitude towards your customers, there must be
regular communication between leaders and employees to develop a culture of trust,
where employees know that they are trusted by management to do the right thing.
This chapter will provide you with the necessary information and tools to build a
customer service culture within your organisation.
1.2 Benefits
A strong customer service culture will ensure that employees are able and motivated
to meet customers needs. An environment where management and employees have
implicit trust in each other will reduce time in making decisions pertaining to the
delivery of customer service and areas in improving customer satisfaction, e.g.
managing service recovery. This will in turn increase customer satisfaction and thus
revenue.
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2. Developing a culture committed to service

2.1 Demonstrate service leadership
As a start, you can organise an employees briefing session or team dinner where
you share with your employees the customer service vision and upcoming programs
and provide feedback to them on their efforts so far. But more importantly, as a
leader, it is important to practise what you preach.
Service excellence will not become part of the company culture unless the leaders of
the company show that good service is valued and taken seriously.
As seen from the diagram below, it is not just the responsibility of the leader at the
top but also at middle management who need to ensure that the messages of the
customer service mission, values and strategies are communicated to the
employees.
The service culture should not be based on any industry standards or ideals, but be
unique to what the organisation requires or wishes to establish.
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Local Case Study:

The Scarlett Hotel: Lets Personalities Shine Through
The Scarlett hotel is a boutique hotel with 88 uniquely-designed rooms. In
an industry with stiff competition, Scarlett hotel differentiates itself by letting
its employees personality shine through.
The hotel does not believed in scripted greetings or Thank Yous but
encourage employees to develop their own personalised style of greeting
and ways of engaging customers. Employees are not cookie-cut in their
appearances and are allowed to embrace their uniqueness, e.g., allowing
goatees and earrings for men.
Customer service is more than scripts; it is about the nature of the work and
allowing employees to bring their personality and uniqueness to work. It
also includes empowering them with the knowledge that you trust them to
do behave professionally and in the interest of the organisation.
In Chapter 1, we talked about how leadership is important in defining customer

service. Some examples a leader can demonstrate the importance of service are:
Serve your customers

Go down to your outlets and mingle with or serve your customers. This
is a great way to demonstrate to your employees the level of service
that you want them to show to the customers

Get your employees involved in the customer service strategies and
encourage active participation
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Lead by example
Leaders should embody the customer service values too. This means
treating employees and customers in the same manner you would like
your employees to treat your customers. This could mean addressing
your employees by name so that they feel valued as an individual
your employees will in turn treat their customers in the same way.
Value your employees
If your employees feel appreciated, they will be more inclined to follow
your company policy, perform to their best and achieve greater
customer service for the company.
A tool to ascertain your existing culture conditions can be found on the following
page:
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Tool 3.1 Template to ascertain existing culture conditions

1
Purpose
This survey is designed to provide you with an opportunity to describe your current
conditions within your company regarding culture. Questions will cover a wide variety of
organisational characteristics, such as communication, leadership, teamwork and
structure.
Confidentiality
Your responses to this survey will be kept completely anonymous.
Glossary of Terms
For purposes of clarity and uniformity, please use the following definition of terms when
answering the survey:
Leadership:
Management:
Supervisor:
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer,

Senior Executives
Department Heads, Managers
Your immediate superior
General Information
How long have you been in
service?
Under 1 year
1 5 years
6 10 years
More than 10 years
Are you a:
Senior Manager
Manager
Supervisor
Senior Executive
Executive
What is your
Division/Department?
Finance
HR
Supply and Purchasing
Corporate
Communications
Advertising & Publications
Junior Executive
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Slightly Disagree, 4 = Slightly Agree, 5 = Agree, 6 = Strongly Agree
Existing Cultures
1
My leaders view customer service as important.
I am rewarded / recognised for my contributions to

knowledge sharing.
Management takes my views/opinions/suggestions

into consideration.
As a result of change, I have been able to use my

new skills acquired from training in my daily work.
I have time to contribute ideas on how to improve

customer service.
My supervisor encourages knowledge sharing and

demonstrating good customer service (e.g.
supports and recognises efforts in knowledge
sharing, organises knowledge sharing events,
actively involved in knowledge sharing).
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Existing Cultures
1
Whenever change was introduced in the past, I

was provided the appropriate training and support
I
am
encouraged
to
give
views/opinions/suggestions.
10 I am aware that changes (e.g. Organisation
Excellence initiatives, new policies, new systems,
etc) have been successfully implemented in the
past.
11 There is regular communication (e.g. team sharing,
dialogue sessions) between Management and staff.
12 I am encouraged to share knowledge on how to

improve customer service WITHIN my Department.
13 I know where to find the information I require to do

my work.
14 I know how to contribute knowledge that will

benefit others in helping them deliver better
customer service.
15 I look forward to better ways of knowledge sharing

to benefit my organisation
16 Continuous improvement in my daily work is

important.
17 I have access to the information I need to do my
work.
18 I am encouraged to share knowledge ACROSS
Departments.
19 I know that sharing of knowledge can help us do

our work better.
Existing work processes (i.e. how daily work and

routines are carried out) facilitate the delivery of
good customer service in my daily work.
8
9
20 Please rank in order of usefulness the following 6 communications channels, with 1

being the most useful and 6 being the least useful. Please indicate N.A. for channels
that are not applicable
a. Morning / pre-shift briefings
b. Online Communication Tools
(e.g. Emails, Instant Messaging
Tools, etc)
c. Working Meetings/ Dialogue
Sessions
d. Notice Boards
e. Annual Staff Appraisal
f. Informal Channels (e.g.
grapevine, coffeeshop talk, etc)
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2.2 Empower your service managers

Service managers spend the most time with employees and play a key role in
helping them embrace a customer-centric mindset by:
Being a service role model for employees.

Treating employees the same way you would want employees to treat customers.
Coaching employees to display the right service attitude and qualities.
Recognising and rewarding employees when they deliver good customer service.
Facilitating service-oriented actions

Service managers play an important role in ensuring that service-oriented actions
are demonstrated according to training, employee guidelines and the SOPs:
Lead by example and walk the ground to demonstrate your commitment
Remind employees of the importance of the key service-oriented actions
during the briefing sessions before the start of every shift.
Provide opportunities for sharing sessions for employees to share challenges
and strategies to overcome them
At briefing session after the shift, you can highlight the key actions most
employees did not remember to do and reinforce these actions.
Where necessary, you can post up key SOPs, e.g. telephone etiquette
pointers, on the premises to remind and reinforce the desired behaviour
amongst your employees.
Over time, these key customer service actions will become part of daily operations.
Also, remember that coaching, recognising and rewarding employees are a critical
part of building a service culture. More information on these topics can be found in
Chapter Two: The team Building a team committed to service.
Benefits from Empowering Managers
Empowered service managers can interpret policies and business rules and be given
the flexibility to adapt them, if required, to ensure customer satisfaction. They can
identify all the errors and service failures that impact customers and lead to
dissatisfaction. Correcting these errors and service failures will not only improve
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customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty, but may also reduce operating costs. It
will also serve to communicate to employees the trust and value that your company
places in them as champions of the organisations service culture.
Empowerment gives managers permission to make decisions to increase the
responsiveness of the team."Enabling" refers to implementing the right policies and
processes, including defining the levels of decision-making authority and training and
coaching your people on how to apply this flexibility given to them.
Senior leaders and service managers need mutual trust in each other to do the right
thing. Senior leaders need to know that service managers and employees will not
abuse the authority given to them, likewise employees need to know that
management will support their decision when justified in the interest of customer
service. Mutual trust forms the foundation for effective communication and employee
motivation to go that extra mile for customers.
Some examples of empowerment in which you can authorise service managers are:
Waiver or reduction of charges

Offer discount coupons
Offer gift certificates
Offer complementary items
Refund cash to the customer for goods returned
Taking a decision if a problem comes under warranty or not and committing
the repair work
The empowerment should be accompanied by the relevant review mechanisms such

as:
Policies on the authorisation and approval limits for front-line employees
Business rules and guidelines on using or applying the empowerment:
Organisations should clearly define the guidelines under which the
decisions can be taken
A post-facto review of the decisions taken by front-line employees can evolve
the empowerment mechanism. You can decide on where you can tighten or
liberalise the controls
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Organisations should also remember to put in place the supporting processes and
structures to enable empowerment, such as:
Frequently-asked questions with appropriate responses, standard response
letters or actual scripts to reinforce training and prompt the employee
A readily available guide on business rules, guidelines and procedures
Training on managing situations and decision-points
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2.3 Communicate effectively to your employees

Your employees need to understand why customer service is important to the
company and how they will be equipped to satisfy customers better. Thus, there
needs to be a consistent message to employees on the customer service mission,
values, strategies and goals, e.g., service training and rewards programmes for the
employees.
Communications should be staggered so that the message is reinforced without
employees becoming desensitised. You may have daily meetings, at the team level
to discuss operational issues and reinforce the concept of operational customer
service, e.g., during the start of shifts, while organisation-wide communication
sessions should be carried out at least once a quarter. This could take the form of a
get-together for your service employees. Some topics that may be covered during
the session include:
Customer service mission, goals and strategies
Benefits of achieving customer service, and customer satisfaction
Negative impact of not achieving customer service
A sample of the tool can be found on the following page:
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Tool 3.2 Template to identify key customer service

messages to communicate to employees
1
General Information
Name of
organisation:
Industry:
Date:
Customer Excellence Message

Objectives
Key points of your message

Give your employees an overview of the type of customer service you
want to provide to your customers. Your employees will know what is
expected of them and how they will be equipped to help the company
in its efforts to achieve service excellence.
Outline the customer service vision e.g.
Our customer service vision is to provide friendly, efficient and
reliable service so that our customers will want to recommend us
to their friends.
Customer service
intent, goals and
strategies
Outline the goals e.g.

Customers will be delighted.
Increased sales
Employees will feel motivated.
Outline the strategies e.g.
Employees will be expected to participate in new service
initiatives.
Employees will be trained to have a better understanding of the
company and its products/services.
Employees will learn to be interested, polite, courteous,
knowledgeable and tactful.
Benefits of
achieving
Customer Service
Tell your employees the benefits of achieving greater customer service

for the business so they will understand the importance and be
motivated e.g.
The company will be healthier as a whole, both financially and in

terms of customer and employee satisfaction
Employees will develop new skills and feel supported by the
Negative side of
not achieving
Customer Service
company.
Your employees needs to be aware of the negative side of not
achieving customer service and how it will impact the business and
them too:
Customers will complain and not return.

Employee morale will suffer.
Sales will suffer.
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2.4 Talk with, not to, your employees

The message on the importance of customer service mission, values, strategies and
goals can be sent through various channels of communication to employees
because employees:
Need to know and be reminded of what the customer service mission and
values are and mean
Need to be equipped with the latest customer service strategies, e.g., rewards
programme for good customer service exemplified by employees, latest
customer compliments, discount programmes
You can find more information on drafting the vision and values in Chapter One:
Leadership Putting leadership at the heart of the service experience.
The channels of communication used should fulfil one or more of these criteria:
Mass outreach to employees, e.g., emails, payslips
Used regularly by employees, e.g., pantry, emails
Allow for personal touch, e.g., briefings, meetings
Try using these channels of communication to communicate to employees
Posters in places where employees congregate (e.g. pantry, meeting rooms,
outlets)
Computer screensavers, bulletin board postings, employees newsletters,
company intranet, emails
Organise employees briefing sessions or team outings where you keep them
updated on new customer service initiatives
Make the theme of customer service a regular agenda item during employees
meetings, employees talks or briefing sessions
Putting up signages in your outlets that remind your customer and employees
of the customer service vision
Other relevant information related to customer service can also be shared with your
employees through the above-mentioned channels of communication. The aim of
this information sharing should be to enable your employees to deliver better
customer service.
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This information sharing can cover these key areas and be a two-way process
between management and your employees:
Keep the employees updated on the companys customer service strategies and
goals, e.g.,
The customer service attitudes and behaviours you want to see in your
employees
Updates on customer service KPIs
New service training or rewards programs that are available for
employees
Suggestions and encouragement to employees in their delivery of good
customer service, e.g.,
Examples of customers delighted by fantastic service
Tips on how to deliver better customer service
Encouragement to employees to deliver customer service
Updates on how employees service levels are perceived by the customers, e.g.,
Customer compliments received by the employees
Customer feedback, both positive and negative to help employees
understand how customers are feeling
Employee feedback
Communication should be a two-way process. Employees should have a channel to
share their feedback or suggestions on ways to improve service. This can take the
form of employee feedback forms, employee feedback at company gatherings,
employee opinion surveys or informal feedback.
It is important to listen to employees opinions and feedback and take steps to show
employees that their concerns are being addressed. It is equally important to let
employees understand why the organisation is unable to take certain actions to
address their feedback. Employees need to feel valued in order to increase their
commitment and engagement to the workplace.
You can find a sample template of an employee feedback form on the following
page:
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Tool 3.3 Template to develop an employee feedback form

1
General Information
Name of
organisation:
Name of employee:
Employee number:
Job title / grade:
Department:
Date:
What is the feedback regarding? Is it a problem or opportunity for improvement?

Customer complaint:
Employee morale:
Service process improvement:
Service lapse:
Supervisor:
Working environment
Others:
Suggested improvement(s)
What benefits would you expect from this improvement(s)?
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2.5 Develop a customer service champion programme

As seen in Chapter Two: The Team - Building a team committed to service, an
organisation should identify customer service champions. Front-line employees are
good candidates in communicating to their peers the customer service mission and
values and the importance they play in achieving customer satisfaction.
Service champions should have the following characteristics:
Enjoys good rapport with all levels of staff

Influential with colleagues and peers
Possesses a passion for mentoring less experienced staff
Exemplifies the traits of an ideal service personnel
Enthusiastic about providing extraordinary service
Employees who have been in the service of your company for more than 6
months
Benefits of having customer service champions:
When service employees see their fellow colleagues delivering great customer
service, they will be inspired to provide it too

Learning through observation has been shown to be a highly effective way of
learning
Customer service champions provide feedback on customer service programs
to management
How to implement the customer service champion program:

Employees who consistently provide excellent customer service can be
nominated to be customer service champions.
The service manager or a senior leader should speak to the selected employees.
Talk to them about:
Why they have been selected and show appreciation for their good work
Their responsibilities as a customer service champion which may include:
Spreading the service culture
Updating colleagues on latest training
Participate in mentoring programmes
Assist in developing service training and service culture building
initiatives
If possible, you should show rewards and recognition to the customer
service champions for undertaking these responsibilities
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Assign customer service champions to each outlet so that the employees can get
to learn from them
Nominate new customer service champions on a yearly basis. This will
encourage other employees to strive towards becoming customer service
champions and spread the customer service culture.
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2.6 Ensure communication across the organisation

Different outlets will face different challenges and receive different types of customer
feedback and suggestions. The service managers will benefit greatly from sharing
their experiences amongst each other and learning from the collective wisdom of
their peers.
This learning process can be facilitated through regular meetings between different
employees involved in the service chain. A sample tool to develop an internal
communications strategy can be found on the following page:
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Tool 3.4 Template to develop a communication strategy to

build the customer service culture
1
General Information
Name of
organisation:
Industry:
Date:
Communication Strategy
Target audience
to be
communicated
to:
All
employees
Senior
Managemen
t
Service
Managers
Service
Employees
Others:
____________
Communication
channel for this
target audience:
Frequency of
the key
messages that
will be released
through this
channel:
Key messages
that will be
communicated:
Owner for this

communication
channel:
Email
Daily
Case studies
Company
event
Weekly
Challenges
Townhall
Monthly
Issues
Website
Yearly
KPIs
Supervisors
Others:
____________
Others:
____________
Others:
____________
Service
intent
Service
Strategies
Others:
____________
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CEO
Customer
Service
Director
Customer
Service
Manager
3. Culture and customer service

Building a culture of customer service depends on recruiting the right people and
understanding what your customer wants. These topics are covered in Chapter Two:
The Team - Building a team committed to service and Chapter Four: Customer
Relationships Develop a relationship with your customer.
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Chapter 3-Culture and Communication - Retail

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Developing a culture committed to service

Chapter Three: Culture and

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Chapter Three: Culture and communication

1. Why are culture and communication important?

Developing a culture committed to service

Culture and customer service

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

1. Why are culture and communication important?

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

2. Developing a culture committed to service

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Local Case Study:

In Chapter 1, we talked about how leadership is important in defining customer

Serve your customers

that you want them to show to the customers

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Tool 3.1 Template to ascertain existing culture conditions

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer,

My leaders view customer service as important.

I am rewarded / recognised for my contributions to

Management takes my views/opinions/suggestions

As a result of change, I have been able to use my

I have time to contribute ideas on how to improve

My supervisor encourages knowledge sharing and

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Whenever change was introduced in the past, I

12 I am encouraged to share knowledge on how to

13 I know where to find the information I require to do

14 I know how to contribute knowledge that will

15 I look forward to better ways of knowledge sharing

16 Continuous improvement in my daily work is

19 I know that sharing of knowledge can help us do

Existing work processes (i.e. how daily work and

20 Please rank in order of usefulness the following 6 communications channels, with 1

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

2.2 Empower your service managers

Being a service role model for employees.

Facilitating service-oriented actions

Developing a culture committed to service

Waiver or reduction of charges

The empowerment should be accompanied by the relevant review mechanisms such

Developing a culture committed to service

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

2.3 Communicate effectively to your employees

Copyright of SPRING Singapore 2010

Developing a culture committed to service

Tool 3.2 Template to identify key customer service

Customer Excellence Message

Key points of your message

Outline the goals e.g.

Tell your employees the benefits of achieving greater customer service

The company will be healthier as a whole, both financially and in