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No Substitute for Service
The best businesses know that taking care of customers
requires never-ending training
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Business New Haven
8/7/2000
By: Priscilla Searles
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Retail is a verb that means to offer for sale, sell, handle, market, deal in, merchandise, vend, trade in, peddle. For John Q. Public, it's an integral part of everyday life. Good or bad, we simply can't elude it.
We're a society of spoiled people. We've come to expect service when we go to the grocery store, smiles and cooperation when we check into a hotel, speedy lines in the bank, a restaurant wait staff that listens and gets our order right - fast and friendly service. If we're dissatisfied we take our business elsewhere. Or, in some cases, maybe we just gripe and mutter under our breath.
Retail businesses survive on their ability to serve the public efficiently, quickly and with a smile. But all service businesses are faced with the challenge of making sure that employees dealing with customers can handle the task. Complaints drive the general public crazy and give the managerial staff a major headache. As consumers demand more of businesses they are dealing with, managers are faced with new problems on how to train employees and, at the same time, keep employee turnover to a minimum.
And the appearance of discount stores in recent decades has added another problem: how to provide service to the customer in a self-service store.
But self-service businesses and others that survive on their ability to serve the public on a one-to-one basis do or should have some things in common: the ability to keep the customer happy. A “happy customer” begins with the employee that is up front - the one we talk to and deal with.
The Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale has taken a very detailed approach to making sure that each employee who interacts with the public is thoroughly prepared. “There is an advantage of not being the biggest hotel chain in the world,” says David Jurcak, general manager (there are 43 hotels under the Omni flag) because training is more manageable.
Guidelines for training programs are developed and monitored by corporate for consistency and accuracy. The Omni in New Haven has approximately 240 employees, 80 percent full-time and the remaining part-time, fluctuating somewhat according to season demands and how busy we are. All have gone through extensive training.
“We have numerous divisions,” explains Jurcak, “managerial staff, sales, accounting, human resources, food and beverage and the rooms division which includes front desk, reservations, house keeping, guest services and engineering. Each division has an administrative staff, secretaries as well as laborers, skilled and what some businesses would call unskilled in each division. But I don't like the term 'unskilled,' because we require more of our people.
“For example,” says Jurcak, “a person whose job is to wash dishes has to know more than just the basics. He has to know chemicals, pest elimination, food storage. There are more skills required in the culinary division. For example, if we do a banquet, everyone is involved. The dishwasher is part of the culinary team and that means everyone has to be trained to pitch in when needed.
“When we're looking for employees they can have experience, perhaps have come from a facility that has closed - or they may have no experience,” Jurcak says. “All new employees go through training. We don't want positions to be vacant. Our goal is to have no positions open, so we'll take the time to train the individual.
Each department at the Omni has a lead trainer. “Every new employee is assigned to a trainer who works side-by-side with the employee until the entire training program is complete,” explains Jurcak. “Each new employee is given a skills-certification checklist when they begin employment, which varies depending on the position. All new employees are reviewed after 90 days.”
Jurcak points out that employees should have some expectations, too, and by giving new employees a copy of the skills-certification list for his or her job on day one, all workers know what is going to be expected of them at the completion of training. “Using this system,” says Jurcak, “shows a commitment to the employee and what's expected for the company - our core values.”
T.G.I. Friday's is a family restaurant chain that seems to attract a young waitstaff, many of them students who work part-time. The red and white shirts worn by the wait staff are common to each of the chain's locations, but individuality is encouraged in the form of buttons and badges pinned to suspenders and hand-painted trays that appear at your table when you receive the check.
Collecting buttons and badges has become a game with most of the wait staff and works as an ice-breaker with customers who can't seem to resist the temptation to ask about them. As to the hand-painted trays that many of the staff use, it may or may not get them a bigger tip, but it definitely leads to dialogue.
Buttons and trays don't help in efficient service, but Friday's handles that by having numerous managers who are almost always on the floor, often waiting on tables themselves when things get busy.
All organizations hope that employees will get the message that not everything can be written on a job description. Every job description at the Omni, for example, contains a statement at the top that “no job description for a position can possibly include all duties which may be requested.” They are making the point that they expect employees to exceed employment expectations and when dealing with the public common sense should prevail.
A prime example is the recent experience of a Business New Haven employee who went through the drive-in window of New Haven Savings Bank's Guilford branch on two occasions using fill-in deposit slips. The teller took it upon herself to have slips printed and sent them off in the mail with a personal note. It's the kind of “above and beyond” service that management prays for.
Kenneth Kaminski, New Haven Savings Bank executive vice president and chief operating officer, points out that the tellers, in the eyes of customers, are the bank.
“When new people are being trained they attend an all-day session,” says Kaminski. “They are welcomed by myself or Charles Terrell, president. We give them some history on the bank, how long we've been around [New Haven Savings is the oldest bank in New Haven] and emphasize that the one thing that makes us different from other financial providers is the way we treat customers.
“We tell them up front we [banks] all have basically the same services, so the difference has to be in customer service, not just the first time a customer comes to us but each and every time,” explains Kaminski. “That is the single most important thing that we try to get across to new employees.”
Regardless of previous experience, all new employees go through on-the-job training at the branch they will be working in. “Our training isn't formalized, it's on-the-job,” says Kaminski, “and all are given a job description so they know what is going to be expected from them. Tellers have a lot of responsibilities, but the most important aspect of their job is dealing with the public. If a teller can deal with customer that arrives in a bad mood and leaves with a smile then we've done our job.”
No business, no matter how much training it provides to employees, can avoid complaints but most managers agree that getting defensive or ignoring the problem is a mistake. “If we receive a complaint,” says Kaminski, “we try everything we can that will satisfy to customer and the bank.”
New Haven Savings also tries to find out how its customers feel about its service by sending out random quarterly surveys to test the quality of service to customers in each of its 33 branches. “Putting the customer first is part of our Quality Service Mission Statement,” says Kaminski. “We post it in every branch were it can be seen by the public.”
William O'Brien, NHSB's vice president in charge of business development and sales, points out that the bank also does in-house surveys.
“We deal with the customer within,” says O'Brien. “We do this on a quarterly basis. For example, I have to deal with others in the bank in other departments. The survey focuses on attitudes that exist, not on individuals. It gives me an opportunity to report how efficiently departments are dealing with other departments. Since everyone in the bank is asked to fill out the survey, we often receive suggestions. And there are incentives for high scores.”
Pointing out that good customer relations starts with the employees, “In-house dialogue is critical at all levels,” says O'Brien. “Competition is high, so we have to do it right. Retention of customers is the most important thing we have and the next thing is to bring in new customers.”
Small businesses often presume that the appearance of a nearby shopping mall or large chain store is going to drive them out of business. But many small businesses endure and even thrive, in part because of the products they sell, perhaps, but in large part due to a commitment to superior customer service.
Page Hardware & Appliance Co. in Guilford has been in business since 1939. Owned by Stephen and Andrew Page, it is a prime example of the difference that customer service can make in survival.
“If a customer comes in with a leaky sink, we'll tell him how to fix it, sell him the parts or refer him or her to someone who can fix the problem for them,” says Andrew Page. “The customer is No. 1, and that's everyone's first priority.
“That's the first thing we tell new employees: how to deal with the public, whether it's on the phone or selling on the floor,” Page says. “We have professional trainers that come in for electrical and plumbing training, and we work with companies such as our paint suppliers to do hands-on training with our staff. But survival also means having a niche and embracing change. Change is the only consistent in our life. An unwillingness to change is a formula for failure.”
O'Brien, Kaminski and Jurcak all stress that businesses must work to continually improve quality of service. A fundamental mistake made by many businesses seems to be lack of supervision of employees dealing with the public.
Numerous fast food restaurants have found out the hard way that if the staff has a bad attitude toward the customer, it's going to cost business and can even result in business failure. Even self-serve businesses have to be on top of the customer-service issue. If customers can't find anyone to answer a question on what part they need to fix a plumbing problem, they're going to go some place that will make them feel cared about.
Today we're not stuck with one business or shop. We have choices. BNH
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