ANNUAL RAFFLE: 2005 Raffle Preseason | About the Raffle | 2004 Raffle Winner

Vol. 17, No. 44, May 2, 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:

This Reveille Home Page | The Friday Program: Exceeding Customer Expectations | Bulletin Board | Friday Potpourri | Classification Talk: Hans Giner | Earth Corps Gets Grant | Sergeant At Arms Corner | Rotarians of the Month: Steve Luplow & Chip Erickson | Web Fun

The Friday Program:
Exceeding Customer Expectations

Brad Worthley, an international consultant and behavior change specialist, was Friday’s special guest. Brad has trained hundreds of thousands of employees for many of the world’s best-known corporations such as McDonalds, Sleep Country, and others and brought his message of “Exceeding Customer Expectations” to the BBRC.

A native of Hoquiam, Brad is an energetic speaker, who was impressed by the energy of the club at our early bewitching hour. He explained that it’s his job to “help people find out whether it’s a problem or a symptom that may be affecting your company. It usually is a leadership issue when ‘business is down.’” His job is to “change people, by having them take responsibility for their own behavior.”

His customer service program helps to focus the eyes on the leader. He reminisced of his experience working at Squire Shops, 28 years ago. “'Stack 'em high, let em fly' was our mantra. I learned to change people’s behavior without saying a word. We were stacking jeans for a special sales promotion. I watched two of my workers stack the jeans ... at the rate they were going, the promotion would be over. I went over and began helping them stack. I stepped up the pace, and they followed right along. Before we knew it, the jeans were stacked high, ready to fly. Treat your employees well with lots of ‘please and thank you’, and your efforts will be compensated.”

Brad owned a hosiery company 18 years ago. He imported product to Seattle and then distributed nationwide. “We had ten employees. I acquired a Pitney Bowes postage machine and, since I owned the company, I used it for my personal mail. My staff observed this, and before long, they were also taking advantage of this service. Same thing goes for personal phone calls on company time. When you’re mixing business with personal mail and phone calls, it becomes a leadership hypocrisy. If you do it as the owner, the employees think its okay.

To have a great customer service culture, you need to adopt a key message and then keep consistent and use it often. Keep your employees focused. “I liked my employees to use the customer’s name. I told them to do it every time. Instead of the use of the repugnant ‘No problem,’ I asked my employees to use ‘My pleasure.’ Every time they received a ‘Thank you,’ they said ‘My pleasure.’

Next, focus on these initiatives for two weeks ... calling customers by name, and using my pleasure as a you’re welcome. Put a banner in the break room. Make these initiatives part of the culture of your customer service.

Worthley asked his audience to tell him the difference between a manager and a leader. One of our members offered, “a leader pulls, a manager pushes.” Brad said a manager manages stuff. Leaders have vision, and should motivate.

If an employee fails, you should ask yourself whether you’ve given them adequate tools to work with. Did you train them properly? If you can take responsibility, then do it. Is there anything you could have done, any tools you could have provided, etc? As leaders, it’s our job is to serve our employees. Corporate office exists to serve.

Brad explored the idea of reactive leadership versus proactive leadership. “A test of proactive leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. Reactive leaders spend most of their time putting fires out.”

Personal coaching helps change behavior. Say an employee approaches you to complain that “I don’t have enough time to finish this project.” When employees come to you with problems, they’re looking for you to solve them for them. Don’t do it. Coach them on how to solve problems themselves.” How would you answer this question? Think it over and come back with the answer.” Have them think for themselves.

Coaching is one on one. It’s personalized, and ongoing. Coaching never stops. Meanwhile, mentoring represents the standard that you want your employees to attain. When a new employee comes on board, introduce them to their mentor.

If your company is looking for keynote speaker, Brad Worthley can help tell the story of Exceeding Customer Expectations. His website is: www.bradworthley.com

Responding to a question, Brad said the common thread for employee turnover is either leadership or systems. “It’s really true — people don’t care how much you know, it’s how much you care.”

For his presentation, Brad was given a certificate noting that 1,220 pounds of fresh food from Rotary First Harvest had been donated in his name to local food banks. Thanks to Jim Gordon for his introduction.

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