Recently, I heard a story that made me laugh. There was a young child who refused to go to school. When his aunt asked him why he didn’t want to go, he said, “I just want to go to college!”
I bet you chuckled too. It’s ludicrous to think of someone skipping K-12 education and being admitted to even a junior college. Yet, in business we sometimes take this attitude when we are faced with the hard work of making a change in an organization. Here’s an example. A bank had been cited for violations of a regulation, and they were charged to ensure there would be no future violations. Working closely with the operations management team, the training manager developed a short program with follow-up activities to ensure employees would understand the regulation and know how to apply it in any situation. When they asked Executive Management to approve time for the employees to participate in the program he replied, “Can’t you just give them a test?” Perhaps the Executive didn’t realize that the employees needed to learn the information and have it reinforced repeatedly for them to apply it consistently.
Nor is this an isolated case. Training professionals joke to each other about the tools they wish they had: pixie dust they could sprinkle for instant results, tapes they could place under employee pillows that transfer information while they slept. Clients often tell me, “We want to be like the Four Seasons.” Invariably I reply, “I will tell you what it takes to be like the Four Seasons, and when I’m done, you will ask me, ‘Can’t we be the Four Seasons without Frankie Valli?’”
All too often, businesses think they can create a service culture by just training their employees. Companies have contracted with me to deliver four-hour workshops to employees, and they don’t send their managers. When these employees return from the training, nothing in their work environment supports using their new skills. The handouts gather dust, and everything continues on as before.
No one questions the outstanding service Disney and the Ritz-Carlton deliver to their guests and both organizations offer their training programs to other businesses. If all it took to create a service culture was excellent service training, then everyone would be at the level of Disney or Ritz Carlton. Because training is simply an event without the entire culture as a foundation.
It IS a lot of work to develop a service culture in any organization. It starts with defining the specific service standards and then making sure all the employees know what they are and how to deliver on those standards. But, it doesn’t stop there. Maintaining a service culture requires almost fanatic reinforcement through role modeling, training, coaching, recognition, and consequences. It becomes “The way we do things around here.” It becomes as important as the profit and loss numbers because everyone understands that the profits and losses are driven by the quality of the service.
We all recognize that getting an education is a process. We start in Kindergarten and we advance grade by grade until we can graduate and go to college where we continue to learn. Perhaps we can skip a grade, but no one jumps from Kindergarten to college. It’s the same with building a service culture. You can’t just wish yourself to be like the Four Seasons, nor can you expect training alone to transform your organization. It’s a process that starts with standards and becomes deeply embedded in the organization through constant reinforcement and improvement. Yes, it IS a lot of work, but the payoffs are enormous: loyal customers and even more loyal employees.