© Downton service management consultants 2009
Sometimes we take for granted what is in front of us. It is amazing that businesses do not utilise members of staff who show great skill to develop others. In this article Steve gives us some insights into how this is being achieved by some high performing companies.
Over the last few years many service managers and directors have faced the challenge of improving their overall contribution to the business, and service is seen as a key operation that can contribute more to company success, keeping customers who are enthusiastic about using the company’s equipment and services, and buying more product(s).
Expecting to achieve such aims by the simplistic concept of using engineers to “generate” business has either produced a miserable failure, or temporary and limited results, before sliding back to where they were before. The usual reason for unsatisfactory results was because to “generate” business has often been a euphemism for some form of badly disguised selling mechanism. It has been difficult to determine which incentives (rewards) used to encourage engineers have been effective or justified, when it is clear that none really work well as only a few engineers ever take part in these types of schemes. Well-intentioned managers treating the engineers as substitute sales staff or simple “lead generators” are doing these experts a disservice – they are customer focused service engineers. These same companies never make the mistake of sending their sales persons out to fix equipment or customers, so they should understand the role of engineer and utilise such skills to the best advantage.
The service operation can support the business and help “generate” business, by calling upon the inherent skills of excellent service engineers, which include their ability to communicate, build relationships, manage customers and situations and to help their customers perform better. Good/intelligent companies utilise and build upon the skills of their service engineers, incorporating such ideas into the culture of the organisation. A business that truly understands what service really can be in today’s environment can capitalise on the skills possessed by their engineers, but most companies work successfully through accident rather than careful design.
Most companies can boast a group of their staff (normally about 5-10%) considered to be top performers. Everyone, including customers, will know who they are and when it comes to customer service, the best performers will demonstrate most of the following key attributes.
- Competent and nearly always able to fix the technical problem without delay – because they are reliable and consistent
- The rest of the team and management have respect for, and place confidence in them, as they are seen as positive contributors to the overall service department, business, and sometimes even the outside community
- Customer satisfaction ratings score highly and a positive image of the company is promoted, generating loyalty towards the company
- Their names are mentioned when deals are signed
- Good commercial acumen and awareness of, and pride in, the value that good service can bring their customers. Can be counted on to produce added revenues
- Professionalism is the watchword
- If one member of the team was required to represent the group and salary reviews depended on their performance – then these people would be included in the nominated list
These people do exist; you will have come across them as a manager and as a customer. They instill loyalty in their customers, and it helps when they are supported by the business. A business with acumen will deliberately place individuals to the best advantage; sometimes the top performers will have to place themselves advantageously if their managers are less perceptive. The best employees will have good days and not so good days but their average will be high and their quality and customer handling consistent.
The business has to understand how the best performing field service engineers achieve their results, and how to take this understanding and apply some of the “magic dust” to others who show a desire to develop their own attributes and skills. There are many challenges to achieving this, but the following outlines some of the mechanisms that can support a rapid increase in the percentage of your team able to add more value to the customer and gain the reward.
The first step is to identify the top performers and then understand the skills that can be transferred and developed in staff willing to try. This point of willingness is key: undertaking this exercise with disinterested members of staff will be expensive and of little value (other techniques – not included here – will need to be employed to deal with them). Research has proven that there are two levels to this examination of successful individuals: the first is to look at what might be termed tangible attributes such as dress, and facial expression etc., but a second aspect (and probably more important) are the intangibles such as manners, presence, listening, understanding, empathy etc. Conscious awareness (using the clutch on a geared car – the learner driver is consciously aware of depressing the pedals ; unconscious awareness develops and the experienced driver does not need to focus on the pedals). Top performers demonstrate this apparent unconscious awareness and will deliver the intangibles – in some cases without realising. If they don’t realise what it is they do that makes them successful, it will be more challenging to identify the components of their skill in order to train others.
Studying how excellent people perform in service and what it is they do and don’t do, it is possible to identify the combination of skills that they use to be top performers, through a series of straight forward self-assessed questions. Skills may vary according to the individual and may vary within different company cultures. If we use the top performers each time as a benchmark, this quickly highlights where the rest of the operation differs, and therefore what additional development is necessary to close the gap and raise performance across the board. However, it has to be recognised that this assessment must take a number of considerations into account – if the gap in performance is too wide it will not close quickly. Development of each individual is the most desirable and will target the need to develop only certain attributes – which can differ from individual to individual – creating personal individual development. “Sheep dipping” the whole team in customer handling skills or techniques to improve customer satisfaction is perhaps not appropriate at this level of consideration. The engineers who should be involved are those who aspire to be top performers and have proven their commitment. The leading edge companies are now, however, introducing recruitment processes and development academies to increase the performance level of all their staff, over time. This development is based on fully understanding what the individual perceives they do and to enable them to assess themselves and to facilitate an un-emotional discussion on “why they think what they think”.
In summary, the method described above has proved to be very successful and in particular has produced very fast results with the level of engineers just below the top performers, as they are keen to improve and develop their potential, thereby joining and increasing the number of top performers. It is key to appreciate that these engineers are not sales personnel. They are truly excellent trusted advisers who see their goal as working for the good of the customer as well as the company, realising that the two actions should be seen as one. They are able to match customer needs accurately to what the company can deliver, reducing the cost of service. Building excellent relationships and rapport with the customer allows the engineer to be much more aware of developing/changing needs of the customer and therefore able to ensure that the company is able to provide what the customer needs (additional products and services) quickly and efficiently. The whole development exercise is not about being trained in selling techniques but is about creating additional staff that are much more effective at understanding and then satisfying customer needs not merely delivering customer satisfaction as measured by a survey. To sustain the improvement and increase the coverage of staff able to deliver to the higher performance, it is important to make it understood that the value gained is through much better awareness, interest in, and concern for real customer need – which is why the top 10% have been so successful. Transferring these skills to the next 10% will mean that your top performers will number 20% which will mean a potential increase in generated business and implies a commercial advantage in these tricky times.
