Page 34 - Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Principle 2 Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Employ authentic service superstars

Even if you’re an independent professional, entrepreneur, or
freelancer you’ll still have to work with people or outsource
business activities to help you deliver your service. Therefore,
your team should share your values, enthusiasm and work ethic
and have the appropriate skills, knowledge and experience for
their role. It starts with selecting the best person for each role in
terms of expertise, competence, experience, cultural alignment
and attitude. I still see people who have been appointed for their
technical knowledge and are sadly lacking in people skills. It’s
therefore particularly important that companies which provide
experiences for their customers, adopt the following as a guiding
principle:

Appoint for attitude and train for skills.

It’s far easier to up-skill an individual with the right technical
competencies, than provide a personality transplant!

Employ service superstars, real people who understand the
importance of providing exceptional experiences and share your
core values and beliefs. Many employees leave organisations
because their values are at odds with the culture of the company.
These cultural anomalies have the potential to create painful
experiences for you, your team and the end user, so it’s important
you appreciate the potential impact right from the start. Recruit
the right fit, then follow that up with ongoing support, training
and encouragement.

According to my good friend, author Liggy Webb:

People can be radiators or drains - the former exude
warmth, are a tonic and a pleasure to be around, the latter
suck the life out of you!

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