Moraleity

After a ten-day recharge, I returned to the office yesterday to find it colored a pallid grey.  Morale felt worse than frustration … it bordered on the indifferent.  Sometime last evening it occurred to me that it may have been more than my absence that put my fellow day-jobbers in such a stupor.

I may have been swallowed up in the belly of the beast as well … but I had the luxury of an absence that lent itself to perspective.

Through the prism of my partner Steve’s blog, I hope this post sheds a little proper light on the subject:

Positive Attitude Review Exercises

Want your reps to improve their service attitude? David
Freemantle, author of The Buzz, a book on "little things that make a
big difference in customer service," offers these end-of-day review
practices.

• "At the end of every day, spend five minutes with your
  colleagues and share stories about how each of you has cared for
  customers in the last 24 hours."
• "Sit down for five minutes or so every evening to reflect on the
  positive choices you made at work that day. List them if it helps, and
  review them with your teammates the next morning."
• "Be curious about things you don’t know and don’t understand. Ask 10 new questions every day and put the answers to good use."

Contact: David Freemantle, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, www.nbrealey-books.com

This is from the ICSA Fun Facts website http://www.icsa.com/news/FunFacts.cfm as is this tidbit:

What Demotivates Service Staff

There are a number of ways in which you can demotivate
your customer service staff without even realizing it, says Peggy
Morrow, author of Customer Service: How to Do It Right! (Southern
Mountain Press). They include:

• Rewarding the wrong things. For instance, when you say you want
  behavior that pleases customers, yet give promotions and bonuses to
  those who push through the greatest number of customers regardless of
  service.
• Signaling right and turning left. That is, when you say you want to
  put the customer first and then create workplace rules and procedures
  that make it difficult to follow precept.
• Implementing unnecessary rules, processes, and procedures. In
  general, when a service rep doesn’t understand why a rule is in place,
  it will get in the way of good service to customers.
• Introducing constant change. If there’s constant downsizing,
  reorganization, or reengineering, reps will quickly turn off their
  discretionary effort and begin to deliver the minimum performance to do
  their jobs.

Contact: Peggy Morrow, Peggy Morrow & Associates, www.peggymorrow.com