To prepare for any sales culture we must remember that dissatisfied employees cannot satisfy external customers. Great customer service is the result of T-E-A-M   building.

T-E-A-M   means Talent-Enthusiasm-Attitude-Motivation. 

Internal customers are as important as external customers. T-E-A-M  s are normally made up of a gathering of far-flung and unlikely associates that are given a goal. Bringing them together is not enough…getting them to work together, on a mission, creating and overcoming goals means that the T-E-A-M   has embraced a single goal…to be the best.

 

Along the way your company must remember that the costs associated with building a T-E-A-M    are more than salaries and bonuses. In fact creating great internal customer service is one of the few appreciating assets in any company. The investment is sometimes long term, without repayment, and often frustrating. You must be prepared to make the long-term investment rather than looking for short-term returns.

 

In order to guarantee your investment you must continue to deposit funds in anticipation of the return. Most businesses cannot be reduced to a handful of procedures. Your associates need to learn to think on their feet, improvise and exercise judgment. To accomplish this goal you need a T-E-A-M   approach’ to create great internal customer service.

T-E-A-M s cannot be built until the basics are understood and in place. When you think of great T-E-A-M s do you think of the individuals or the T-E-A-M  ? Great individuals may not make a winning T-E-A-M  .  For instance Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa competed for the title of home run king. Yet neither T-E-A-M   won the World Series that year.

On the other hand the Chicago Bulls not only set individual records, but as a T-E-A-M   became NBA Champions six times.  They functioned as a T-E-A-M  , with one goal, to be the best…and they did it. Along the way some individuals also became recognized but that was never the goal. The goal was for the T-E-A-M   to win not the individual.

 

People are the cornerstones for your success…they make or break factor in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace. A dissatisfied employee costs your company money, gives poor customer service, recruits others (externally and internally). They must be turned into a satisfied employee who desires to give exceptional service.  Focus on internal customer satisfaction prior to external customer satisfaction.Invest in retention! Look at what you are dealing with everyday…a kaleidoscope of CHANGE. It is a frenzied upheaval of traditional organization models- free floating confusion due to vague and constantly SHIFTING priorities. No surprise that people are mentally scattered. Stressed. Your major challenge is ATTENTION MANAGEMENT!

Remember…

  • Careers are fragmenting and people are on the move.
  • Managing toward retention is just a much bigger chore than it used to be.
  • Generation X people born in the middle sixties account for 75% of the new hires. They have different attitudes and values about work and corporate life.
  • They are INDEPENDENT, IMPATIENT, and ENTREPRENEURIAL.
  • They are not interested in paying their dues.
  • Their perspective shifts from “what the employee can offer the company” to “what the company can offer the employee.”

Scarce resources gravitate toward clear goals. Since one of the scarcest resources is people’s attention, you’re responsible for staking out objectives that capture and hold it.

Emails, cell phones, pagers, and the day-to-day business of providing all the wireless communications for the next Millennium interrupt us all. We can not overdose on all the options we make available to our customers. We must manage Tomorrow with passion. When the spirit is moved, work has meaning.

The job gives people joy. They feel connected. They become committed. 

Once they are pointed in the right direction, get out of the way. Liberate them.

Give innovation-running room. Let passion express itself.

Dramatic SHIFTS in the factors of success require an equally dramatic SHIFT in management philosophy and in the conception of work and the worker. Successful people embrace CHANGE.

Shift Happens!®