Employee Customer Care Matters: Interview with Sybil Stershic

If you’re a people manager, then you know taking care of your people is the most important thing you can do. You know that you can’t get work done without the people you serve and yet many organizations don’t invest any time or money in employee customer care. I had been looking for a good book about this for quite a while, so when I was offered a chance to review Taking Care of the People Who matter most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care, I hoped this book would be worth reviewing.

Not only was it worth reviewing, but the author is an amazing individual who I was fortunate enough to spend 45 minutes chatting with the author on the phone, learning more than is even offered in this great book.

Today I am delighted to share Sybil Stershic with you in a rough transcript of our conversation. If you read all the way to the end, you’ll get discount code to get you 20% off the price of the book. FYI: The audio file isn’t ready just yet, but I’ll share it with you as soon as it is. And I’ll be doing a full book review shortly as well.

Phil: Sybil, why are you so passionate about this internal marketing and employee customer care?

Sybil: Because I want to create a better workplace committed to both employee- and customer satisfaction.

Phil: Your book is called Taking Care of the People Who matter most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care. What does that mean?

Sybil: It’s based on the impact employees have on customers; namely, the way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers!

Phil: Sounds so simple to me. Tell me…Why don’t more organizations do this?

Sybil: There are a few reasons for this.

1. Benign neglect — With everything managers have to do these days, it sometimes falls through the cracks. Companies forget the ongoing need to communicate where employees fit in the scope of the organization and what is expected of them in helping the organization achieve its goals (assuming management remembers to share the company’s direction!).
2. Employees just don’t know where they fit into the organization
3. New employees get a lot of attention, but after employees have been on the job for a while, when do they get the reinforcement of where they fit in the scope and what they do contributes to the bottom line. How can you expect employees help an organization move towards success if they don’t know what to do or how they fit in? Annual performance review is one time to reinforce this, but how can you do this more often?
4. Arrogance is another reason. It’s like a “Field of Dreams” approach to management: tell employees their the company’s greatest asset and they’ll act the part.

Phil: What’s your favorite story of a company who does get it?

Sybil: Wood Dining Services gets it! I walked into the HQ, and they had a wall of fame. Anytime the CEO got a letter from a customer/vendor/partner complimenting an employee, that went up on the wall of fame. President of the organization (Bob Wood) would call the employee, make a fuss, call HR, and put it up on the wall.

At the monthly staff orientations, they welcome new employees, and they also talk about the values of the organization, how they focused on their employees as well as their customers.

My favorite story is this: The CEO spent 60-70% of his time in the field, and did a LOT of recognition, to catch people doing something right. He carried plastic gold pineapple pins, and go back in the kitchen, catch them doing something right, and hand them a plastic pineapple. I think these pins cost 47 cents, but these people thought they were getting a pile of gold. This was successful because everyone wants to be part of something — to feel that they are valued, that they made a difference. To the degree we can celebrate our people, that’s our greatest weapon, our greatest tool.”

Phil: Celebrating our people. So simple, yet so under done.

Phil: So Sybil, what’s the best tip you can share for managers who want to put this into practice?

Sybil: Here are a few.

• Ask them the questions of what’s happening, are you getting the tools & information you need to do your job, what gets in the way of serving customers and how can we improve, listening, and asking them what will help
• Listen
• Respond
• Hold face-to-face staff meetings; many do this via e-mail because it’s much more convenient. It’s a chance for everyone to get together and talk about everything. Hold them at least once a month.
• Have top down communication but a bottom up response

Phil: What are some other resources we can use for employee customer care?

Sybil: There are LOTS of books and blogs out there. I’ll share a few of my favorites.

Blogs:

• Forum for people performance management and measurement
• David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Network

My 3 favorite books:

• The Customer Comes Second by Hal Rosenbluth
• Love ‘em or Lose ‘em by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans
• Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Performance by Rajendra Sisodia, David Wolfe, and Jag Sheth (beyond internal marketing, passion and performance

One other recommendation: Find people who work at the Fortune 100 best companies or seek out those companies that never make the list and them what NOT to do!

Phil: What is internal marketing all about in 1 word

Sybil: It’s the L-word. No, it’s NOT love. It’s Leadership

Phil: What did I miss?

Sybil: Remember that internal marketing is NOT a program, it’s an ongoing effort. It’s not a flavor of the week, it MUST be done sincerely.

Phil: Thanks Sybil. Where can we get more from you and your work?

Sybil: You can find my blog at http://www.qualityservicemarketing.blogs.com or pick up a copy of Taking Care of the People Who matter most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care at WME Books.

One last note to remember:

Customers are also internal, you must take care of other employees

Connect – critical connections –

Need to connect employees:

• to the organization (e.g., Where they fit in and what’s expected of them)
• to the customers (so they can take better care of them)
• and to other employees (connect with other employees/co-workers to create a sense of empathy and teamwork).

Strengthening these connections conveys & reinforces a sense of common purpose, a sense of belonging and being part of something special.

Phil: Thanks so much Sybil! So much to learn and so much to DO as a manager!

Special offer: If you order Taking Care of the People Who matter most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care from WME Books, and enter code 107VBT, you can take 20% off.

To read more from the virtual book tour with Sybil, check out these great posts:

Phil Gerbyshak wants to know: What tips do YOU have to increase employee engagement? Which tips did Sybil share that resonated the most with you?

Pictures all courtesy of Sybil Stershic