As I continue to think about how our internal processes and procedures impact the external client experience, I realized that often it is best to see examples so that you might better share these with your team. So here are some internal examples of poor service mentality and the way it can be experienced externally by your clients:
1) Internally there is a feeling of instability in the workplace. Your staff may lack confidence in handling client situations and therefore in turn make the clients feel insecure.
2) When your team members don’t trust one another, this may encourage “negative” competition within the team and thus establish barriers between one another, allowing for distant behavior, lacking in openness and honesty.
3) Team members don’t share information openly and honestly which translates into failure to share with clients and appearing vague.
4) Team members are constantly watching their backs and thus they are not watching your clients.
5) When team members feel unappreciated they often reflect that onto their clients– clients feel unappreciated and unwanted.
6) Team members feel micromanaged and they translate that into a lack of responsibility for their actions with clients, even disengagement.
7) When team members are unresponsive to one another they are equally non-responsive to clients.
8) Team members who feel underutilized again often come across as disengaged to your clients.
9) When there is a competitive atmosphere clients feel a sense of an adversarial or defensive relationship.
10) When there is a lack of job satisfaction it translates into the client feeling as if they are a total waste of time.
Client service and the client experience begin “at home”. If you can create the WOW experience for your team members then you can’t help but create the same for your clients. You owe it to your clients to give them the best experience they can have, this will increase your case load exponentially. But, you owe the same to your team members. This will increase your productivity, decrease your turn-over and increase your bottom-line (not to mention, make going to work a very pleasant experience for everyone!).