Service Starts with Employees

John Bray

Customer service is often seen as an outward-facing aspect of doing business in the service industry. Company A provides services or goods to those shopping at Company A and the employees of Company A must ensure that every customer enjoys his/her experience. This notion is correct, but it greatly simplifies the process. As Jon Wolske from Zappos highlighted in last month’s installment of this series, company culture is critical and the experience is everything. But company culture and customer experience are practically joined at the hip and, if you’re not careful, that can prove to be detrimental.

Michael Levy, Director of Creative and Operations at Paxton Gate in San Francisco, knows this well. When he joined Paxton Gate, the company was a well-established San Francisco landmark. What started as a small, hidden shop in 1992 had grown to become a busy storefront on San Francisco’s beautiful Valencia Street in the Mission District. But after nearly two decades as a standout shop offering more-than-unique products—nearly all forms of home décor, from taxidermy to gem stones to plants—things were shifting for the worse.

“We stopped being known for what we carried,” says Michael of the situation when he joined, “we kind of started being known for not great service.” For a company with a long-time, loyal and diverse customer base, that meant it was time for a change.

“For a long time we have been such a product-focused business,” says Michael, “but you can have all the great product in the world and if you’re rude to your customers—if you don’t take care of them—they’ll stop coming in.” It sounds simple enough, but it’s easy to get caught in the trap of having the best or the most unique selection in town only to ignore what’s most important. Simply put: “customer first” is multifaceted and easier said than done. Sure, exceptional products make for a great experience, but anyone with a savvy team of buyers can have exceptional products; at the end of the transaction, it’s the overall experience that matters most.

Step 1: A Change of Perspective
To directly change the customer experience, the team at Paxton Gate started looking at themselves as docents of that experience rather than employees. According to Michael, this effort was as much about freeing people from the cash-wrap as it was about letting employees become specialists. It’s nearly impossible for any one employee to know everything when the product offering is so diverse, but when employees specialize in one area—whether it’s a personal interest or a subject that turns out to be a natural fit—and have a general understanding of the store as a whole, there’s always someone available to answer customer questions and guide the experience; however, Michael notes that not setting individual sales goals helps make this possible.

Without worrying about hitting individual targets or fighting for commission, employees work as a team and learn where to turn for answers to the tough questions. They also learn that it’s okay to not always have every answer on the spot. Sometimes that means redirecting a customer to the resident expert and sometimes that means turning to the Internet for some research. In an environment like that, everyone learns something new and the customer remembers the store that went the extra mile. But the most impactful overall improvement likely came about as a result of efforts that didn’t have any direct impact on the customers.

Step 2: More Value
Those improvements involved the employees and the way they were valued by the company.

“In order to change our customer service,” recalls Michael, “we had to change how we value and treat employees internally.” If employees are unhappy with the work environment and they don’t feel valued, those feelings gradually worsen until overall morale drops and customers start paying the price.

“It’s been a shift in focus,” says Michael, “maintaining a positive attitude, but also making direct changes that influence people’s lives. We need to be able to take care of our people if we expect them to do what we need them to do.” To accomplish this in part, Paxton Gate was able to raise wages and offer health insurance and, as expected, the changes had a tremendous domino effect on both morale and service. Though the expression is now more than cliché, this represents a classic help-me-help-you scenario. And this idea crosses every market/ industry boundary out there.

When employees feel valued, good service follows. The simplest way to guarantee that you’re succeeding in this area is to never lose sight of the connection between internal and external service. For Paxton Gate, that means having both employees and customers in mind for all changes.

“When we develop our practices internally for how we take care of employees,” says Michael of the new and improved Paxton Gate, “we have our customers in mind.”

Though there’s the argument that customer service is less about making customers happy and more about making them feel successful—that’s only okay if you want to maintain. For companies looking to excel, customer service is about more than maintaining; it’s about engaging with customers and providing service they won’t soon forget. At the end of the day, you’re in the business of customer service because, as Michael perfectly put it, “ultimately, if you’re customer facing, customer service is your business.” After all, product selection is great, but flowers don’t answer questions, make connections or really understand a customer’s needs. GP

John Bray is an author and freelance writer living in the western suburbs of Chicago. He has a background in both creative writing and technical communications and can be reached by visiting john-bray.com or by emailing
johnbray.bray@gmail.com.