So why stop at one week of recognition when there are 52 weeks in a year?
As we conclude international Customer Service Week, it would serve us well to consider whether or not your customer service program includes ongoing and consistent recognition of your employees. Like our customers, employees who are happy will remain loyal and productive to our organizations.
Real world story: International Customer Service Week is celebrated yearly in the first full week of October. It is a week dedicated to celebrating the people who deliver service to consumers—our clients, customers, patients, and patrons. The week is celebrated in many forms and themes, everything from catered lunches, dress up day, team-building crafts projects, to mock game shows in which employees win prizes. No matter how organizations celebrate the week, the intention remains the same—to build morale and show appreciation for customer service representatives who dedicate their careers to helping others. But why stop at one week out of the year? To develop and maintain a great service staff requires ongoing and consistent recognition of employees.
Strategies that Turn it Around:
- Develop a plan: If you don’t already have an employee recognition component, then you’ll first need to decide on frequency. Will you acknowledge employees on a weekly basis, or monthly or even quarterly basis? Next, you’ll need to create a budget. So you’ll need to know what sort of acknowledgments you want to implement—a free lunch, movie tickets, a gift card, cash awards or paid time off. Once you know the frequency and type of recognitions you want to implement, you’ll want to ensure that you carefully spell out the requirements necessary for an employee to be recognized. Having requirements in writing and adhering to them will help you to steer clear of favoritism.
- Implement the plan consistently: To ensure consistency of implementation, you’ll first want to get approval for your employee recognition program as well as total buy-in from your management. This program will need to be included every year thereafter in your company’s budget. Without approval and buy-in from management, your program will suffer from being implemented consistently. And without consistency, employees themselves will not want to put in the effort to participate. You’ll also need to decide on who will manage the program and who will determine the person being recognized, based on your pre-established criteria.
Remember: The best people to delivery exceptional customer service are the ones who are happy and who enjoy their jobs because they are duly recognized for their efforts. When you recognize employees, they feel respected, regarded, and are motivated to achieve greatness within your organization. So why stop at one week of recognition when there are 52 weeks in a year?
What do YOU do to ensure that your team members are fittingly recognized for delivering exceptional customer service all year long?