Customer service, employee loyalty and Undercover Boss
What’s your employee turnover like? Do you tend to keep staff (particularly the good ones!), or is staff turnover an issue for you?
Is there a relationship between customer service and employee loyalty?
In the third Undercover Boss programme last night they followed Paul Fisher,, Head of the Jockey Club, as he went undercover to try to understand what was going on at the coal face of his organisation.
Now, this is a business which has few full-time staff. The vast majority of it’s staff are casual, part-time labour, which brings with it its own set of problems in terms of management and customer service.
In the racecourses run by the Jockey Club, there are bars, facilities and fine restaurants, serving to very discerning customers, yet the majority of staff are casual, part time labour, turning up only on race days.
How on earth do you ensure you are motivating staff? How do you keep good staff coming back? How do you ensure great customer service from individuals who on the face of it, need have no sense of loyalty to an organisation at all? The possibility of having to quickly train up dozens of new staff each race day, would tax even the most willing and skilled of managers!
What Paul Fisher found did not surprise me.
He found it was the manager which made the difference.
There was George, the 81 year old who oversaw the turnstiles, who’d been doing it for years.
There was Julie, the manageress at the 5 star restaurant. She had a number of young staff serving; some students, who, OK, are not going to stay for life, but who kept going back because they said Julie made it fun; she incentivised them with praise, with games and small gifts (such as Easter eggs) which she even paid for out of her own pocket. these young students just liked working for her – and as Julie herself said,
“If we enjoy it, the customer enjoys it.”
Then there was Tony, the groundsman; 67 years old with a tough and demanding physical job – but with a loyal group of workers of whom Fisher said: “They do it for Tony. He cares about the place.”
Fisher’s biggest learning from his undercover experience? He summarised it like this:
“I used to look at the people in the organisation as costs on a spreadsheet.
They’re not costs to the business. They’re the value to the business.”
And of employee loyalty he said:
“I’ve realised people’s loyalty is to the person they work for, not to the jockey club.”
He realised they needed to do more for the casual staff – casual or not, they are the individuals the Jockey Club customers interact with every single race day. He also realised there was a lack of recognition for staff: that it wasn’t really about the money, it was about recognition. If they want every racecourse to show the same high standards of commitment, and customer service, then good practice needed to be shared, encouraged and rewarded.
So, what did Fisher do as a result?
He agreed to improve facilities for staff.
He told Julie her ideas for incentivising her team would be encouraged elsewhere; that she’d be part of a group tasked to look at how to improve and retain employee loyalty, and that she’d not have to dip into her own pocket anymore for staff rewards!
He told the Board they needed to look at how they bring about a culture change to improve employee motivation and loyalty.
And he realised if there was one way to stay connected to the heartbeat of your business, it’s to work with your people.
Good customer service is only as good as the people delivering it.
If staff don’t feel connected; if they don’t feel valued; if they don’t stay long enough to get really good at customer service, then your business is bound to suffer.
Whether you face the same challenges of the Jockey Club or not, the message remains: good managers make a difference to employee turnover and customer service.
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For more information to help you with the people side of management,
including how to improve employee motivation and get the best out of your team, take a look at these great resources:
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