I want to talk about Company Culture!
Last time I talked about the Customer Journey – about the fact that you, your brand, your company is being judged every minute of the day by someone at some stage on their potential journey to becoming your customer.
There are a number of touchpoints along the way – and remember that it generally takes a number of those to generate trust and build a relationship. The number and the quality of those interactions may depend on the type of business you have and the type of customer you want to attract.
Encouraging someone to buy a birthday card will in general be quicker and easier than perhaps a new car? (Car buying is a whole other thing – now that we can buy with the tap of an ipad on Cazoo – but I digress – as usual).
In order to attract the customers we want – and most importantly KEEP them – we need to ensure they encounter quality and consistency at every step. We talked about Quality a few weeks back. It all makes a difference to how we are perceived and then to the ease with which we can build a relationship.
I also mentioned that there are a number of people you need to consider – not just if you have employees working with you – but also others who may wear your metaphorical t-shirt.
For those in your organisation you need to build a company culture with which they can identify and which will help them to represent the company in the best light at all times.
What does that mean?
Sometimes you may hear people refer to “the way we do things around here” – which is part of it – but it’s a little bit more too.
So yes – having standards and procedures is really important – for even the smallest companies – setting out exactly how services are delivered to ensure consistent quality is a good start.
But it’s more than that!
Values and Purpose
It’s knowing and understanding the aims, purpose and values of the company.
Do you know those yourself?
A surprising number of small business owners really don’t! Shocker!
(so if that’s you – it’s worth thinking about – and I will come back to solo entrepreneurs in a little while)
But equally shocking is the number of business – large and small – where the company aims, purpose and values are a mystery to most of the employees. And that’s where everything starts to unravel.
If your staff (or even freelancers, VAs etc) don’t really understand what the company is about how can we expect them to do a stellar job of representing the organisation at all times? And don’t wriggle out of it by saying they are not customer -facing – what about when they talk about their job with their friends or (eek) on social media!?
Have you heard of James Timpson?
Those in the UK may be familiar with his company. Timpsons is the place we all go to to get our shoes heeled or keys cut. They are on every high street.
What has your experience been in a Timpsons store?
Generally good? It’s a fairly mundane product so it’s hard to see how to get much pleasure out of the basic transaction but that’s not the point.
Every employee is there to delight you. Yes that is correct. And you may have seen a notice in every store that says that every employee has the freedom to do whatever they want to in order to please the customer.
Not many places have that philosophy – right?
James Timpson also
- Employs ex-offenders
- Provides free services to job-seekers
- And recently said he would pay the prescription charges of any female employee who needs HRT (in England – prescriptions are free in Scotland).
What a culture! Who doesn’t want to work for an organisation that does things like that? How good do people feel? How much do they want to treat customer well?
(By contrast most women work for companies whose private health insurance doesn’t cover menopause issues – how they LOVE working there!)
Remember the blog on Quality – how in Japanese car firms any and every employee has the right to point out issues and stop the production line.
So it’s not just “the manual” or “playbook” of how we do things around here.
It’s communicating the aims, purpose and values of the company.
Don’t just send an email telling employees how to behave – and you must be prepared to walk the walk.
It’s making people feel like they belong and are valued – whatever their role (and whether customer-facing or not).
It’s people understanding that giving great customer service is their responsibility and that they have carte blanche to provide it, and that quality (not just of the product they are selling) is paramount.
If you work alone you still should consider all of the above.
What are your aims, purpose and values (and those of your business)?
How can you deliver the best quality to customers at every stage of the journey and delight them?
What about customers? Do they understand you and your culture – many will make buying decisions based on their perception of your culture – they want to purchase from businesses they align with on a deeper level.
And if you are in the process of recruiting new staff you will have greater success if candidates understand what makes the company tick, and if they think that it resonates with them. They will also stay longer (it’s not true that younger people flit from job to job willy nilly – they often tend to move because they don’t like the culture).
Let me know what you think – have you thought about your own company culture – and have you communicated it to staff and customers?
It may be a good time to start! It may help you win more business.
Get in touch if you’d like to chat about how I can help.