Charity Begins At Home

A famous saying states that, “charity begins at home.” This is so true and highlights the need to be hospitable in your own home before you attempt to practice it outside. Let me give you an example of what I have observed over the years where the phrase charity begins at home has been violated. A father is known for his abusive tendencies upon his wife and kids. They fear him and no one questions his authority, when he comes home children clamour for cover. They actually go to bed or lock themselves in their respective rooms just to avoid an encounter with their own father. But have you ever observed this same father interacting with the woman next door or her children? He is the best man you have ever seen. An angel in the making! In fact, the woman next door might actually envy this man’s wife, repeatedly saying how lucky she is to have such a wonderful man as a husband. This is a sad reality of “charity begins at home” gone bad.
 

A similar scenario occurs in most businesses today. They go all out to advertise their excellent customer service to customers. They spend huge amounts of money on billboards, running promotional campaigns and donating lots of money to charitable organisations. But they treat their customer facing employees as crap; they consider them second citizens. How so sad! This is a classic example of a father who is an angel in the street but a devil closer to home. 

Moment of Truth

The phrase “moment of truth” describes the point of contact between your business and the customers. This point usually happens between your customer interfacing employees and the customer. The same employees that you are ill-treating are responsible for making or breaking the customer service experience. Reality sinks when customers realize that the advertising campaigns do not serve them when they get into your premises but employees who are disgruntled, unmotivated and with no will power to offer service. Customers start to move their business to competition or they lodge complaint after complaint. What does management do?

The Stick Approach

Management calls the employees concerned and threaten to fire them. They should “either shape up or ship out”, they are told. “Bad customer service is not tolerated here, we are known by our customers for providing excellent service so don’t mess that reputation.” They go on ranting and raving. Does this leave employees feeling better, geared for service delivery? Your guess is as good as mine! So what should management rather have done?

The Carrot Approach

Management should learn the basic tenets of old age theories of motivation. Managerial behaviour usually suggest that they have never heard about the hundreds of studies in human motivation that prove that job satisfaction, self-respect and other intangible values motivate employees. Instead of threatening employees with termination of employment contracts, management should incentivise employees. Treat them as customers first. Show them you care for their welfare and are concerned when they face personal calamity. Employees should be encouraged to air out their concerns without fear of victimisation and their concerns should be addressed. Let them know what you are able to do for them and what you cannot do. Be frank, do not allow for grapevine to inform employees of what management thinks about them. Say it yourself. The boss’s real job is to serve the employee, and the purpose of the employee becomes to serve the customer. When this happens, the bottom line takes care of itself.

“Our first priority should be the people who work for the companies, then the customers, then the shareholders. Because if the staff is motivated then the customers will be happy, and the shareholders will then benefit through the company’s success”

                                                            Richard Branson

Richard Branson practices what he preaches. He has made lots of money by taking on giant businesses and outperforming them in their own backyard. How does he do that? He makes sure his brand, Virgin, concentrates on service delivery by treating his employees as customers first. You should do the same and treat your employees as customers first. Another example is essential at this point.

“We spend all our time on people. The day we screw up the people thing this company is over.”

Jack Welch

General Electric has been the most profitable business on the globe due to its emphasis on taking care of their employees and then allowing them to take care of their customers. The company spends billions of dollars developing, rewarding and taking care of their employees’ needs.  The current CEO, Jeff Immelt once said, “Developing and motivating people is the most important part of my job. We invest $1 billion each year in training to make them better. I spend the entire month of April in our talent development process. I spend about one third of my time on people. We recruit, we train, we develop, we improve, we think about people constantly.”(source John Tschohl, 2012. Achieving Excellence Through Customer Service, 8^th Ed pg 32)

 
The writer Ed Masau is the Customer Experience Officer (CEO) of Customer Service International who is passionate about improving the customer experiences offered by organizations. He is a Certified Customer Service Trainer with Service Quality Institute (SQI) and a Competent Communicator (CC) with Toastmasters International. He writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted on edmasau@customerserviceinter.com.