Your staffing firm probably does a fantastic job supporting the customers who buy your services (after all, they’re the ones paying the bills, right?).
But as I explained in my last shareworthy service post, your team should treat co-workers as well as they’d treat a new client. Doing so increases morale. It improves performance and productivity. It builds your brand. And it raises the bar for how external customers should be treated.
Delivering great customer service isn’t rocket science. It just takes common sense and consistent effort. In fact, many of the service concepts you apply to your clients and prospects work equally well internally! To help you get started on the path to internal service excellence, here are six quick tips:
- Promote buy-in. For your service initiatives to work, everyone in your staffing service must agree with the concepts and be willing to execute them. If you face resistance, focus on the WIIFM factor – things employees stand to gain or lose.
- Empathize. Professionalism and empathy are hallmarks of great customer service programs. Make sure you incorporate those same principles in your internal efforts. Empathize with the challenges team members face in their daily responsibilities, and give them the same level of attention and respect you’d afford your best clients.
- Empower. Internal customer service programs thrive in proactive work environments. Bureaucracy kills them. Encourage, train and empower your staff to take initiative – and go the extra mile for one another.
- Change your team’s mindset. If your employees tend to view everyday interruptions as hindrances to their success, help them reexamine their thinking. Teach them to identify internal customers’ real needs, and to view the time spent helping internal customers with valid requests as opportunities to serve – not interruptions. Promote a collaborative culture that embraces each staff member’s role in sharing information and providing services that helps others get their jobs done.
- Lead by example. You always deliver service that makes HR and hiring managers look like rock stars. Do the same for your employees! Simple things like providing complete information (without being asked), speaking positively about employees, and consistently meeting commitments to them supports their success. Makes their jobs easier. And makes them look good. To boot, paying it forward will ultimately make you look like a hero, too.
- Recognize internal service excellence. When you see shareworthy internal customer service at work in your organization, shout it from the rooftops! Recognize and reward employees whose actions demonstrate the priority you place on treating all customers (internal and external) well.
Have an internal customer service tip that works well in your staffing or recruiting firm? I’d love to hear about it! Share your best practices or success stories below.