{"id":12799,"date":"2014-07-18T12:35:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T11:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=12799"},"modified":"2019-11-30T03:07:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T08:07:22","slug":"hiring-customer-ready-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/hiring-customer-ready-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiring Customer-Ready Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last two weeks I have been consulting clients on how they can improve their Customer Experience<\/a> and hire people who are emotionally intelligent and Customer-ready. Hiring the right people for your position is a priority for most organizations, particularly when that position has the responsibility to work directly with customers.<\/p>\n

But it is surprising how many organizations don\u2019t give this enough thought. I blame the lack of a Customer Experience Statement (CES),<\/a> which is a statement that defines the customer experience you want to provide your customers for your employees.<\/p>\n

So my question is, if you are hiring customer-facing employees without a CES, how can you know what type of employee you are looking to find? The answer is simple: you can\u2019t. In order to have the right people, you have to know what defines the subjective term \u201cright people\u201d.<\/p>\n

What Does Customer-Ready Mean? Well, That Depends\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Customer-ready is a term from an article<\/a> I just read by author and consultant Jay Forte, a workplace consultant that wrote Fire Up! Your Employees. <\/a>\u00a0They are ready to \u201cdeliver exceptional service\u201d that you want for your customers. But while most organizations have a strong desire for Customer-Ready employees, they really haven\u2019t defined what that exceptional service is.<\/p>\n

I agree with Forte on this point. We often find this is true when we consult our clients about their customer experience. We ask them, \u201cWhat is the experience you are trying to give your Customers?\u201d Many of them have different answers. Part of what we guide them to do in the design phase of their experience is to define exactly what it is that they want to deliver with their customer experience. This is also one of the seven key strategic questions I will \u00a0address at my webinar on July 15th<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We call this process defining the CES. This statement tells employees, no matter what department they work in, what the end goal is for any decision they make for customers. The CES defines how an organization wants to create customer loyalty<\/a> and retention. The CES defines the emotions you are trying to evoke in your Customers.<\/p>\n

Once you define what you want, you hire people that are naturally good at evoking these emotions because they are what your organization defines as Customer-ready.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Build-A-Bear Workshop: A Great Example of Using CES to Define Customer-Ready<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our third book, The DNA of Customer Experience<\/a>, we explore how some of our clients \u00a0accomplished this extraordinarily well using a CES. One example is Build-A-Bear Workshop, who has a goal to supply a consistent experience that makes customers feel cared-for and focuses on their individual needs. If you haven\u2019t had the pleasure of visiting one of their stores, the idea is that you customize a stuffed animal with different accessories to represent your ideal toy.<\/p>\n

When founder of the company and former \u201cChief Executive Bear\u201d Maxine Clark hired employees, she searched for people that could guide their customers down the path of their experience so that \u201cby the time they [Customers] were done, they had created the most personalized gift possible.\u201d In other words, she sought people who made their Customers feel cared-for, one of the emotions that drives value<\/a> for an organization.<\/p>\n

Clark said this in our book:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hire people with this kind of passion and energy. The first thing we look for is people who care. You can train people how to work registers and how to do numbers but you can\u2019t train people to care, that\u2019s what they come with from their background, from their work experience.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Clark\u2019s strategy clearly worked for her organization. The company grew to have 400 stores worldwide. Her strategy of matching the right people to these positions resulted in Fast Company\u2019s Award of \u201cCustomer-Centered Leader in 2005\u2019s Customer First Awards. Also, \u00a0at the time Build-A-Bear Workshop made Fortune\u2019s list of \u201cBest Companies to Work For\u201d the five years running.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Your Definition of Customer-Ready?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure by now you think that this is all really great information, but also wondering,\u00a0 \u201cHow do I find these Customer-ready candidates?\u201d That is an excellent question.<\/p>\n

I have written before about\u00a0what to look for in Customer-facing employees<\/a>: a high Emotional Intelligence (EQ). But while this is important, it is equally important to know exactly what you want them to put the EQ to work for you doing.<\/p>\n

My suggestion is that you need a psychological test in the hiring process that identifies how emotionally intelligent the person is. Then look for key\u00a0characteristics of the type of emotional intelligence you want to use for your experience. Using these guidelines, you can better identify candidates who are Customer-ready.<\/p>\n

So before you sort through the applicants for your position or begin the long afternoon of qualifying phone calls or preliminary interviews for those customer-facing positions you need to fill, invest some time defining what you want those people to do for your organization.\u00a0 By defining the experience you want to provide your customer with a CES, you are able to put that EQ to work more efficiently and effectively with employees that are Customer-Ready.<\/p>\n

Do you have a CES for your organization? How does it define your ideal candidate in the interview process? I\u2019d love to hear some of your insight in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Hiring<\/a><\/p>\n

Colin Shaw<\/a> is founder & CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world\u2019s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin has been recognized by LinkedIn as one of the top 150 Business Influencers<\/span><\/a> in the world. He is an international author of four best-selling books on Customer Experience. Colin\u2019s company, Beyond Philosophy<\/a> provide consulting, specialised research & training from our Global Headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA.<\/p>\n

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter: @ColinShaw_CX<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last two weeks I have been consulting clients on how they can improve their Customer Experience and hire people who are emotionally intelligent and Customer-ready. Hiring the right people for your position is a priority for most organizations, particularly when that position has the responsibility to work directly with customers. But it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[97,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-thought-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}