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“Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.†                                 

                                Jeffrey Gitomer

The Customer Service Story of the Week is about The Residence Inn located in Franklin/Cool Springs, Tenn.  Click the Play button to listen! How do we get that customer loyalty?  How do we get a customer that is willing to come back again and again?  Even more importantly tell 2 or more friends!  Well, I believe it starts with your Wow Culture!

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• Solicit feedback.  Find out from your employees exactly what it is that they believe will be needed to create a Wow experience.  There is no one CEO or president of a company that has all the answers or ideas.  The smartest and the brightest always seek counsel. Dan Miller has a Master Mind e-book called 1+1=3.  The idea is that the power of two minds does not equal 2, the end result of putting two minds together has a greater effect with greater possibilities than a single mind.  When you solicit feedback from you staff or employees, you might be amazed as to the ideas and fun that can be created.  The ideas and creativity is an important part of what your company is to become.  
  

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• Eliminate rules.  When I was younger I was in the Air Force.  The culture of the military is “we will do the thinking for you, your job is to execute”.  How do they accomplish this?  Well, they do it by rules.  If it doesn’t achieve the goal then they add more rules, and so on and so on.  I think you would agree with me that there is no culture of Wow with a lot of rules.  The opposite is necessary if you’re going to change your culture.  Take a look at the rules and begin to eliminate the un-necessary ones.  With too many rules people will begin to feel micro-managed.  This will lead to the elimination of trust and responsible workers.
  

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• Have Fun.  You should create opportunities for fun in the workplace.  At Christmas time we have a decorating contest.  Each area of my office decorates their section into the Christmas theme of their choice.  For example the previous year we decorated ours to resemble “The Grinch that Stole Christmasâ€, another area loves Jimmy Buffett so they created a tropical Christmas theme.  Our employees love the process of decorating and the joy of competition.  But the fun didn’t stop there.  We extended the fun beyond our employees.  As the patients visited our facility we would hand them a voting slip and they would tour the office and vote on the theme they liked the best.  On our last day of work before breaking for Christmas I would tally the votes and reward everyone for their efforts and the winning team with a special prize.  Every year we have done this, it has gone over very well and the best part is how creative and fun the office has become.  So don’t be afraid to have fun, your employees and your culture will thank you for it.
  

For a seven step process of how to create Wow in the workplace please download my free pdf called 7 Steps to Wow!  I’ll have a link in the show notes or you can download it directly from my website at ubergoodexperience.com/resources.  

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• Employee decisions.  Don’t be afraid to get your employees involved in decision making.  This is a wonderful idea for a couple of reasons. The 1^st is it helps to take some of the pressure off the owner’s and/or management’s shoulders from having to decide everything.  Now I’m not saying all of their ideas will be grand but either are yours.  Lord knows I’ve made some bad decisions.  But perhaps they might have been avoided had I solicited the help and ideas of my staff.  The 2^nd is that it creates a sense of ownership in the company.  Employees that feel like they own part of the company will naturally want to work harder and take more pride in its success. A company is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport. If the company loses then the team loses, but if the team wins, then everybody wins and that’s the goal.
  

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• Culture Statements.  Similar to a Mission Statement is a Culture Statement.  A Mission Statement states the purpose of a company but a Culture Statement states the Values of a Company.  It’s not a list of feel-good words, but  actual values which guides the company in its day-to-day decisions.  You need to repeat your Culture Statement at least 17 times before they actually will hear it for the first time.  That’s a minimum!  Patrick Lencioni the author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team†says that as a boss you have not repeated the Culture Statement enough times until your employees can do a perfect impression of you.  That’s when you know you’re getting somewhere.  In other words 17 times is just the beginning.  Don’t be afraid to ask others what the Culture Statement is, have them repeat it, make it part of your everyday.  This helps establish a clear understanding of what the purpose of the company is and its values.
  

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• Live the Wow.  Just like anything we do in life, if it’s for real, people will see it, if it’s an act people will see it.  If you truly want to create a Culture of  Wow in and around your business YOU need to be the Wow.  As a Christian I understand that we are called to be the light.  We are called to be the light in everything we do.  When we behave as the light, people will want to know more and be a part of it.  Wow is a 360 degree game.  Everyone you encounter, co-workers, employees, bosses, managers, vendors, clients etc…  should see the Wow in you and everything you do.  When YOU live the Wow, people will want to know more and be a part of it.
  

So remember every company, whether small or large, has a culture. This culture is the shared values and practices of the company and its employees.

How do you Live the Wow in Your Organization?  I’d Love to hear from You!

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