Guide employees with a vision

- How do you you define outstanding customer service? You probably have some thoughts or maybe a few examples. Here's the key question. Do your employees in your organization or on your team all share that same definition? Companies with strong service cultures take the time to clearly define what outstanding service means to them. That definition is called a customer service vision. A Customer Service Vision is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page. Here's an example of why that matters. I once went to a store to buy some camping equipment. I found a sales associate and asked for some help and she pointed me towards the camping isle, she was friendly but entirely transactional. Now it's tempting to blame her but her approach reflected the culture of the entire store. That's because they lacked a customer service vision. I really needed some expert help so I left that store and went to REI a company that sells outdoor gear like camping equipment, bicycles, kayaks and apparel. REI has a clear customer service vision which is, "We inspire, educate and outfit "for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship." it's easy to see REI employees reflecting this vision. The associate who assisted me was an avid camper who enthusiastically helped me pick out the right equipment for a backpacking trip. Now this wasn't a lucky accident REI's culture is built around an enthusiasm for helping people enjoy the outdoors. A strong customer service vision has three characteristics. The first characteristic is it's simple and easily understood. For example REI's vision makes it clear that the company's trying to help people enjoy the outdoors. A vision should bring clarity and it can't do that if it's too long or too complicated. The second characteristic is it's focused on customers. Things like profitability or driving market share might be worthy end goals but customer focused companies achieve those goals by focusing on their customers. Your vision must focus on customers if you want employees to be customer focused too. The third characteristic of a great vision is that reflects both who you are now and who you aspire to be in the future. In other words it has to be grounded in reality so the vision feels authentic to employees. A strong vision is based on a mixture of what's working for us now and what we're going to build on for the future. Many organizations have a mission, organizational vision or another statement do double duty as the customer service vision. Now that's perfectly okay in fact REI's customer service vision is actually the company mission statement. Keep in mind the key is to give employees clear and consisted direction when it comes to serving customers. So your customer service vision becomes a compass that always points your employees toward the same type of outstanding customer service.