GPI 155 – Courtesy counts – your company is only as good as your worst employee.

If you take the attitude that your company is only as good as your worst employee, you can start to make improvements.  Work on improvement from the bottom up.  Find out who needs customer training by asking some of these questions listed below.

Find the ‘weak’ links.  Gather your answers and work on the consensus of names that need to be ‘softened up’ concerning customer relations.  Get these people away from customers until they are ready to convey the professional attitude you want the public to have of your firm and your brand.

Ask all employees these questions to discover, train or ultimately root out discourteous employees or prevalent bad attitudes.

• Who is the most courteous and pleasant employee that comes immediately to mind who deals best with customers?  If you are in doubt, ask yourself this question:  If an important customer calls, who do you comfortably refer them to in the sales department?
• Which employee in any department of the company is the least trained to deal with customers?  Hopefully the answer to this question is not someone assigned to your sales department.
• What department has the worst reputation for dealing with the public and obviously needs to improve customer relations skills?
• What department has the best reputation and does the best job?  Are there any excellent people who stand out in that department who come to mind?
• Of all the people you can think of, who particularly needs extensive training to deal with the public and customer concerns?
• Who conveys the best professional attitude for the company in your opinion?
• As a consumer or potential customer, yourself, who in the organization would you rather deal with first if you have a choice in the matter?  Who would prefer to deal with last?  Why?