Every business owner believes that if you want something truly done right, you have to get your hands dirty and do it yourself. Often for self-made successes who are used to putting in hard work for their brand, the toughest lesson for many to learn can be that most of their time is better spent delegating and focussing on the bigger picture.
Here are why you should delegate customer service to your staff, and ways you can stay involved with your customer's experience, without getting in the way of your team.
- 2:35 Recognize Biases Toward Yourself. It's you business and your bottom line, so you may take criticism a little harder than the average employee. You may even feel like you're right in denying a refund, simply because as the boss you're the final word. But this is business, so don't make it personal.
- 3:10 Remove Yourself, Remove The Bias. The best customer service isn't an advocate for either the customer or the store exclusively, but a team dedicated to resolving shopping issues as fast as possible. They are working to protect your reputation just as much as serve your customers or defend your bottom line, without getting hung up on the details.Don't worry about how much it costs, within reason, just get it done.
- 4:45 Use Customer Service As An Opportunity To Learn. Don't treat every customer complaint as a negative interaction that didn't go your way. Listen to what they have problems with, and take steps to improve them. Put their feedback to work for you.
- 5:15 Share Outliers And Experiences Among The Team. Don't let your team members work in isolation or keep them in the dark. Set up an internal chat among your staff, and share with each other. Good experiences, bad experiences, reoccurring issues, upcoming crunches. The more your entire team knows, the few chances for mistakes and the better they will perform.
- 5:35 Weekly Meetings For Recurring Issues. If you do identify an ongoing problem that keeps popping up no matter what, coordinate weekly strategy sessions to go over the latest data and brainstorm solutions. Two heads are better than one, and the more minds working a problem, the more likely you'll quickly arrive at a solution that benefits your business. At the very least, stay updated yourself, so that nothing surprises you down the road.
Remember, you're not losing control, you're just delegating responsibly. None of this means you can't hop on when your team gets hit by heavy traffic and it's all hands on deck. It just means that unless it's extraordinary circumstances like Black Friday sales, you shouldn't have to to personally maintain the standards you expect for your customer experience.
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