The Incisal Edge

From BNET insight.

Say customer service and the one organisation that springs to many minds is John Lewis. The retailer pipped other retail rivals to the top slot in a recent poll by the Institute of Customer Service for customer satisfaction, closely followed by grocery stablemate Waitrose.

Called the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, the poll found four out of the top ten brands recognised for customer service were retailers, prompting the researchers to assume the sector as a whole had redoubled its efforts to serve their customers well in an attempt to stave off the effects of the economic downturn. Certainly John Lewis has done better than most.

What is also interesting is six out of the top ten places have been shared by three companies – JLP, Marks & Spencer and Virgin, suggesting there may be a relationship between strong brands and the perception of good service. These three brands have been well known for good customer service in the past and it’s possible there is a self-fulfilling prophesy at work here. Customers expect these brands to give good service and so they receive it.

Nonetheless, there’s no real substitute for a strong basic philosophy for good service at ground-level, as Victoria Simpson, development manager for customer service at John Lewis confirms.

She explained the retailer’s reputation for good customer service is built on the concept being a core part of its corporate culture. It’s not delivered from the top-down, she said. Front line staff are expected to make decisions affecting customer service by themselves. They are encouraged to come up with ideas to improve customer service, which are fed back up to managers.

Crucially, John Lewis is also known for its employee satisfaction as well and Simpson explains this goes hand- in-hand with the service partners (JLP does not use the words staff or employees. Every member of the company is also a shareholder and they are given a yearly dividend out of the company’s profits) give to customers. A happy and engaged workforce passes that satisfaction on to customers.

Just as anywhere else, John Lewis’ corporate culture on customer service has to be taught to new joiners, who are paired with more experienced staff to learn the retailer’s way of treating customers. This buddy system is supported by an ongoing training programme, which is continually updated as staff develop their customer service approaches.

Simpson has a few words of advice to other retailers and other businesses. They may seem obvious, but she’s not certain they are followed as rigorously by John Lewis’ rivals. As it’s John Lewis at the top of the pile and not some other retailer, she may have a point.

1. Ask customers what they want and listen to their response. Get their feedback through a multiplicity of channels, including the shop floor.
2. Actually do something with the information about that is fed back. It’s tempting to feel that once the information has been gathered, the job is done. Your processes and culture need to be altered as a result.
3. Talk to front-line staff. They have insights no one else can form. It makes them feel good too and hopefully they will pass that feeling on to customers.

Make the most of staff appraisals

From Pitt Godden & Taylor‘s weekly newsletter

It is important to hold regular staff appraisals even if you have just one employee.
They do not have to be intimidating or formal affairs, but they do have to be clear and well thought-out. Ideally, staff should be appraised every six months.
From your point of view, you can use appraisals to tell your staff how you think they are doing. If you are pleased with their performance you can use the opportunity to reinforce their behaviour through encouragement and reward.
If you are not satisfied with their performance you can use the opportunity to help them understand where there is room for improvement and suggest ways in which they might accomplish this improvement.
Be specific. No one likes being told, ‘Well, I just think you need to get your act together generally.’
From the employee’s point of view an appraisal provides an opportunity to discuss their future with your organization and to raise any issues that might concern them.
It also allows them to vent any frustrations they might be feeling.
Don’t be frightened to give them the space to let off some steam. Listen sincerely and objectively to what they say and note any points you think are valid for future action.

Here’s a link to a useful tool for calculating, comparing profits, taxes etc. Really good resource.

I saw it mentioned on GDP-UK and thought it worth a mention.

www.contractorcalculator.co.uk

The UK & Irish economies are in a sorry state. Although the recession is apparently over by the hairsbreadth of the last quarter, the real belt tightening is only just beginning. Dentistry, with which I am most familiar, is still getting used to this idea. I come across practice owners,  and an even greater proportion of associates, who still have their heads in the sand. Change has to come, the state will not continue to put the food on your plate, having effectively stolen the goodwill from many general dental practices it is now starting to squeeze the pips out of those left “in”.

If General Medical Practice is going to be forced into the changes below just imagine what is planned for dentistry.

This article is from Pulse Online, you can read the full article here.

GP consultation length faces cut by a third as ‘financial meltdown’ looms.

NHS chiefs have drawn up proposals to slash the length of GP appointments by a third as they plan for across-the-board budget cuts.

The idea has been mooted by NHS London, which has been receiving advice from the management consultancy firm McKinsey on how to make huge efficiency savings in the face of the impending funding squeeze. But BMA leaders have warned the proposals show GP services are heading towards ‘financial meltdown.’
NHS London plans include:
• A 33% cut in the length of GP appointment times
• Cutting the number of people going to hospital accident and emergency departments by 60% and the number going to hospital outpatients by 55%.
• Millions of patients being diverted to so-called polysystems or clinics that have not yet been built, with £1.1bn cut from hospital budgets across London
• A 66% reduction in staffing of non-acute services, these include community services for older people and district nurses.

The ‘London’s NHS on the Brink’ report, prepared for the BMA by John Lister, information director at London Health Emergency, accuses NHS London of a lack of transparency in the way it has drawn up its plans to respond to the expected freeze on NHS budgets from 2011. The report claims NHS London has refused Freedom of Information Act requests to release a confidential report drawn up for them by McKinsey, effectively denying interested parties any opportunity to scrutinise its underlying assumptions or supporting evidence. etc

The only people who are looking forward to this are lawyers, one of THE most important things to patients is time. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell wrote of research by Wendy Levinson and Alice Burkin. Burkin, a litigation lawyer, said that doctors who take time are least likely to get sued. Levinson showed that surgeons who had never been sued spent on average 20% longer with their patients than their counterparts who had been sued.

If you haven’t read the book, next time you’re in a bookshop read the pages 39-43 of the paperback edition it’s fascinating.

So we’ll cut consultation times then, that’ll help everybody won’t it?