Creating a culture of service, performance and operational excellence does not happen by chance. It takes a robust and systematic process, implemented throughout the organization, to create sustainable change.
During my 17-year career at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, I had the opportunity to see first-hand how creating a clear and simple service culture and holding everyone accountable for embracing it could lead to long-term global recognition and success. After leaving The Ritz-Carlton, my mission was to study other world-class organizations in hospitality, retail, manufacturing, and healthcare. In doing so, I discovered that there were many other organizations that also enjoyed sustainable success and recognition for driving excellence through employee engagement, customer loyalty, and ultimately mastering profits. During six months of benchmarking and in-depth research, I found six common principles that all of these organizations shared and that they attributed to their long-term success.
Therefore, I created the customer service business model popularly known as The Six Principles of Service Excellence.
* Principle 1 – Vision and Mission – World-class organizations that are capable of creating and maintaining a culture of service excellence have a strong vision and mission that all employees know, own and are energized with. In such cases, your vision statements clarify what you aspire to be in the future; while their mission statements articulate their purpose, what they stand for.
* Principle 2 – Business Goals – World-class organizations that can create and maintain a culture of service excellence have clear, simple, and measurable organizational goals and objectives that all employees are aware of. They don’t confuse employees with a multitude of goals, but rather select 3-4 that employees not only know about, but also understand how the work they do contributes to their success. Along with goals that focus on growth and profitability, world-class organizations also have service-oriented goals that focus on customer loyalty, employee engagement, and some form of quality improvement.
* Principle 3 – Service Standards: The purpose of service standards is to clarify to employees exactly what actions and behaviors are expected of them to drive excellence every day and create customer loyalty. World-class organizations that can create and maintain a culture of service excellence create and regularly communicate the standards of excellence (key touch points) that are necessary to realize their vision, mission, and business objectives. They don’t leave this to chance.
* Principle 4 – Intervention and Learning Strategy: Just as they have a solid strategy to ensure financial success, world-class organizations have systems and processes to ensure their service philosophy (vision, mission, business objectives, and service standards). it is woven into all aspects of organizational culture. When it comes to employee recruitment and selection, new employee orientation, training and development, performance management, rewards and recognition, incentive programs, etc., the service philosophy is integrated every step of the way.
* Principle 5 – Organizational Alignment – World-class organizations that can create and maintain a culture of service excellence use all communication resources within their sphere of influence to constantly reinforce their service philosophy. They hold leaders accountable for regularly discussing organizational vision, mission, business goals, and service standards during daily pre-shift meetings, as well as monthly or quarterly departmental meetings (which are required, not optional). Other communication resources used to align staff include posters, tent cards, and wallet cards that show the philosophy of service. Additionally, they communicate and reinforce this information through employee newsletters, bulletin boards, and email taglines. More importantly, senior executives are also responsible for discussing the relevance of the service philosophy at every opportunity they have to interact with employees.
* Principle 6 – Measurement and Leadership Responsibility – In the final analysis, what gets measured gets done. World-class organizations that can drive excellence use simple dashboards to help employees track the organization’s success or failure in driving excellence. Measurement is what helps establish credibility in the process, by helping senior leaders determine the strengths and weaknesses of the system, and more effectively holding middle management accountable for driving excellence every day.
Creating a culture of service excellence is a journey, not a destination. Honestly, there are no shortcuts or quick fixes. To achieve this, leadership must be 100% committed to applying a comprehensive and long-term approach to ensure sustainability.
Simply put, the Six Principles of Service Excellence is more than just a business model. It’s a proven strategy for driving world-class employee performance and elevating the customer experience from average to extraordinary. And if it is followed implicitly, it will lead any organization (small or large) to achieve and maintain a work environment that encourages superior employee performance and service excellence.