Improve Employee Performance Idea 106 – March 3, 2010: Link Good Customers to Good Service

If you have employees who constantly complain about “nasty” customers, use their specific complaints about customers to encourage better performance.  How?  First, determine WHY customers are “nasty.”  Is it because they did not receive the products or service they expected?   Or maybe the issue is something else. 

Whatever the cause, remember that customers’ behavior is precipitated by something.  Once you know WHY this is happening, explain to your employees that if they resolve customers’ issues, they won’t have to deal with “nasty” customers.  In other words, you link employee behaviors to customer behaviors.
When you have these conversations, be gentle.  And don’t just have a performance discussion.  Instead, wait for employees to complain, and then use those encounters as opportunities to create “learning moments” on how to enhance performance.

KEY REMINDER:  To improve employee performance, you have to conduct effective performance discussions, give effective performance feedback, reinforce employee performance, and use effective performance phrases to write effective performance appraisals.
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Barbara Brown, Ph.D. shows managers how to improve employee performance by linking performance to results. She publishes handbooks that contain phrases for discussing performance and for writing appraisals. Dr. Brown also provides training and consulting. Visit www.LinkToResults.net.