November 2009 Fundamentals E-Newsletter from Sullivision

Thanksgiving Buffet: 9 Good Ideas to Improve People, Performance and Profits by Jim Sullivan, CEO Sullivision.com

Don't hire someone else's deadwood
Perhaps the only bright spot in the global recession right now is that voluntary turnover is at an all time low in our industry. That means talented people are available in greater numbers now than anytime in the last ten years. Hold out for finding and recruiting A JS Mug Shot

and B players only. Don't get impatient and hire one of those C and D players out there. There's a lot of them looking for work not only because of the economy, but also because other companies have been trimming their unproductive C and D team members. So now more than ever, make it a privilege for someone to earn a spot on your team.

Hire Power
And the first thing you need to do is resolve to teach the people who do the hiring (your managers) how to get better at choosing the right people to let on to your team. This skill is routinely overlooked and under-valued but results in huge back-end costs in terms of management time, discipline, and service issues. Hire tough, manager easy. The repeat customer's experience is always dependent on the weakest employee you allow on your team

How to Build a "Raving Fan" out of your customer
Author Ken Blanchard defines these three service strategies to transform occasional customers into loyal ones: 1) Define what you want, 2) Define what the customer wants, now 3) Deliver Plus One.

Beware of "word-of-mouth" advertising
One person tells an average of 12 people about their bad service experience. Those 12 people tell 6 others each. Those 6 people tell 3 more each. That's over 300 people who hear the bad news. Until they go online. Go to the Internet service-feedback site Yelp.com and type in your store's location to get a sense of the kind of feedback you're generating in your community.

Resolving Complaints
We all make mistakes in customer interactions eventually. The key is how we resolve those instances. The first step is to recognize complaints as strengths, Now consider these tactics:
--Empower the crew member to resolve complaints
--LISTEN! (with empathy and appropriate body language)
--Repeat the problem back (clarify/verify)
--Offer specific resolution w/timetable
--Obtain tentative agreement
--DELIVER - PLUS ONE (solve the problem plus do one thing more for them)
--Follow-up to make certain the customer's satisfied
--Document/Share/Add what you learned to your training

Theft Rising in Foodservice establishments
The average foodservice employee swiped $248 from his employer last year, or more than double what they took the prior 12 months, according to the latest annual survey by the NCS research and testing group. In canvassing more than 1,400 restaurant workers, the concern discovered thefts of up to $52,000. Last year's stealth-fingered activity marks a sharp acceleration from the prior year's average skim of $107 per staffer, and the four-year per-person mean of $141.

Leave Your Troubles at The Door
Would you like to leave work each evening with less stress - and feeling better about the day? Managers should allot 10 to 15 minutes at the end of each shift to do something positive. For example, text or write thank you notes to employees who provided extraordinary service/hard work. When you're finished, you'll end the day in a much more positive frame of mind.

Are You Letting Others Add to Your Workload?
Managers and multi-unit managers: beware of the upward delegator. When others come to you with a problem, be careful not to make their responsibilities yours. In an effort to end the conversation and get back to your already full agenda you may offer to "look into" the problem. The result: a new project for you. Instead, turn the conversation around, suggest resources to help them solve the problem themselves and offer to review the finished work.
-Source: 365 Ways to Simplify Your Work Life, by Odette Pollar.

Continuous Improvement
Two keys to better team performance is to 1) eliminate the things that cause the most frustration in your team and 2) continuously improve systems and processes. Here's a list of ten questions to ask as you travel throughout your company and organization. Getting the answer to these questions on a regular basis can make your company better, stronger and nimbler in the New Year:

--What made you mad today?
--What took too long?
--What caused complaints today?
--What was misunderstood today?
-- What cost too much?
-- What was wasted?
-- What was too complicated?
-- What was just plain silly?
-- What job involved too many people?
-- What job involved too many actions?