- Empowerment can be scary.
On one hand, we want to enable employees
to do the right thing for our customers
without having to ask for permission.
On the other hand, customer service leaders
often worry about employees doing the wrong thing
by being overly generous or acting inconsistently.
One thing that helps is to establish
a clear definition of empowerment.
Empowerment doesn't mean allowing employees
to do whatever they want.
It means enabling them to deliver service
that's consistent with our customer service vision.
I'd like to share an empowerment model with you
that can help employees make smart,
consistent decisions to serve customers.
It's based on three cornerstones.
Empowered employees need resources to serve their customers,
best known procedures
for serving consistently and efficiently
and the appropriate level of authority
to handle unusual or unexpected situations.
Let's start with resources.
We need to give employees the resources necessary
to fulfill the vision.
For example, a cable company was using
six different billing systems to service its customers.
This made it very difficult
to reconcile customer billing issues and issue credits.
The company improved empowerment
by migrating to a single billing system
that was much easier to use.
Other examples of resources employees need
might be having the right products in stock,
sufficient staffing levels to handle customer needs
or even functioning tools
like the cable company's new computer system.
The next thing employees need are clear procedures.
These procedures represent the best known way
of accomplishing common tasks.
For example, the cable company created clear guidelines
for issuing account credit.
Employees could issue credits for as much as $1000
without getting a supervisor's approval
as long as they followed the guidelines.
The idea is to identify and document best practices
so you can share them with everyone.
Other examples might include how to greet a customer
or how to solve a specific problem.
We are always going to encounter new challenges.
So it's also good to have a procedure
where employees can document and share solutions
to new problems.
The final empowerment element
is giving employees the authority
to act in alignment with the customer service vision.
At the cable company,
this meant giving employees the authority
to issue account credits of up to $1000.
Now, a lot of managers worry
about employees becoming too generous
when they're given authority.
You can avoid that issue through what's called red lines
and gray area.
A red line is a clear limit that cannot be crossed.
For example, the cable company set a red line at $1000.
The billing system would not even allow employees
to enter account credits for more than that amount.
The gray area is the space in between the red line
and normal procedure.
This is where employees are expected to use
their best judgment to decide what to do in each situation.
The cable company created a report
that identified any credit issued for $250 or more.
A manager then reviewed each case with the employee.
Employees could not get in trouble for issuing any credit
as long as they did not cross the red line of $1000.
These coaching sessions
were really about calibrating judgment calls
so that employees were making consistent decisions.
Amazingly, the cable company did not find a single instance
where an employee issued a credit
they should not have issued during the first year
the new empowerment process was in place.
Now, one way to improve empowerment
is through an empowerment audit.
You can download the Empowerment Audit worksheet
to help you.
Work with employees to identify the top five
or 10 customer issues they have to say no to.
For each one, determine what resources,
procedures or authority they need to serve customers
in alignment with the customer service vision.
Finally, make changes to help empower employees.
Most employees truly want to help their customers.
You can help them realize their full potential
if you empower employees to deliver great service.