Small Business, Big Lessons® – Do You Have an Invisible Fence?

Do you have an invisible fence? I am not talking about around your yard for a pet. What I am referring to is when you talk about a culture of teamwork, working across boundaries to solve customer problems and yet, when someone does exactly that, they are “zapped” and pulled back into line. Do you talk the talk but not walk it?

I like swim lanes and believe everyone should be clear of what they are responsible for and when they are “helping.” When it comes to customer satisfaction, the lines can become fuzzy quickly. We will discuss when to stay in your lane and when to enter the gray zone and the culture needed to support it.

We often hear “the customer comes first” or similar statement from a business. Some businesses excel in that area and have a high Net Promoter Score (NPS). That is a measurement of how a customer would recommend it to others for your product or service. Most do not have a high score and wonder why. Is it the Invisible Fence preventing employees from doing the right thing. Let’s consider a few factors on staying in the swim lane or venturing out a bit:

1) Level of Effort – How much time would it take to handle a situation? Will it be easier to handle yourself vs handing off elsewhere? Is it a quick answer and a one-off issue? If so, might be easiest to handle but be sure to read number three below.

2) Impact to the Customer – What will be the impact to the customer if you hand off to another department? Do you have the skills to solve the issue? Do you know the other department is the correct group to solve the issue if looking to hand off? If not, you may need to own finding the correct resource. Best to do this behind the scenes and let the customer know that you do not have the answer and are searching to find the right person to help them. You own it until having a clean handoff.

3) Job Impact – As the saying goes – no good deed goes unpunished. That can be the case if the additional work is preventing you from performing your core job duties. Sometimes what seems to be a simple “I can just do this quickly as a favor” becomes expected and the volume of that request becomes unsustainable when another person or team should really be handling. A way to handle could be “I think I can help you but here is the correct person you should reach out to in the future”. You helped solve the immediate problem, set direction for future help, and didn’t spend too much time on it.

Think through

From a culture standpoint, look for opportunities to recognize the good behavior. Understand the reason when someone appears to be outside their swim lane before “zapping” them. I have seen really good people become demoralized quickly when they try to do the right thing and are not rewarded for that. Look for ways to publicly recognize and model the behavior. As long as the persons job performance is not suffering, give them freedom to do the right thing. Your NPS will greatly improve and have a more satisfied employee.

As always, I am interested in your thoughts and examples of an Invisible Fence. Feel free to post comments or email them to me. Small Business, Big Lessons ® Don’t be a zapper!

About the Author:

Gregory Woloszczuk is an entrepreneur and experienced tech executive that helps small business owners grow their top and bottom line. Gregory believes in straight talk and helping others see things they need to see but may not want to with a focus on taking responsibly for one’s own business. He and his wife, Maureen, started GMW Carolina in 2006.

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