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A newsletter published by the
International
Association of Reservation Executives
Issue
29, December 2005
IARE Annual Conference
The International Association
of Reservation Executives 21st Annual Conference and Exhibition will
be held April 22-26, 2006, at the Hyatt Lodge at McDonald's Campus.
The Hyatt Lodge is located in Oak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of
Chicago.
The
IARE's 2006 Conference will deliver maximum value for your
investment and promises to be an experience you can’t afford to
miss! Our Conference Planning Committee has "raised the bar" again
this year to bring you sessions such as:
Conference Opening Session
An Alternative Leadership Model
for the 21st Century: Keeping Your Sanity, Sense of Humor and Soul
in the Workplace
Presented by:
Kenny Moore
KeySpan Corporation
Kenny
Moore, former monk and present-day business executive, will discuss
the changing role of leadership in a turbulent and unforgiving
business environment. This interactive, insightful and entertaining
session will focus on organizational theory, case studies and
various business interventions in a NYC Fortune 500 company.
We
hope you'll make plans now to join us in Chicago and
encourage you to bring your call center teams to
experience the unequalled benefits of networking and idea-sharing,
expert-led education workshops, tailored product demonstrations,
facilitated call center forums and terrific teambuilding activities
– all in ONE place!
For details including
registration rates, a preliminary schedule and sponsorship
opportunities, please visit:
http://www.iare.com/Conference/2006/conference.htm.
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Recognize a Colleague, Employee or Supervisor
by Nominating them for an IARE Excellence Award
The IARE
Excellence Awards are presented each year to those who have exceeded
expectations in the areas of job performance, team development,
customer service, and even community service. Past award winners
have often been represented by the individual who always rises to
the occasion when needed, placing their personal time second to the
needs of the call center. These individuals are also the ones who
work quietly behind the scenes to ensure a successful operation and
without whom the enterprise would suffer.
Nominations are
submitted from IARE member call centers and nominees are judged by
the IARE Awards Committee on how the nominees have exceeded expectations in
their role and performed in an extraordinary manner deserving of
recognition.
Award
recipients are offered a complimentary registration to attend the
IARE Annual Conference, an awards trophy and a prize check for $200.
The categories for the awards are:
Manager Excellence Award...
for those who manage a department or a function at a strategic level
Supervisor Excellence Award...
for those who have direct responsibility for a team of employees
Staff Excellence Award...
for those in an administrative or support role
Representative Excellence Award...
for those who deal directly with the customer in a sales or service
capacity
IARE Spirit Award...
for those who have served on an IARE Committee and displayed
the highest level of IARE support and spirit
To view
past winners or nominate an individual for a 2006 Award, please
visit:
http://www.iare.com/awards.html.
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Customer Service: A Radical Re-Think
By
Paul Levesque, CEO of Customer Focus Breakthroughs
Inc.,
North Scituate, Rhode Island, USA
In my consulting work with managers of
hospitality-industry call centers over the years, I’ve had plenty of
opportunities to observe the traditional approach to customer
service. Hundreds of hours are spent in training, coaching and
monitoring employees for adherence to scripts and policies, and
countless sums are poured into incentive programs to keep these
employees motivated. How well is this traditional approach working
for you? Are you getting the results you want—or do you suspect
there may be a better way?
Rethinking Customer Service Training
Virtually
all customer service training is based on the premise that employees
lack the basic motivation to voluntarily do what it takes to delight
customers. It’s necessary to spell out the appropriate behaviors,
first, and then attempt to legislate them into the operation. Have
decades of this approach improved overall levels of customer
satisfaction? To the contrary, it’s been the source of employee
behavior that feels
mechanized and insincere, and the source of greater worker
resentment and cynicism.
Yet when we
step inside one of those businesses that seem to be always buzzing
with excitement, we find workers burning with a shared determination
to delight their customers. And we see positive feedback from happy
customers having a profoundly motivational effect on the
employees. Instead of “training” sessions, such businesses hold
brainstorming sessions in which the workers come up with their own
ideas for enhancing the customer experience. Managers help the
employees successfully implement these ideas, and then step back
into the shadows and allow the workers to bask in the motivational
spotlight of positive customer feedback. As I discovered while
researching my latest book, many businesses renowned for their
customer service actually put their employees through no customer
service training whatsoever. Instead, they give their employees a
level of ownership and involvement that motivates the workers to
voluntarily do whatever it takes to keep customers happy and coming
back.
Rethinking Employee Incentive Programs
While many business acknowledge a “cynicism problem”
among employees, few have any idea how such a problem might be
corrected. The dictionary defines cynicism as the belief “that human
conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest.” Cynicism in the
workplace is almost always a direct result of an organization’s
visible preoccupation with self-interest above all else—a
predominantly internal focus. By contrast, in those businesses
renowned for delivering delight the focus is predominantly external,
directed toward the interests of customers and the public at
large. This difference in basic cultural focus changes the way
everything is done within the organization.
What kinds of employee incentive programs do we find
in deeply customer-focused businesses? Usually none at all. The
sense of accomplishment that derives from consistently delighting
customers—along with the positive feedback that ensues—provides
incentive enough to keep these turbo-charged workers humming.
Rethinking the Connection
Customer-focused businesses understand that “customer satisfaction”
and “employee motivation” are not separate problems with separate
remedies, but instead represent a single critical business issue.
Once your business is able to make the same connection, it’s ready
to ignite a
flashpoint of contagious enthusiasm in employees and customers
alike.
Editors
Note:
Customer-focus consultant Paul Levesque (www.customerfocusbreakthroughs.com)
outlines a step-by-step process for building a flashpoint culture
in his latest book Customer Service From The Inside Out Made Easy
(Entrepreneur Press, 2006).
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Upcoming IARE Regional and International Meetings
Register
today for these meetings:
Friday, January
27, 2006
IARE International Meeting
Birmingham, England
(Rescheduled from
October 4, 2005)
For details, click here
Thursday, February 23,
2006
IARE Regional Meeting
Tampa, Florida USA
(Rescheduled from November
17, 2005)
For details, click here
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About
IARE-News
The IARE-News is a quarterly publication
distributed electronically to provide ongoing communication and
information for IARE Members.
The IARE’s Communications & Technology Committee produces
IARE E-News.
Articles
may be submitted via email to iare@assnoffice.com
and are subject to acceptance and editing by the Communications and
Technology Committee.
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©
2005-2006 -- International Association of Reservation
Executives -- All rights reserved.
Last edit
03/28/06
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