Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. How many of you have heard that phrase? It means a lot more to how your business operates than you may think. Many of us have add-ons to our service to attract the customer to us over the competition. Some of these things could be offering water and snacks, washing windows, vacuuming floors, and more. How many of these eventually get missed or stopped being done altogether by your teams?
When you have teams that do not follow your strategy, they may not realize how much they hurt the integrity of your business. It only takes one or two customers to voice their concern about not getting what they paid for until you start to see a pattern. How many have you gotten that have said this same thing? This should be a red flag because it was not just these one or two people that had this happen to them. If you do not do what you promise or promote, then that is what you will soon be known for.
So, how can we get these habits changed after they have been set? Well, it will not be easy for sure, but it can be done with a lot of personal attention to the details. Understanding how habits are set can open your eyes to how big the problem could be. It takes nineteen times doing something to make it a habit, on average. That’s potentially nineteen customers that didn’t get what they paid for.
So, you must go in and oversee the service. Don’t just allow them to skip it. The crews and managers will likely hate it at first, telling you, “I know what I’m supposed to do,” while working on it. And that is what you want to happen. If you know, then why didn’t you do it? It was a habit that has been set to skip something, likely for speed of service.
By making yourself present and vocal on the expectations of your service, the teams will eventually start doing what you want without thinking, just to not hear you remind them to do it. You have built the habit. Now to keep that expectation moving forward, you must have a leader in place that understands what you did and how to replicate it as an expectation.
So, if your leader is not buying into what you are doing, then you might have to get yourself a new one if you ever want your standards to be held. Setting the expectation yourself shows these team members that you care about the service that you are offering and how your business looks to your customer.
If you have a standard of service and it is being held up with proper procedures and good habits, you will see that your business will reflect it. Your Google scores will rise and the word-of-mouth advertising that is important to building new customers will flip. If you do not have these amenities in place, think about adding a few to your service. It may be something as simple as adding a water cooler or a Keurig for your customers.
But none of the niceties will matter if you are not performing the service you promised. Habits become character. What does your character look like to your customers right now? Is it where you want it to be? If not, what are you going to do to build your character?
