Last week, I wrote about Carol, local community banker who gets it when it comes to Customer Service.  It got me thinking.  Can Best in Class Customer Service scale to larger organizations?  Of course it can.  It’s about leadership.

A couple of years ago, I heard Eric Schmidt (Google, CEO) telling stories about break-through customer service.  One that caught me was on Amazon.com story.  Eric had ordered flowers for his mom for Mothers’ Day.  As it turns out, the item was extremely popular and they ran into a severe supply chain issue – nobody’s Mom was going to get this bouquet before Mothers’ Day.

Stuff happens.  When it happens at Amazon, they issue a nice note, announcing the delay and new target delivery time.  Well, whoever was in charge on that day didn’t think it was okay to deliver Mothers’ Day flowers a few days late.

On Friday, Eric gets a call.  It’s “Dave” from Amazon.com.  He asked if Eric would mind if they upgraded to a higher priced bouquet so that they could get it to his mom by Mothers’ Day.

It was a simple matter of breaking process and protocol to transform customer service to an outbound call center to triage an emotional issue.  They didn’t break any laws or violate any contracts – Amazon.com just took that extra step into Best-in-Class Customer Service.  Without thinking too much about it, they probably earned a couple thousand loyal customers – one of them a billionaire.

Nice.

In today’s competitive environment, we simply assume solid Customer Service – we have to deliver on expectations day in and day out to stay in business.  If something out of our control goes wrong, we have to find a solution and communicate with our Clients.  All of that is non-optional (unless you have a monopoly).

Some people and, hence their organizations, earn the label Best-in-Class.  It’s not policy; it’s not written into the contract; it is simply a state of mind.  These people just get it, and it’s so obvious to them, they don’t think much of it.

Let me tell you about Carol from Northside Community Bank in Riverwoods, IL.   Her Client called from Phoenix, AZ in panic mode.  She needed a small amount of money transferred from her NCB account to Chase, immediately.  She was calling to beg Carol to quickly put through a wire transfer.  From what I could tell, Carol was a teeny bit puzzled – “You shouldn’t beg your banker to do your banking.”

Carol re-assured her Client that she would get the money moved.  Here’s the cool part.  Carol was due at a lunch meeting shortly.  Instinctively, instead of wiring the money and incurring fees on her Client’s behalf, she cut a cashier’s check and walked it over to Chase on her way to lunch.  No big deal, if you’re Carol.  Huge, if you’re the Client. 

It’s that second-nature, do-what-is-right-for-the-Client attitude that takes you to Best-in-Class Customer Service.  Heroics, self-sacrifice and 24X7 commitment?  Not really.  Just doing what is right.  All the time.

As I go through my work days, I hear amazing stories about employment decisions gone (or almost gone) wrong.  I Blog them under code names Jaighn and Jaughn Doh, to protect the extremely foolish.  As scary as these stories can be, they often come off as funny because they are so outrageous.

But some, not so funny.  Here are two I picked up at a conference:

1) Jaighn applied for a factory job.  Passed with flying colors.  The background screening was still in progress, but they just couldn’t wait, so they brought her on, contingent on the pre-employment screening results.  Day One, Jaighn injured her back on the job, qualifying her for long-term worker’s comp.  Screen came back – not acceptable.  Too late, according to the arbitrator.  Ouch.

2) Young promising, brokerage firm, feeling expense pressure from their Venture Capital firm, cut expenses at every turn.  They found a highly qualified controller, Jaughn, with tons of experience to run the back office, highly recommended by some of his past employers.  Good news: business was booming based on work they landed with a Fortune 100 firm.  Bad news, Jaughn was embezzling from that firm while leading the back office.  Worse news:  This was not Jaughn’s first stab at sticky virtual fingers.  (Had they not cut a few corners, they would have known this.)  Worst news:  No more promising, young brokerage firm.  Ouch, again.

The HR Pro who relayed these stories to me, summed it all up nicely:  “When you make a mistake and background screening you learn from your mistakes really well."

Anyone have stories to share? 

As most of you know, I’m in the pre employment background screening business.  From my perspective, I’m an HR consultant with specific expertise in mitigating the inherent risks in hiring.  Regardless of position, I have always skewed towards being an educator on behalf of improved productivity.  I help HR Pros get things set up, so they turn over their screening to us and focus on the strategic side of HR.

I have an observation I’d like to share.  Many HR Professionals see effective background screening as the program they first learned or were sold.  Box checked, case closed, “Yes, we screen all of our employees.”  Fact of the matter is that every screen has its strengths and weaknesses.  I believe that clients need to understand various screening tools, allowing them to tune their programs to their objectives and risk tolerance.

What do you see?

As most of you know, I’m in the pre employment background screening business.  From my perspective, I’m an HR consultant with specific expertise in mitigating the inherent risks in hiring.  Regardless of position, I have always skewed towards being an educator on behalf of improved productivity.  I help HR Pros get things set up, so they turn over their screening to us and focus on the strategic side of HR.

I have an observation I’d like to share.  Many HR Professionals see effective background screening as the program they first learned or were sold.  Box checked, case closed, “Yes, we screen all of our employees.”  Fact of the matter is that every screen has its strengths and weaknesses.  I believe that clients need to understand various screening tools, allowing them to tune their programs to their objectives and risk tolerance.

What do you see?

I just thought of another reason I love my job.  It’s the people I get to meet.  Sure, they’re not all at their best when they think they’re about to get pestered by yet another “background screening vendor.”  But, once we get talking, many of those 98%-closed doors become fun-loving HR pros who gladly take my calls.

Let’s talk about Joe from Kentucky.  To be honest, I don’t think I’ll sell anything to Joe.  He has a great screening program, at a great price.  And, get this, 2% turnover.  The man hires to feed their consistent, patient, slow growth (and to replace retirees).  I asked him what his secret is.  To do this one justice, you have to say it to yourself in a slow, deliberate fashion, brimming with Southern Charm:

Well, when I hire someone, I expect them to be with us for a long time.  All’s said and done, we’re going to shell out a lot of money for that person.  When we make $2MM capital investment decisions we go to great lengths to ensure we’re making good decisions.  Then, we take care of that investment as soon as it lands on the dock.  We do the same when we make $2MM human capital investment decisions.

And I bet Joe and the rest of the leadership team take care of those investments the second they land on the “dock.”  Any sage advice about hiring to retain?

This Jaughn Doh (SAY:  John Doe, with a Homer Simpson finish) deserves an A+ for trying.  After moving across the country, he needed to settle down and get himself a job.  So, he applies to operate a forklift at a warehouse.  He’s a real positive, upbeat guy, and had been operating a forklift for years before moving out West to “try something new.”

Thinking they found the right guy for the job, the HR Manager (who kindly shared this story with me) tells him that he’s “going to fit right in here – but per policy, you have to clear the Background Screening before you can start.”  She hands him the form for the drug screen and sends him off to the lab to make a deposit.  Pause.  This is when you just need to know when to fold ‘em. 

You probably guessed the punch line by now.  References checked out, no criminal history and he aced the drug test.  Ummm, by aced I mean, he got a 5 out of 5 (100%) on the five panel drug test.  Let’s review:

→ Marijuana
→ Cocaine
→ PCP
→ Opiates
→ Amphetamines

Because they gave him only the 5-panel test, we’ll never know about Barbiturates, Methadone, Methaqualone, Propoxyphene or Benzodiazepines.  What amazed me is that he went for the test.  It’s like trying to get by the TSA with a ground to air missile tucked in your sleeve.  I never met him but he seems like the kind of guy who lives by the credo that you can’t win if you don’t try.  That’s why I gave him an A+ for trying . . . apparently, everything.

Any good stories you can share?  Either comment here or email to me at rkrissinger@infotrackinc.com.

This economy is really starting to get on my nerves. We've been stimulated, taxed, untaxed, rebated, re-stimulated, relieved, repossessed, un-hired, rehired, retired, fired, furloughed, bailed out, bailed on, yada yada yada. All that is getting really old, but what irks me are people with stable jobs manipulating the law to their advantage and our collective detriment. Yes, I'm talking about Workers' Comp abusers. If you are among the abusers, you know you are because you feel like you just won the lottery. Bummer is, I have to pay you and I didn't even buy a "lottery ticket." Instead, I just went to work every day and paid my taxes. Okay, I'm ranting. It is often the case that I get wrapped around the axle on a topic because of something I just heard or read that was so outlandishly ridiculous it made my head hurt so badly that I wished it would explode to ease the pain. So this is what I read, after an email tip from Gene Keefe of Keefe, Campbell and Associates

Unbelievable Article on Workers Comp

I hope you didn't just click on that and read it. If you did, you now suffer from hypertension, insomnia and peptic ulcers. Sorry, please don't sue me or the authors. We're just the messengers:

In a nutshell, the good folks of IL - who can't pay their school bills - need to fork over $1.5MM to guards at Menard Correctional Facility because one in ten guards has suffered permanent damage from "repetitive injury" by turning keys in locks. WHAT?!?! TURNING KEYS IN LOCKS! In a prison, of all places! Advocates for these folks are suggesting the DOC install automated doors. No. Please don't. Illinois cannot afford to pay additional compensation for the onerous tasks of button-pushing and switch-flipping. Plus, they'll be doing more butt-sitting, and I don't want to hear about or fund the remedies for the maladies that will then beset the warden's brood.

I believe that Workers' Comp is a wonderful thing that protects our hard working society. But now, because of the selfish abusers, anti-employer laws, greedy lawyers and grey-matter challenged arbitrators, companies are nervous about setting up or maintaining shop in Illinois. Pretty soon, we'll all just get up and go to California where employers are better protected. (Just kidding, but that was pretty funny.)

Man, my fingertips are really hurting from pounding this keyboard in rage here at work on my job during work hours at my employer-owned computer with a non-padded keyboard drinking employer-supplied coffee. I bet I'd feel a lot better after a few months in Cancun . . . .

Nah. I need to work for a living.