Not only are Customer Focus Sessions vital to turn insights into positive actions, they also help build a powerful team culture as well
Alexander Miranda, Store Manager from Bupa’s Health Insurance store in Waringa Mall, Brookvale, NSW has been running twiceweekly Customer Focus Sessions for just over a year now. He agrees with Cassandra that the ‘Focus’ part is very important. “We always hold them in the morning before the store opens, for 15 to 20 minutes and we only focus on one topic or skill for each meeting,” says Alexander. Just like a football coach with his team in a huddle, Alexander stays on the move, constantly geeing people up. “We always make sure team members are standing up and moving during the meetings and, as coaches, we will be dancing around to keep the energy levels high,” he says. There’s even a whiteboard. “Each team member also has their own, specifically-coloured pen to write ideas on the board, and it can become quite competitive as to who can have the most ideas for a session.” For Connie Outhavong, Store Manager at Bupa Optical’s Knox store in Melbourne, motivational messages in the form of ongoing reminders after each Customer Focus Session help maintain the focus. They prompt team members to keep up the personal commitments they made during
the meetings. “I use a big piece of butcher’s paper that I mark into four squares,” says Connie. “The first square is last week’s theme, so we can check on progress. The second square is this week’s theme, the third square holds the brainstormed points for improvements and the last square is the personal commitments for action from each team member.” The butcher’s paper is then placed up in the lunchroom as a constant reminder of what needs to be done. All Day Every Day Dental in Kew, Victoria, offers an emergency service as well as regular dental treatment. That can create time pressures for the clinic team and their patients. A recent Customer Focus Session tackled the issue of patients becoming frustrated by longer-than-expected waiting times. “One of the suggestions in the meeting was to phone and text patients when we expected their appointments might be delayed,” explains receptionist Abby Patel. “This one little action has made a huge difference to customer satisfaction.” Ameer Patel, Practice Manager, finds the customer feedback invaluable. “As a dental clinic, you rarely get direct customer feedback or opinions in person, as people are
a little reluctant to tell you what they really feel on the spot.” Ameer uses the insights to identify specific pain points or themes for the weekly Customer Focus Sessions and then makes sure they are as short and sharp as a time-out at the basketball. “Our sessions are kept to five to ten minutes only, because we don’t want people to feel we’re having a meeting just for the sake of it. I want our team to arrive at the sessions with plenty of energy, but just as importantly, leave the meeting feeling energised as well.” The best way to post a winning Net Promoter Score is to make the customers feel valued, but the Customer Focus Sessions have the added advantage of making the team members feel good too. “Just getting all the team together is great, as we’re all so busy during the day, and these sessions have built a great team culture,” says Abby. Connie appreciates the team-building benefits as well. “Our team now gets together to work as one on very specific actions. We get very comfortable with each other, we’re not afraid to offer opinions or ideas and it builds a very high level of trust among the team.” Sounds suspiciously like a winning formula.
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