The Clifton Review 

The Clifton Review is a tri-weekly column that examines the question of the Clifton project along with the evolution of the war between two billionaires. We covered the start of this war with articles describing the battle over easement rights, the mysterious burning of a home, the blocks to rebuilding, and countless questionable court filings.

While the 2018 series salutes fashion mogul Peter Nygård’s Golden Jubilee detailing his rags to riches story, his incredible business success over these past fifty years and an inside look at how he did it, The Clifton Review will also continue to address current affairs as they relate to the good of The Bahamas.

It Can Make Or Break Your Business

By P.J. Malone

One major mistake some businesses make is underestimating the importance of good customer service. It really can make or break a business. But for many of these businesses, they usually don’t realize the connection to their business ineffectiveness until it’s too late.

So using our previous example for creating organizational alignment, if you are looking to fulfill a business purpose of making your services as easy and as stress free as possible, or simply improve your customer service, in addition to improving processes, you have to improve on your staff’s ability to deliver.

The point of organizational alignment is that it’s an all or nothing proposition. Every component must line up with each other because none can achieve the business objectives or fulfill its purpose on its own.

Remember the free beach towel example: it was a great marketing strategy but it was dependent on ‘people’ to deliver. The strategy was failing because human resources were not aligned with the strategy.

In our customer service example for organizational alignment, you have to begin with being clear on what your purpose really means. It means doing whatever you can to require less thinking and easier decision-making for your customers. 

Let’s pause for a moment before discuss aligning human resources to consider the importance of the ‘stress’ factor in the sales process and the importance of an objective of making the sales process stress-free. If an individual leaves the office to run an errand on their lunch hour they are already bringing several related stress factors to the process:

1. If they have a limited time, like using their lunch hour, that’s already an added stress.
2. If they are using their lunch hour and have not had—and will not have—a chance to eat, that’s another added stress.
3. If they had a rough morning or have stressful things to deal with at work upon their return, that’s another added stress that’s on their mind.
4. If your business hours conflict with their work schedule (and maybe conflict with their pick-up-the-kids-before-6pm schedule), then they don’t have a choice but to visit your establishment during a possible lunch hour, and that’s another added stress. 

All of these can negatively impact your sales. Can you imagine how likeable your company will become if you can manage to reduce their stress level with your business services process? It will make you their preferred business of choice and positively impact your sales.

Think about it in fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s earlier example: he provided couches and coffee and even a television screen in his stores for his customers’ husbands. 

As a woman, wouldn’t you rather do your shopping at a store that not only had great fashions but made your shopping process stress-free by keeping your partner occupied to allow you the freedom to enjoy the shopping process?

Also remember, a sale can often involve one’s emotions. You see this in examples where people spend thousands of dollars on the spot simple because they are emotionally engaged—the reason individuals will spend thousands of dollars on a sale in a short space of time is because in addition to wanting the product, they trust and like the individual.

In light of this, lining up employees to work toward your purpose and business objectives as it relates to customer service is especially important to your organizational effectiveness. To do this, you have to give them the tools to perform better. 

There are a number of steps you can take or strategies you can use to, one, get employees to buy into your objectives of improving customer service, and two, to get employees to work toward your business objectives, which we’ll expound on next.