The name has come to stand for a new standard of customer service, an awesome (I can use this as they are American) online shopping experience, a great place to work, and the most impressive transformational business success story of our time.

Their approach quite simply is “To make every day a WOW day for your customers, staff and bottom line”. Well this is what the copy on ‘The Zappos Experience’ book cover said. Excluding the word ‘awesome’ as I added that instead of amazing. Similar I figured.

It really is a phenomenally smart business and a fascinating book to read. Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO writes the foreword and explains that they have made a lot of mistakes along the way and part of the goals of the book was to help other companies make fewer mistakes. Their vision has evolved to helping other companies and organisations make their customers and employees happy as well as their own. Nice people.

Described as UNCONVENTIONAL you get the feeling very quickly that everything about the way they do business is singularly focused. They have one culture and that centres wholeheartedly on SERVICE.

After screening suitable job candidates based on cultural fit the culture at Zappos is constantly nurtured. This is done in three ways:

• Incorporating values into regular progress conversations
• Budgeting money for cultural activities
• Encouraging open expression of opinions about culture

Whether you buy in to the clearly American hyped energy around this business one thing is for sure. Both customers and employees love Zappos. It stands for everything good, even if occasionally things go bad, because everyone wants it to be good. Awesome!

Get in touch to give your business a touch of Zappos

The post Zappos putting their best foot forward appeared first on Guest Expert.

Whether effective, reactive or misguided the skills of a senior management team really do have a huge impact on the internal and external culture of an organisation. Especially in times of change.

Take Tesco – a change of management and the momentary opportunity to load everything that’s wrong about the business on the departing team and charge in with a white charger to listen and learn from those on the front line is a much played out scenario of any business under pressure to make dramatic changes and take serious action.

So what of the team in that situation?

Allegiances vanish and insecurity prevails as the new regime sets out their mantra and seeks to engage the potential employees of the future whilst being clear to encourage the old school thinkers to move on.

Cultures can fade and die in an instant. Careful management at a senior level is essential to steer the ship steady and set course for the new world.

Get in touch if you can see your ship is off course or there’s a cultural storm coming.

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I’ve read many articles and gleaned fascinating information about this British institution and it’s got me thinking…….

Has your brand or organisation got the staying power to last the next 150 years? Have you instilled a strategy to secure your future way beyond the next three to five-year plan? What about your people, are they engaged and participating at the most contributory level possible?

If you haven’t taken time recently to step back from the day to day and considered the cultural and ethical elements that underpin your business it might be useful to consider some of the key attributes that reflect the John Lewis business model as your start point to reviewing the staying power of your organisation.

1)    STAFF EMPOWERMENT & OWNERSHIP

John Lewis has the unique structure whereby every employee is ‘a partner’ and owns the business. It is said to enhance many aspects of the corporate/employee relationship with reduced staff turnover, improved service levels and greater collaboration and productivity being just a few benefits. Other businesses have played with similar models to a lesser or greater degree and some with an element of success.

Certainly a shared annual profit bonus is just one way to start the journey and an internal set of criteria or ‘employee charter’ that is created by everyone in the business and becomes a code of conduct for doing business with each other can be highly motivational and a step towards consistency of approach.

2)    GREAT VALUE FOR MONEY

‘The never knowingly undersold’ pricing strategy has been running since 1925 and although it has been adapted more recently to take account of multi-channel and the growth of online, where price comparisons had become less clear, it is the clarity and honesty that this strategy delivers that makes this so powerful. It provides trust and assurance. John Lewis recognise that it’s about quality products at the right price and therefore great value for money becomes a far more important driver than regular discounting and price offers that only seek to confuse and create distrust with the consumer.

Are you offering your customers great value for money, consistently and across all your channels? Are you taking account of your competitors positioning and considering your business USP’s when setting your price points, fees or charges? Do you have a long term pricing strategy that isn’t just about short-term sales spikes and promotional complexity? Keeping it simple and sustainable secures customer understanding, trust and internal operational and communication sanity!

3)    CUSTOMER SERVICE

Exemplary service has helped JL maintain its hold at the forefront of retailing and as the customers’ favourite shopping haunt. This service quality extends to the heart of customer service itself where good service is provided through extensive training and the empowerment of staff to be able to take necessary immediate customer service decisions to resolve a ‘live’ issue; to the number of services that are offered to customers today including through online.

Zappos, the US shoe etailer possibly best exemplifies how customer service and thinking ‘as a customer’ can be used to define a strategy that underpins the business and becomes an integral part of the DNA and customer experience. Today offering great service starts with employing the right individuals and creating an empowered workforce who think customer centrically.

4)    OMNICHANNEL ENGAGEMENT

What has kept John Lewis successfully trading on the High Street is the impressive way that they have adapted to the cultural and technological changes required by the business and it’s customers. Early adopters of ecommerce, the development of Click & Collect and their newly launched JLab concept linking to smaller innovative technology companies indicate that they have their finger completely on the pulse.

How do you review your future technologies and do you have the in-house expertise to build your systems integration and keep competitive? What are the new trends affecting and driving your market segment and how quickly are you embracing these? What happens if you ignore them?

5)    EMOTIONAL CONNECTIVITY

Over the past few years the partnership has successfully created advertising campaigns that have engaged customers emotionally and created social media connectivity and buzz on a huge scale. Most recently this instigated spin off merchandise but it isn’t all just about selling product. With the strength of core drivers such as customer service, pricing transparency and brand heritage supporting these campaigns the emotional connection to John Lewis is haloed.

Consider your marketing, social media, PR and advertorial campaigns and what they really say about your brand, products and your approach to business. Are they about the direct promotion of a product or could they also say more about who you are too? Encouraging co-parenting in a brand is immediately connecting you to your customers.

6)    TRUST & CUSTOMER LOYALTY

John Lewis is the most trusted Brand and UK retailer according to analysts and it is the combination of honest pricing clarity, high and consistent customer service standards, reliable and good quality products, and it’s heritage that have helped them translate trust into customer loyalty. This hasn’t seen them rest on their laurels either with the recent introduction of my Waitrose and my John Lewis loyalty cards.

How can you instill this level of trust and in turn loyalty from your customers?  If you have considered the points above carefully to achieve a long term and sustainable purpose you are certainly on your way. Remember – everything matters and we can’t hide behind our logo!

Get in touch for more help and support in achieving a long-term set of guiding principles that work across your business and ensure some staying power of your own.

The post Looking for 150 years of staying power? appeared first on Guest Expert.

If the answer is ‘no’ then there is no time like the present to re-engage your team in a review of the cultural DNA that makes your business, people and importantly customers’ tick. Get this right now and the momentum will carry you all through the rest of the year and beyond.

Cultural ownership has to run through every individual in your organisation so get them involved in thinking creatively about a company culture that empowers, excites, motivates and drives them towards achieving their goals. Don’t forget your customers either – crowd source their opinions so that they feel totally involved and engaged with your brand and your people.

Here are a few ideas for you to throw into the discussion pot for creative ways of reinvigorating your company culture in 2014.

• Embrace working remotely

The office environment is invariably not where your teams or you do your best work, or certainly your best thinking. Whilst great for building camaraderie, maintaining ease of communications, and a safety check for the team ‘putting in the hours’ – it is often distracting, stifling to creative thinking and at worse a policing exercise that does nothing to empower your people.  Embrace remote working as undoubtedly the productivity will improve, and encourage each individual to share the creative ideas they’ve had whilst in a different location.

• Ditch long meetings and rotate ‘the chair’

There is nothing worse to gearing yourself up for a positive week than a glance at your diary at the number of predictable meetings that make up your day to day, that are run in the same way, and chaired by the same person. As a company grows you will see more and more meetings appearing and less and less time to do the work around them. As a result people will work out-of-hours, cut their thinking time, and add to the endless numbers of emails in a bid to keep on top of their work.

Shake it up a bit by changing the format of essential meetings by rotating the chair across the attendees. It will develop the individual, ensure that people come prepared and at least give a little variety to the norm. Better still review your meetings and try something creative. Introduce a ‘daily stand up’ where everyone across the business participates, remotely connecting as required. You have a maximum of 30 minutes (depending upon the size of business) to get the critical daily items covered off then you’re free to go and deliver it. Better still try ‘no email Friday’. That doesn’t mean you save them up until Monday! Instead pick up the phone, arrange a conference call or Skype a group for a ‘face to face’ engagement and cut down on the Inbox.

• ‘Thirst for knowledge Thursday’

Everyone needs a time out. Make it formal by setting aside ½ hour on a Thursday afternoon for people to down tools and have an afternoon cuppa together to share knowledge, speed meet, and catch up with people that they wouldn’t normally interact with. You’ll be amazed what they learn and how stimulating it is for all concerned. Again there is no excuse not to do this remotely for a ‘virtual’ interaction.

• Buying and selling holidays

We all have times where we either need a couple more days off to accommodate ‘our lives’ or where work commitments just don’t allow us to take all the holiday entitlement. Let individuals work out how best to manage this amongst themselves by facilitating a ‘buy and sell holiday option’ that gives them the ownership to get the jobs done but to agree how best they can manage the commitments they have.

• Customer ‘meet and greet’ days

What better way to engage with your customers than to diarise ‘meet and greet’ sessions with them? This can take any form you like from inviting them to meet you at your place of work and join you for a coffee, inviting them to your store for a pre-opening breakfast brainstorm, joining you in your business at the close of the day for a light bite, or inviting them to a ‘chat room’ or Skype session.  Use this time to capture their comments about what you’re doing, show them new product ideas, share new service initiatives, and introduce ‘the team’. 

•  ‘Happy Friday’ 

A fantastic way to share the positive feedback from your customers each week and to end the week on a high is to publish a ‘Happy Friday’ report that gives snippets of customer reviews, feedback and employee success stories. It’s a great way to give you a pat on the back for a good job done!

• Finally… don’t forget spontaneous feedback

Creative cultures thrive on timely and relevant feedback. Whether it’s good or bad, feedback helps teams raise their own expectations. It’s the fuel you need to ignite a creative culture. And who doesn’t want one of those?

 Get in touch or click culture to find out how we can help you to get creative about your company culture.

The post Do you have a creative culture in your organisation? appeared first on Guest Expert.

It is an incredible showcase for staff and customer passions; a bygone era of the traditional evolving to stay relevant and commercial and at the same time is a creative, and wonderful world of exquisite retailing.

I’m biased. I spent many hours there in my early retailing days comparing and contrasting ideas, merchandise, displays and service skills.

Opened 138 years ago by Arthur Liberty as an emporium for luxury goods from the East, Arthur pioneered cutting edge design and textiles. Today, Ed Burstell who joined Liberty from Bergdorf Goodman five years ago is tasked with keeping the store in profit whilst maximizing every inch of its 78,000 sq.ft. selling space, which was originally designed as a furniture store.

The gems – and there are many, are Liberty’s tirelessly loyal stalwart long service staff, new employees who are trained in grooming relationships with customers, and of course the store and culture it embodies and represents.

As the ever-present receptionist, Judy, puts it. Liberty has her own mind and if she is happy with decisions she lets it happen. Whilst the long serving Goods In Manager says he remains loyal to the original Liberty family despite them having sold the business to a private equity company some 13 years ago.

Liberty has a unique and embedded culture living in every part of its history and people.

I’m really looking forward to episode 2.

Inspired by the Liberty story and want to explore how to evolve and strengthen your company culture for the future? Get in touch

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Ilya Polzin is an entrepreneur, writer and founder of OpenMe a greetings card company and the digital agency Ciplex, as well as writing for Forbes and Linked In and other publications. He reported in Business Insider that he has recently revolutionised his business structure with astonishing results.

He’s removed the hierarchical structure of ‘boss’ to boss reporting that can often dis-incentivise employees, leading to individuals losing sight of company goals and vision, and to people feeling like worker bees, in favour of a flattened team orientated structure where colleagues work alongside each other to achieve organisational goals autonomously.

In his experience it has lead to a slew of happier, passionate, engaged, hardworking employees that are dedicated to the overall success.

Here’s how he did it:

The Team Philosophy

Individuals need to be managed, but teams manage themselves. The first step is to break down your departments (they’re not the same as teams). In a typical organization, you may have a marketing department that generates a lead, a sales department that then makes the sale, a production department that delivers, and a service department that supports the customer. But when you think about it, everyone should be working for the customer. So instead of employees residing in department silos, create teams that bring them together under this shared goal.

Then remove hierarchy within these teams. No one should have a “senior” or “VP” title. Leaders may naturally emerge within the teams, but there should be no official reporting structure. Initially, I thought my senior level people might balk at this idea. But once they saw the changes in culture and work habits, they got behind it. I let them choose their own titles–as long as they didn’t try to introduce hierarchy.

You also want to make sure your team’s goals are tied to company goals and company performance. Have your teams measure their own performance at set intervals (every two weeks or once a month may work). They’ll learn from their mistakes and continuously improve between milestones.

Take Money off the Table

Money is naturally a “have to.” We have to pay our bills so we have to make money. But thankfully money only motivates us to a certain point. Once money is off the table, this is when the real culture shift can happen.

Salaries are naturally hierarchical. But what happens when you eliminate hierarchy in your business? Don’t worry–it doesn’t involve flattening salaries across the board. (We didn’t lower any salaries at Ciplex, though we did give out a few raises.) You still have different pay levels but they’re not rigidly tied to certain job titles; they’re tied to performance. Now when I make a new hire I always ask the person what kind of salary she’s looking for and how much would be enough to get money off her mind. When the salary question is presented in the right way, I find most people are honest. We won’t hire the person if we can’t afford it. If a team member can pay his bills and not have to worry about money all month, you’ve accomplished this very important step.

Give the Gift of Autonomy

Autonomy is one of the biggest motivators. Your team is made up of adults right? So treat them like adults. Remove rules and give your teams full freedom to accomplish their goals.

They will figure out on their own when they have to come in and leave, if they can take a vacation, if they can only put in two hours today or if they have to put in 14.

If any one team member takes advantage of this new freedom, the rest of the team will vote that person off the island–Survivor-style.

Challenge Them

Employees want to constantly advance their skills and be better at what they do. If they’re not challenged, they will look for challenges elsewhere. That’s the last thing you want.

You already handed them a challenge by forming teams and setting team goals. Naturally each team will want to find ways to be better, more efficient, and effective. But what else should you do? Meet with all of your employees and determine what skills they have that aren’t being utilized. Find out what they want to become better at and where they can improve. Then support them by removing obstacles that might be in their way.

Determine What Makes Them Tick

Get to know your employees. Why are they doing what they are doing? Do they see themselves doing this type of job for a long time?

Your organization needs people with the right purpose. The right drive. Your job is to help them find their purpose within your company or to potentially let them go if they’re not a good fit.

Lead Your Team

Now let’s work on you.

Remember, the teams you’ve created will police themselves. You no longer need to correct them or even help solve problems for them. Instead of being a manager, support them by being a leader.

Leading, unlike managing, requires employees to adapt and adjust to their own challenges and problems. If someone comes to you with a problem, ask good questions and provide the support he needs to determine his own solution. That way, ownership of the problem doesn’t transfer to someone else or escalate.

Keep The Culture Alive

Compared with where we were three months ago, Ciplex today feels like a completely different company. Our team members are truly happy and everyone wants to be there. I know that everyone is doing everything they can to meet our company goals.

Some have been offered jobs at competing companies that pay higher–but they’ve turned them down.

Even I–a former micromanager who used to get squeamish at the sight of an employee on Facebook at work–have learned to let go. The other day I even shopped online for an Xbox for the office, simply because I heard some employees love to play it.

Get in touch. If you’re looking for help to establish or re-shape your Company’s culture. Call us today.             

The post Don’t work for your boss, work for your company appeared first on Guest Expert.

 

It’s holiday time. People are taking holidays. Work needs to be done yet productivity reduces and things seemingly have to stop.  Have you ever thought how managers reactions to holidays can seriously affect the culture of your Company……?

In most businesses the influx of school holidays and the impending knowledge that various members of the team will be out of the office on their annual break is enough to push an overloaded manager over the edge. Too busy to breathe and thinking of their own impending holidays where they know already they’ll have emails to read, phone calls to buffer, and an inordinate amount of work on their return. They even begin to wonder how they ever thought they could take a holiday this year let alone this month….. sound familiar?

Stop! Don’t let annual leave be the instigator of cultural dilution.  Manage holidays positively within the culture of the business. How?

Here’s some ideas:

• TEAM EMPOWERMENT -Facilitate your team to come up with solutions for covering off anything urgent. Have them elect the  ‘go to’ person as a second for every person in the team.  This will instil confidence for you and your absent colleague.
• SELECTIVE ACTIVITY – Stop doing the ‘nice to have’s’, cut down on meetings, consider effective short term ‘short cuts’, prioritise. Simplify the processes, it may even lead to more permanent streamlining.
• EMBRACE HOLIDAYS  – They are a chance for individuals to re-energise, clear their heads, have fun and come back refreshed. No matter how hard it seems you can do without someone for a short space of time, especially with a second in place. Encourage all employees to turn off phones and relax.
• EASY DOES IT – Relieve the return to work – don’t schedule anything for their first day back, and set aside ½ hour for everyone to get together first thing in the morning to share the holiday stories. It’ll reduce time overall and the storyteller gets an audience.

With a little bit of lateral thinking and planning, giving employees the space to have a well earned break will help to underpin the people orientated culture you’ve been working so hard to nurture and embody.

Want to maintain and strengthen the culture of your business now?  Get in touch.

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