The Habits of Amazing People: Commit to Constant, Never-Ending Improvement
“Always be on the lookout for new ways to Amaze.”
Another area under the umbrella of seeking feedback is the commitment to constant, never-ending improvement. Use this time to ask how you and your team can get better. How can you improve from being just average to making the Amazing grade? It is also important to remember that you do not need to wait for feedback to fix something you know is broken. It is not enough to ask for feedback; you need to commit to constant improvement on yourself as well as processes and procedures based on the feedback you are given and the things you observe.
One way Shep Hyken suggests making sure you are always improving is by asking yourself, “How can I (or we) get better?” If you take a couple of minutes every day and ask yourself this question, you might be amazed at the insight you have. Don’t be surprised if the first couple of times you do this, you get answers like, “Be happier,” “Be healthy,” or things like that. It takes some time to allow yourself to dig down and see where you and the organization need to improve. This process can be eye-opening and quite frankly painful at times. Most of us tend to shy away from hard questions and demanding answers, but I find that the more I ask the people around me these questions, the more real their answers became. Honest feedback allows for great leaps in improvement opportunities.
Once you have insight from your questions, you can take the second step and become more than just OK. What do you need to do to exceed the expectation of customers? I am in the process of trying to find out the WOW factor for our customers at ArcherPoint right now. We did a survey and asked them how we were doing, and I got quite a few answers that said we were doing OK. So, is that bad? No. Is that good? No, but it is not bad. It just means that our customers are happy overall with our support, but we do not provide them with Amazing support. I can write another entire blog on this survey, but regarding feedback, this survey allowed me insight into how our customers see us and how we can up our game to provide amazing services.
In short, you do not have to wait until you survey your customers to fix something that is broken. As an employee, you know when something is not working. You have the first view of this many times before the customer even provides you with feedback. Take the initiative and let people know when something is wrong so you can work on a fix before the customers ever realize there is an issue.
Feedback is something we all need to have good working and personal relationships. Asking for and using feedback to improve your customer support can lead to excellent service, which creates a positive experience and happy customers. I hope each of you finds the implementation of this third habit as helpful as I have.
What is your plan for putting feedback to work? Are their “broken” things around you that you can begin fixing now? Share your thoughts with your company and with us; then contact ArcherPoint to see how our customer service offerings can help.
Read more of the habits of amazing people we’ve reviewed so far:
- Show up prepared to amaze
- Understand what it means to be amazing
- Always act as if you’re on stage
- Show up early – be on “Lombardi time”
- Act like you’re always on the clock
- Create an “anti-NO” zone
- Be proactive
- Think ahead
- Create predictably positive experiences
- Think outside the rule book
- Stay a step ahead
- Ask directly for feedback
- Look past the honeymoon
- Rate yourself
- Fulfill the promise