Leadership Institute

Creating a Service Culture: The Service Leader’s Role

Learning Format: Classroom

Order No. NSP11

Many service initiatives are built upon “a fix” -- a three-month or one-year initiative to make the organization customer service focused. But creating a service culture is not a one-time, skills-training event. It’s an ongoing organizational commitment driven by effective service leaders.

Once the strategic focus is defined, service leaders need to know exactly how to make the service vision a reality. This course helps leaders identify barriers to service excellence and provides them with five leader practices to create a service culture.

Do You Face Any of These Issues?

  • Do you know what obstacles prevent a higher level of customer service?
  • Do leaders know what they must do to ensure service excellence and increase customer loyalty?

Performance Objectives

Helps Leaders:

  • Choose opportunities to use authority and influence to improve customer service.
  • Focus their efforts and those of the service providers to achieve the results most important to customers.
  • Inspire service providers to take actions that create customer loyalty.

Primary Competency Developed

  • Customer Focus

Secondary Competencies Developed

  • Building a Successful Team
  • Building Partnerships
  • Gaining Commitment
  • Initiating Action

Course Overview

  • Importance of the Service Leader: Leaders begin watching a video about “The Road” to a service culture (shown throughout). They visualize obstacles that exist and discuss impacts on customers, service providers, and the organization. A Service Culture Analysis Worksheet and the Service Success Loop are reviewed, and five leader practices are introduced.
  • Creating an Operational Service Vision: Leaders list common customer expectations and choose an important one that has the greatest chance for improvement. They write a service objective that will meet or exceed this expectation and develop a tracking strategy for it.
  • Customer-Centric Work Processes: Leaders discuss what makes a work process customer focused. They brainstorm what customers say when a process isn’t customer focused and review traits of processes not focused on customers.
  • Partnerships: Leaders simulate actions of work areas that do not meet customer expectations due to ineffective partnerships. They identify a partnership and factors that make it ineffective.
  • Knowledge and Skills: Leaders identify the skills and knowledge service providers will need to meet customer expectations.
  • Giving Authority: Leaders review tactics to increase authority and brainstorm ways to maximize the benefits but minimize the risks of increased authority.
  • Action Plan: Leaders review the obstacles identified and finalize an action plan. They watch the conclusion of the video.

Video Segment Summaries

  • A six-part video follows “The Road” to establishing a service culture and highlights challenges encountered by a leader and her team.

Course Details

  • Target audience: Service leaders.
  • Course length: 4 hours, or 2 hours Fast Track.
  • Facilitator certification: DDI-certified facilitator required.
  • Prerequisites: None.
  • Series: Suitable for all environments.
  • Group Size: 8 to 16 people.
  • Prework: No.

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