Struggling with staff shortages, aging workforce, and ineffective ICT solutions? Discover how customer service, situational leadership, and motivated employees can transform your business. Improve customer satisfaction, streamline staffing, and boost employee engagement with a people-first approach. Learn how leadership, communication, and realistic planning drive productivity. Don’t let automation replace human connection—enhance your service and retain loyal customers today.Is the aging population also costing you a lot of customers due to a lack of good staff?
I hope you get through these days well in terms of staffing within your company.Everyone says that it is very difficult to find (good) staff in this day and age. Many entrepreneurs say that the current staff shortage was completely unexpected, but is this really the case? I certainly don’t want to pat myself on the back, but I remember that fifteen years ago (2010) I already shouted in my classes: “Be careful, another time is coming, we will soon be short of staff,” I was laughed at.”It was said: “ICT solves everything for us.” Nobody foresaw the financial and/or housing crisis at the time, neither did I, but I always remained aware of the shortage of hands that was coming. Yes, more and more “expensive” people were imported from other countries, but no one saw that they were not solving our actual problems. The Dutch language, and its unlearnable unwritten expressions turned out to be an unexpected obstacle. Yes, mopping the floor worked, but the rest of the work became more and more expensive.
Has ICT solved everything?
We have more and more ICT-related processes in our company, but to say, “this solves our staff shortage? “More and more ICT and even more Auto Queue systems are driving more and more customers into the curtains. The call centres also often do not work well in the eyes of the consumer; they have to wait too long and often do not get enough answers in their eyes or are not understood. The customers have to make do with it, and funnily enough, most of them put up with it! We prefer to staff these positions with the lowest-paid employees and let them imitate computers. According to their managers, they often have to be able to answer ninety percent of the customer questions immediately?? And they also chase these people with frightening working hours and checks, but little changes. I often think: “Instead of working authoritarian, go and work with the principles of situational leadership of Hersey & Blanchard, so you probably save yourself a lot of effort, don’t put an authoritarian manager on a group of people who have enough delegation. This is a hard lesson, which I also had to learn in practice.
Shouldn’t we change our method?
Think about the next method, where I make the front and the back of your processes, and or company, much more important, the rest doesn’t interest the customer at all anyway. Ask the customer well at the front of the organization, tell them realistically about the how and why of their question, and your course of action, in the event of a purchase, installation or repair, mention the correct processing time, and/or delivery time, and make sure that everything within your organization also runs as you have discussed with the customer.Deliver everything on time. Excuses about what is happening within your company, and why there is a delay in the process, do not interest the customer at all.Make sure that there is room for questions and quick adjustments when it is delivered to the customer (after repair, or when new). (Here, too, good task-mature employees must speak to the customer.)The customer feels understanding and maturity in your organization, appreciation will partly fall on you.Help the employees in your organization to develop themselves, work sense helps to motivate employees. They enjoy their work again, and you have satisfied customers, who are happy to pay for your services and products
You find this difficult, your employees will certainly not want to understand this?
Well, even I am not directly saying that this reversal will be easy in your organization. Everything starts with a good plan, and a human approach. Have you ever thought about which managers inspired you the most early in your career? What did they do to make you listen and convince you of your view? For me, everything starts with a good explanation and agreement. Present your plan to the influencers in your organization, give them the space to think along, and even adjust your plan where necessary. Let them talk about it with the rest of the organization. Gradually initiate a movement. Try to be complimentary about good steps, and or good ideas, reward the right people. Share successes with the rest of the organization. Don’t make it a prize pool with the employee of the month, but indicate where the idea came from, and also allow criticism.
Lessons from nature?
Hardly anyone knows the secret of the seasons in nature, but it happens over and over again, nature corrects itself over and over again. Yet some again think that this is not the case. Perhaps nature is fed up with humans, but that does not mean that nature does not restore itself and always has the strength to start again. There is evidence that the earth’s seas are constantly adjusting their temperature to restore the natural balance. Yes, and here too certain individuals (people) continue to work against it, but who do you think will win in the long run, the negative or the positive forces? At the end you may have to say goodbye to some people who do not want to go along with the change, but these people often get a better destination by themselves. Good luck!!
Leave a Reply