S4e2 The Service Culture, Vision, and Commitment Edition Jeff Toister

[00:00:00] James Nathan: Hello and welcome to the Only One Business Show with me, your host, James Nathan. And today I have got a fabulous guest for you all the way from San Diego. He tells me it’s a place not worth visiting, but I, I don’t believe him. This gentleman started his customer service journey on his first customer service interaction. Which ended in failed… service failure and vowing to learn from that experience he became obsessed with customer service .Today he guides organisations that want to build and grow a customer focused culture. He’s a bestselling author of four books, including The Service Culture Handbook, and over a million people have taken one of his LinkedIn learning training courses.

 

He’s also a keynote speaker ranked as one of the top customer service professionals in the world by global guru. Please welcome Jeff Toister Jeff. Hi. How are you?

 

[00:00:49] Jeff Toister: I’m doing well, James, how are you doing? Thanks for having me here.

 

[00:00:52] James Nathan: Very well indeed, thank you. It’s the sun’s shining here, so I presume it’s the same there cuz Californians always tell me the sun never stops shining there.

 

[00:01:00] Jeff Toister: Well, if it wasn’t shining, we’d tell you it was still shining just to get you to come visit.

 

[00:01:06] James Nathan: Fantastic. And look, it’s, it’s fabulous to talk to someone who’s who’s obsessed with customer service because that that’s very much the, the theme of our conversation. What got you… tell me that story, that, that service failure, what get got you engaged in and, and, and vowing to, to learn from a customer service transaction.

 

[00:01:27] Jeff Toister: Well, I think in retrospect I was lucky because I don’t think and correct me if this is, this is the case for you, but I don’t think many of us grew up playing customer service with our friends or imagining one day I will be in customer service. I think we had all, all had other plans. And then we fell into, oh, this is a passion I have.

 

I was lucky that it happened. The very first customer I served. The situation was, I had just been hired to work in a clothing store. I was 16 years old. And the person who was supposed to be training me gave me about 15 minutes and then said, ah, I’m going on break. Here you go. Good luck. Yeah. I didn’t know our products.

 

I hadn’t met my coworker yet. I didn’t, I had no idea what I was doing. So I, I thought, you know, if I could survive for, for 15 minutes or whatever the time is, and not have to deal with any customers, then the training can resume and I can be okay. But of course a customer comes up to me and, and you could, you could already tell this guy was.

 

Right. And he, and he asked me, do you carry Dockers, a particular kind of, of pants? I had no idea. And not only that, my 16 year old brain didn’t have the experience to stop my mouth from saying what my brain was thinking, which is, I don’t know. So he got angry stormed out of the store.

 

I’m literally walk, watching him walk out of the store and thinking it’s because of me that he’ doing this. And I hated that feeling. I, it felt terrible. It, you know, all the things that I think employees go through where you feel like you did the wrong thing. I mean, I knew, I said the wrong thing.

 

I felt inadequate. And in that moment I realised two very important things. One is, and I’m sure your listeners are thinking the same thing. I said the wrong thing, and there’s way better ways to handle that. So that’s absolutely true. I understood that. And I needed to learn how to do a better job. But the second thing.

 

Was I also understood. I was not put in a position to succeed. The person training me, owed me more than 15 minutes of her time before, before she went on break. Yeah. It wasn’t enough to tell a 16 year old kid here’s how to handle these situations. And so I realised in that moment too, that we need to put people in a position where they can be successful.

 

If we want to see them do good work.

 

[00:03:45] James Nathan: She really set you up for failure. Didn’t she?

 

[00:03:48] Jeff Toister: She, she did. And, and in a way, she was set up for failure too, and being scheduled in a way that. You know, oh, breaks is an important part of at least where I live, you know, it’s a requirement. And, so if you have a, the kind of schedule where you’re not even allowed to spend enough time with someone you know, no one wins.

 

[00:04:07] James Nathan: Yeah. Yep. Well, what a shame, but also what, what not a shame. And so what, what did that, you know, you’ve obviously moved on a long, long way from that, but what was the first thing you did? How did you, handle, well, that situation, or how did you improve things for yourself?

 

[00:04:22] Jeff Toister: Well, I started by learning all I could about our products and, of course meeting my coworkers, you know, one of my challenges in the, in the situation I worked in a clothing store where everybody dressed, like they shopped there.

 

That was the point. So we all blended in. And I think if I had even known another person to go up to and say, Hey, can you help me answer this question? I might have done a better job. So of course I met my coworkers, but from there I learned all I could about our products. And in just a couple of months, we hired another new person.

 

And then I was asked to train . In part, because I had so much product knowledge. So of course I gave them 15 minutes and then went on break. That’s not true. That last part is not.

 

[00:05:07] James Nathan: And so when you talk about service culture, what does that mean? And what does it mean to you?

 

[00:05:13] Jeff Toister: Well I’m, glad you asked about that specifically, because I think it’s a term that we would all agree is important, but we probably all have slightly different definitions.

 

And for me, the, the root of it is culture. And in an organisation setting culture is really what people do. And to a lesser extent, how people think about things. But if you look at people’s actions as a group, what are the behaviours that are accepted, not accepted? What are our habits? That’s culture.

 

[00:05:39] James Nathan: Right.

 

[00:05:39] Jeff Toister: And service culture really means that what we do is in service to our customers. So it’s about customer service, but it’s also the broader customer experience where as an organisation, we’re really focused on making our customers lives better. And because it’s our culture, that’s what everybody’s doing collectively.

 

So when you see an organisation that just seems to be really focused on making customers’ lives better. That’s what a service culture looks like.

 

[00:06:09] James Nathan: And how do you get to that? How… well, let me rephrase my question. Why do some businesses struggle to create that kind of culture and why do some find it much easier? And actually produce that in spades to the point where when you get engaged with that business, you go in you, whatever, whatever in whichever way you are, you are in connection with them. You can feel it. Why are some so much better and why can’t some get there?

 

[00:06:35] Jeff Toister: Well, I think there’s a, a perfect metaphor for that which is there’s a lake near my house.

 

That’s got a nice path around it for walking and jogging and riding bikes. And, you know, maybe you and your listeners have some place near your home where people go to get outside and enjoy the outdoors and exercise a bit. And every year on January 2nd, the lake is absolutely jammed. There’s just hoards of people there.

 

And we know they’re there because on January 1st they said, this is the year I am getting in shape. starting tomorrow on going to the lake. Yep. Now predictably by February 1st, most of those people are gone. And I think service culture is very much the same thing. Every year I talk to executives who say, this is the year we’re going to get obsessed with service and maybe they have a big meeting, a training program, give everybody a book, but it’s not really a commitment.

 

It’s a series actions with some initial enthusiasm and then it’s quickly forgotten and we go back to our old habits. And I, I think that’s the true challenge for businesses is that they, they’re not really committed to what needs to be done. Like the people at the lake that kind of have an inkling of, Hey service culture’s good. And here are a few things I could do, but they haven’t really committed to making it. A way of doing business.

 

[00:08:06] James Nathan: Right. Okay. And so how do they, how do you get from I’ve got this great idea. We’re gonna, you know, push and become amazing. Our service is gonna be fabulous. How do you get to that?

 

[00:08:19] Jeff Toister: The formula is dead simple. It’s the commitment behind it. That’s the challenge. So as an example, I had a friend visiting from out of town recently. Who kind of knew the area. And she had a little bit of time before she had to go to the airport. So we agreed to meet for coffee. And so she, she asked if I could suggest a place for coffee that was near the airport.

 

So I picked a place and we agreed upon a time. That was it. I didn’t give her step by step instructions. I didn’t check in with her every five minutes. I just said, here’s the place. Here’s the time does that work? Yes, it does. And lo and behold, she was there. I think service culture is exactly the same way.

 

We need to give our employees a destination clarity on, you know, what does great service look like? How will, you know, if you get there, what, what are you trying to do for your customers? It it’s something I call a customer experience vision, which is simply a shared definition of outstanding service.

 

So we all agree. This is what it looks like. And then as long as our employees have a few basic skills, we need to make it easy for them to get there. The challenge is, I mean, it really is that simple, but the challenge is we don’t create a destination, so we never define what great service looks like.

 

What we do instead is we, we manage our employees through a series of transactions. We teach them to be transactional, not service focused. When they’re trained they’re learned how to go through a series of steps. , they’re not really taught to think about things from a customer’s perspective.

 

It’s like, here’s the process. Here’s the procedure. When we manage them, it’s metrics, you know, here’s how long each interaction should take. Here is the 27 quality standards you must meet with every encounter. Maybe everything is a checklist or a set of numbers that don’t necessarily point at great service.

 

They point at monitoring the transactional work we’ve asked our employees

 

[00:10:18] James Nathan: So what can business leaders do? So you are, you are looking at your business now and you’re thinking, okay, well, I want to get to this point. I understand that I’ve been the metrics I’m looking at and using are potentially not allowing me to get to the, where I thought I wanted to be.

 

What can I do in my business now? What can I do to change it so that my employees are, are not just not. You know, want to give good service or feel they should, but actually become obsessed with the idea of providing fantastic service.

 

[00:10:48] Jeff Toister: So first we need to give ’em a destination, just like I picked a place to meet my friend for coffee, and she figured out how to get there. We need to give our employees a destination when it comes to providing great service.

 

So step one, let’s define what great service means for our organisation. In a very simple statement that focuses on our customer and says, this is what we’re trying to do for our customer. So a as an example, there’s a, an outdoor company. I think you’d call it a sports shop right. In, in the states called REI. And they define great service as we’re trying to help you enjoy the outdoors. So if I’m trying to get kitted up for a big hike or a camping trip or biking or kayaking or anything outdoors, you go to REI and they’re obsessed with helping you have a great outdoor adventure.

 

So that’s, that’s a dead, simple definition, but you know, your listeners, you’re not REI or pick another business you admire you’re your business. So you have to figure out what unique thing your business does to make your customers’ lives better and define that for everybody in the organisation. So that’s step one. You have to have that definition.

 

Step two is engaging your employees. And there’s a like service culture. There’s a lot of definitions around engagement, but to me it really means that your employees understand what makes the business successful. So they know what that destination or that vision is. And, they’re committed to contributing to that. So my friend who met me for coffee was engaged with meeting me for coffee, cuz she understood where we agreed to meet and she was committed to being there. There she was.

 

[00:12:29] James Nathan: And thankfully, but you know, when there’s a number of issues and, and bits and pieces that are kind of coming to my mind, because we talk about building a vision, but, you know, vision is a very important part of leadership generally, to be able to not only consider a vision, but be able to being a good enough storyteller to explain that vision in a way which rings true with the people it’s meant to. Yeah. And, then the other side is hiring the right people for your business because sure, you know, every not everybody is going to want to engage with service excellence. Not everybody wants to. Or am I wrong?

 

[00:13:08] Jeff Toister: You’re not wrong at all. And here’s where the conversation might get a little bit too granular. Most, so we look at the, the vision most of the visions that companies do articulate if they articulate one are nonsense, right? There are a bunch of fluffy words that don’t mean anything.

 

I mean, we’re here to help you enjoy the outdoors. That’s dead simple. There, there is a fast food place. That’s kind of legendary where I am called In and Out. And it’s known for having one of the best hamburgers in the best service. Their whole brand promise is quality you can taste and, and they tell their employees to focus on three things and three things, only quality, courtesy, and cleanliness.

 

 But they take it to the nth degree. So that everything they do is focused on that. So it, it has to be dead simple when you get to things like hiring, which is kind of, you know, farther down the list, but, but certainly important, most companies would be better off if they scrap their existing hiring process. And just hired people randomly. And I know you have a, a background in recruiting, so perhaps you’ve seen this, I have a background in recruiting too. And one thing that I noticed when I was working in recruiting, my company had this kind of hiring process and it had an ideal candidate and we did all these assessments and, it was interesting because I just, as an experiment, I, I compared this model that we’d created to our best employees and it didn’t fit.

 

In other words, our best employees often were people that were accidentally hired. We probably shouldn’t have if we had been following the standards. So that was one, the, the hiring model was broken, but the second part was we had all these different managers making decisions and they all made their decisions inconsistently. And they often talk themselves into making bad decisions to hire someone who is maybe like them or likable, someone I want to hang out with, but not necessarily possess the qualities that were right for best employees. So there, there’s so much to talk about when it comes to the hiring process that’s broken look, I probably should have said yes, hire people who wanna provide service. That that’s another answer.

 

[00:15:25] James Nathan: But it’s a great can of worms to open because, you know, yes, I, I have, you know, most of my life has been spent in the, in the recruitment world and, you know, there’s a thousand theories of what makes it, what, how, how do you hire the best people?

 

I know that one of the businesses I worked for for a long time, big recruitment company. We spent a lot of time trying to work out what was about that, how people we called high flyers. So the people who could bill a huge amount of money. What was it about them and the ones that actually went on to become really good managers.

 

What was the DNA of those people and spent a lot of time doing you, you name the, you know, the test to try and get to the heart of all of this and put together a load of information at the results. So the results all came through and worked it, you know, but the upshot of it, the really interesting upshot of it was that was, there was no commonality.

 

What we discovered was actually that the reason the business was so successful was because of the diversity we had and that wasn’t diversity of skin colour, or religion or sexual orientation. It was diversity of thought process and style. And having that mix that really great mix was actually. That was the DNA of the business.

 

Now you can’t pot that back and say, right, well, if James can bill well, and he’s a good manager and he’s this kind, here’s his Myers Briggs, you know, turnout let’s hire everyone like that because it, it doesn’t give you what business needs. It just gives you that. And it’s interesting to say, when you look at it the other way around that you couldn’t find, you know, you looked at the, the people who were there and said, well, hang on. They don’t fit the mould. It’s that’s to me that doesn’t make…. It’s obvious that it should be like that.

 

[00:17:02] Jeff Toister: Well, and, and what I said earlier that I think recruiting’s down the list. So I I’ve trained personally thousands of employees throughout my career. And one of the odd things that I’ve noticed is that if you have a strong service culture, which is an influence, it’s how we do things.

 

You can hire an average person who just, you know, a little bit of passion for doing good work and seems to care a little bit about helping people. You can hire an average person, put them in that culture and they will do great things. Because the culture around them brings out their best.

 

On the other hand, you could hire the best person and put them in a terrible culture and they will do bad things. And I I’ve talked to employees who have been profoundly uncomfortable in their work environment, because anytime they tried to go above and beyond, they would be ostracised or laughed at, or they had a manager who prevented them, or if they tried to change something that was broken, their coworkers would stifle any of that initiative.

 

And so you get this person with all these great skills and capabilities and passion, and you just crush all of it. And so recruiting is important, but I, I hate to say this and perhaps you’ll just agree. I, I think we’ve made it too important and we haven’t focused on what environment are we recruiting people into.

 

I think that is a more important focus area than exactly who we hire.

 

[00:18:30] James Nathan: No, I understand what you’re saying, you know, in terms of it being down the list, because that is it…. But the bit I’d push back on is I think once you’ve got the culture structured, the way you’d like it to be, or you think you’d like it to be then trying to find people who have complimentary style and complimentary core values fits very nicely.

 

When you said, you know, businesses visions being fluffy nonsense, I’ve, just like you, Jeff, I must have read a million of them and thought, what is that all about? , you know, just seems like, what, what should it be? Let’s put some lovely words together and core values, the same. Let’s put down some core values we think sound really cool, but actually understanding what it is about the people and the culture and how they fit together is quite, quite, quite interesting. And you mentioned In and Out, now, I’ve never been to an In and Out Burger and I’ve, you know, but I, I live on the other side of the pond from you.

 

I have heard of it and heard of it a lot. What do they do there that gets them to the place where, where people miles away who’ve no chance of buying a burger from them, know all about them.

 

[00:19:34] Jeff Toister: So they, they do a lot. That’s really right. But it, it starts with a relentless focus on that quality, courtesy and cleanliness. And so if you, if you go to an in and out, one of the things you’ll notice that’s different than most fast food places is that they only focus on burgers, burgers, and fries. So they don’t have salads and chicken and fish filets. And it is burgers and fries or I should say burgers and chips. So that’s what they do.

 

They are relentlessly focused on that. The kitchen is completely open. They make everything to order. Everything is fresh. They do not freeze any of their food. They, and so you can see the quality, you can observe the quality, right. Even on a busy day. And then, and the In and Out’s in my neighbourhood, you go at at nine, 10:00 PM, there’s still a line of people waiting to get in. It’s very popular.

 

They keep them clean. They’re spotlessly clean at all times. And every interaction you have with employees… employees are incredibly friendly, right? And, and in fairness, it’s easy to be friendly if people love your product and, and are generally happy that it is a lot easier for employees to be friendly, but they also hire people who are friendly and have a certain attitude.

 

And, the other thing that they do though, and this is probably. The biggest secret that’s not so secret is they relentlessly focus on replicating that in every single store that they open. What a lot of people don’t realise In and Out was founded in Southern California in 1948. It’s the same year that McDonald’s started in Southern California. So not far away and they originally had the same three words that were kind of watch words, as quality, cleanliness, courtesy. Now McDonald’s focused on really growth. Those three words never had much meaning after McDonald’s was purchased by Ray Krok and started franchising became this global thing.

 

And while McDonald’s brings in more revenue on a store by store basis In and Out is far more profitable. They have far higher customer service scores. They just do far better. And you look at the line at McDonald’s and you look at the line at, In and Out and it’s not even close. So it’s the relentlessly focusing on just a few basic things that is made In and Out so successful.

 

[00:21:51] James Nathan: It’s fascinating. I mean, I’m fascinated by any business like that. You know, Ray Krok obviously did wonderful things for McDonald’s, for what they wanted McDonald’s to be which is a behemoth , you know, but I wouldn’t walk into one to eat. Where you know, that’s a slightly different, different thing, I guess. It’s easy for us when we’re thinking about service to look at retail and food and hospitality, because it’s so obvious that there has to be good otherwise they just disappear. But what about, you know, professional services, businesses, law firms, accounting firms. How do they get the same kind of customer focus in place or is it different or is it exactly the same?

 

[00:22:30] Jeff Toister: No, it, really is exact…. the model’s exactly the same, you know, it’s just that the vision is… it’s different. It has to be unique to your organisation. So as, as an example, one of the companies I researched and wrote about in the service culture handbook, is a software company. They sell software to the legal profession. And so law offices will use it to run their, run their business.

 

It’s a company called Cleo. And at the time that I profiled them their vision I’m paraphrasing a little bit was, was really about, you know, how do we make our clients’ businesses better and help them get the most out of our. Software mm-hmm and, and how that might look would be, you know, they design software with an incredible amount of input from their clients. What problems are you trying to solve? What’s standing in your way. Their support team understands what clients are trying to do and, and works to, to not just say, well, here’s what the software does. That extra step of what are you trying to accomplish today? Let me show you the best way to do it.

 

I’ll give you another example. There’s a, an equipment financing company, which is that’s as un-consumer as you get right. They, they help companies who sell office supplies, computer networks. You know, kind of large ticket items to other companies. So this company is called Great America and their customer service vision….. I’m. I’m paraphrasing again, but it’s essentially like we help your business succeed. And you have to unpack that a little bit, but essentially what it means is that if you’re selling, let’s say computer networks, your client… that’s a capital expense. Your client probably needs to finance that purchase.

 

Well, great. America can help you provide that financing. So you’re gonna sell more and, and, and if they provide the best possible solution for financing that purchase then as a vendor, as a dealer, you’re gonna sell a lot more. And, and so it really is that simple. The challenge again, is not understanding the formula. Define it, make sure everybody knows it, make it really easy for everybody to do it. The challenge is having the true commitment to stick to that formula.

 

[00:24:51] James Nathan: Yep. To get back to the park and run around again, the next day.

 

[00:24:55] Jeff Toister: That’s exactly it.

 

[00:24:58] James Nathan: So of all the businesses you’ve worked with. And you know, it’d probably be mean of me to ask you to name names, but who’s got it the most right.

 

[00:25:08] Jeff Toister: Ooh. Well, I mean, Great America. I was just talking about them that they are so dialed in effective kind of a funny story about them. I was…. and this is, I think illustrates the challenge. One of their competitors had one of the, the ex an executive, one of their competitors picked up my book. And I put my phone number, my email address in all of my books and I invite people to contact me, you know, it’s kind of, I’m supporting the book. And so he, he picked up a copy of the service culture handbook, and he contacted me and we had a chat and he said, I love the book. This is great. This is fantastic. I’m gonna implement it, but I’m going to do it all different than the way you wrote about which struck me as kind of odd. It’s like, here’s the formula, here’s the recipe. And you like it, but you’re going to do something completely different and expect the same result. So I try to kind of talk about of that.

 

And I said like, you know, the book’s kind of a formula. And if you follow the formula, that’s where the success comes in. He says, I, I don’t know. And I could, I could really detect that. He was, he was trying to hedge his commitments, right. He wanted to delegate too much to other people and not be the leader that he needed to be.

 

So it was kind of a check the box, right. That transactional leadership. And so finally he said, well, tell me about, you know, maybe you can gimme an example of other companies that have done this. The book’s full of examples of companies that have done this, but I knew what business he was in. So I said, have you, have you heard of Great America?

 

And it could have gone better because he, he was effusive. He’s like, oh great America. They are the, they are the top company in our industry. Everybody looks up to Great America. It’s the company we’re always trying to catch up to. They are the best when it comes to service. Okay. Well, great. America follows this process. And you think that would’ve really cemented the deal? He would’ve been convinced. And I think that his response really illustrates the challenge because he said, ahhhhh, he still wasn’t convinced that he needed to follow that plan because he…. the reality was he wasn’t committed. Yeah. It would’ve been nice. It would’ve been an ego stroke to, to be that great company, but to do the work, ah, he wasn’t ready for.

 

[00:27:21] James Nathan: What… I mean, the point is great. It’s like, you know, you coming to my home, having something to eat and saying, James, that was lovely. Could I have the recipe. I say, sure, here it is, you go, do you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna substitute everything in there for something different.

 

[00:27:36] Jeff Toister: That’s it. That’s exactly it.

 

[00:27:38] James Nathan: Wow. And how do you, if I’m a leader listening to this now, so I’m, I’m sitting and I’m listening. I’m thinking this Jeff guy sounds fantastic. I really like what he’s got to say. I’m worried that my business, well, I’m worried that I’m actually a transactional leader. I thought I wasn’t, but perhaps I am. How could someone check themselves to, to see, you know, where they are on that spectrum?

 

[00:28:00] Jeff Toister: I had this conversation with an executive recently, and I, I just asked him, how do you manage your people? And the very first thing that he said was, well, here are the metrics that I use. So I already know that’s a transactional leader.

 

If the first thing you think about are metrics and I don’t wanna discount metrics, metrics are incredibly important. It… metrics though are there to tell you, are you making progress? Like if I’m on a road trip and I see, okay, here’s, here’s how much farther I have to go. That’s a good metric to tell me if I’m on course or not sure, but that’s not the destination.

 

The destination is where I’m heading towards. So I think as a leader, you have to ask yourself how do I manage my people? What do I talk about? Do I talk about service or do I talk about metrics? Do I talk about policies? Do I talk about procedures? The thing you talk about the most is probably what kind of leader you really are to your employees.

 

There’s another way to test it. And that is to pick a random sample of your employees and just go ask three questions. What’s our customer service vision. And if you have one hopefully they’ll they’ll know it. If you don’t have one, then asking that question will be awkward. What does it mean? So employees have to be able to define it in their own words, in a way that’s consistent and coherent and three, how do you personally contribute?

 

If your organisation’s customer focused, all of your employees can answer those questions. No problem. If your organisation is not customer focused or as a leader, you haven’t done enough to create a vision. Your employees will not be able to answer those questions or not answer them consistently. They’ll point back to all of those transactions, the procedure, the process, the metrics that they know, they have to hit to be considered doing a good job.

 

[00:29:49] James Nathan: I think it would be quite scary for most businesses to go and do that, to ask those questions of their employees. And I would suggest that they should all now go and ask those three questions of their employees because the results they get will be quite often very, very different to what they expect.

 

Which would be awesome. I know a lot of people like hearing good news don’t they? But bad news is the stuff that helps us get better. And understanding where the gaps that’s exactly it is. What’s important. Jeff I’m I…. you’ve given us a huge amount to think about. And, and some really great thoughts to take away and to, and to use.

 

I would suggest that if you’re listening to Jeff and you like what he’s got to say, don’t substitute the chicken for the beef. Just do it the way that he suggested it ‘cuz that’s probably a good starting point, but Jeff, what’s your golden nugget, your one big thing, something that people listening now can take away and do. Something they can change in their business today to make their business better for today and better for the years to come. What would that be?

 

[00:30:50] Jeff Toister: If I had to pick one thing, I think I go back to the lake and I think about why people are there in February. What are those people doing? That the rest of the people are not doing.

 

And, and one of the biggest reasons that people are still there in February is because they like going to the lake. They enjoy it. It’s not just a check the box or a KPI. They, they might measure some of that, but they go because they like going there. And so if I’m an executive and I’m trying to figure out how do I create a service culture, you better be passionate about making your customers lives better because if you, as a leader are not passionate about that, don’t bother. Just focus your business on something else because service, culture’s not gonna be it for you. If you truly are passionate, you love it. Then your challenge as a leader is to start making sure that everybody in your organisation shares that same passion and can execute that passion. So I think it, it starts there.

 

But if you don’t, if you don’t enjoy it, then you’re going to be in big trouble.

 

[00:32:04] James Nathan: Jeff, that is a lovely way to finish. thank you very much for all your time and all your thoughts.

 

[00:32:10] Jeff Toister: James. Thanks for so much for having me be a part of this. I appreciate it.

 

[00:32:13] James Nathan: It’s a pleasure. Absolute pleasure.