4 Words That Can Kill Your Entire Business

Great businesses with smart employees do not compromise their hiring procedures because your employees virtually make or break your business. Employees with the best attitude to work keep your business competitive and make the smart decisions in the best interest of your business.

If you focus on attracting people with unbeatable energy,  passion for success and flexible in the face of change, you won’t have to worry about how they are communicating with your existing customers, prospective leads, partners and other employees.

Unfortunately, most businesses  are being driven to bankruptcy because of words used constantly in the office, words employees communicate to customers  and words they are not saying to clients, partners and employees.

 “It’s not my job”

Every smart employee you hire knows what he or she is supposed to do from the very day work begins. Businesses are good at handing down the “responsibility kit” to new employees and telling them exactly what they are supposed to do, who to contact to do that, when to do what with what resources.

People understand their new responsibilities clearly and begin to execute them without hesitation. And guess what, they focus on doing just that.

Each employee represents the business

As the business world moves quicker,  gets  more competitive and engagement becomes more crucial, it is imperative that your employees understand that they represent the business in every way possible especially as the internet is becoming a crucial part of business.

Speed is critical to success

Response to customer questions and feedback can make or break your business. You don’t want that horrible experience one of your customers had the other day to happen again. Oh and she shared that on Facebook and tweeted it, she was so furious she even wrote a post about it.

Now somebody has to address that immediately, unfortunately your marketing manager (MM) didn’t catch that in time but your front desk assistant saw it (because she is more social) but never got the time to even pass it on to the MM because she was attending to a visitor who requested to see the founder and CEO.

Make that culture change today!

Your business can do a better job at teaching your employees to know what they can possibly respond to, what they should pass on to the right employee and how to better write a critical email that needs immediate attention.

With the growth of internet usage  and social tools, customers now have so much power to kill your business and they don’t need your permission to do that. It’s important to do that culture change workshop now especially when your business is still young.

Survival depends on all of you!

Everybody in your company is responsible for the survival of your business, that must be made clear, and where an immediate response is required to deal with a critical feedback, they should be given the go ahead to respond with authority on behalf of the company.

Great as that sounds, in some industries, doing a job that’ s not yours can put you and your colleagues at risk. Know when to stay off someone else’s shoes and when to draw someone’s attention to a problem, a question, a feedback or a critical issue. Be safe, be work safe.

Don’t be a victim!

Big companies who manage  hundreds of employees with strict roles and tasks are known to be poor at customer service. There are hundreds if not thousands of bad customer service reports on the internet and these companies maybe doing all they can to respond to their existing users, but unfortunately most customers are not impressed, they expect answers now!

Zappos handles customer service better.

Zappos is known to be better at responding to customers. I have never bought shoes on Zappos.com, but when I was researching about Tony Hsieh some months ago for a post about  customer service, I read great reviews about his company and what employees are trained to do and to say to keep customers happy.

Tony Hsieh wants to be known not as the best online shoe retailer but as the company with the best customer service. In the words of Tony: “We believe that customer service shouldn’t be just a department; it should be the entire company.”

Don’t expect to deliver good service from unhappy employees!

Your employees are your greatest assets, protect their rights and keep them motivated to deliver. It’s time to examine what your culture looks like and the kind of words employees are using in the office, outside the office,  when they are talking to customers and most importantly when they are tempted to say or respond ” It’s not my job”.  Fix your company culture  because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.

Combating the “It’s Not My Job” mentality

You can combat the “It’s not my job” mentally by setting clear expectations and setting a good example as a leader of your business. Your business should be open to adapt where necessary and employees should be thought the importance of being flexible and how that can positively impact the business and their careers.

When you  take on new responsibilities, you are taking  advantage of chances to improve your skills and you could even find out what  you are very passionate about and subsequently you can build a happy career in that field in the near future.

Saying it’s “not my job” cannot help your career in any way, you can at least notify someone who will respond or do the job. Make that decision today and change your career for good.  Don’t get in the way of both your business and your career.