“First, Take Good Care of Each Other.” That’s what the sign in the lobby of each Experient office says. When I was part of the leadership team there, we had a very strong belief that in order to lead the industry in serving our external clients and suppliers, we had to first play well in our own sandbox. The sign in the lobby was a gift from the Anaheim Marriott’s GM, Doug Watson, who also believed in the power of internal customer service.

We all have customers, whether they are external or internal. High-performing organizations will develop and nurture a culture that emphasizes a strong commitment to service, in house and out in the field. Employees who enjoy their jobs and their relationships with their co-workers are more likely to offer excellent service when it comes to the paying customers.

Here are some ways to develop great internal service culture:

Get together — Pot-luck lunches, drinks after work, birthday celebrations, a community project … these are just a few of the ways employees from different departments can come together to get to know each other, beyond the day-to-day grind.

Show gratitude — When was the last time you thanked someone in accounting or told his or her boss how valuable s/he is? How about arranging to have candy or pizza delivered to some of your colleagues who are working through crunch time? Or maybe really blow them away and proactively offer your assistance? Random acts of kindness are truly appreciated, especially by those in the trenches. An organization that has a good balance of timely public and private recognition is sure to have motivated employees.

Walk a mile in their shoes — Does everyone in your organization understand and appreciate the various responsibilities of their co-workers and how they can positively or negatively affect their efforts? Have you ever shadowed another department for a day or even a few hours? This tactic is especially insightful for those departments that rely on each other. Complaints will quickly diminish.

Coordinate deadlines — Instead of directing co-workers to turn a project around by what may be an unreasonable date, ask them what kind of turnaround works for them, given their other priorities.

Cut the gossip — If someone complains to you about another employee, do you instruct them to take their issue directly to that employee or do you help spread the disease within your organization?

Make team decisions — Are decisions made from above and then communicated to the rank and file or are employees asked to provide valuable input on decisions that impact their area?

Standardize service, inside and out — Have you developed best practices for providing service that apply to both external and internal customers?  Do they address speed of response, tone, attitude, and mutual respect? Are they reinforced and recognized on an ongoing basis?

Take Away

To distinguish yourself as an organization that delivers exceptional customer service, you need to start from the inside out, and from the top down. That means cultivating an internal culture of respect and support for each other, from the CEO to the receptionist.

You can help that along by seeking opportunities to:  get together outside of the office, thank each other for a job well done, get to know everyone’s roles, communicate directly with each other, and work together as a team — especially when it comes to making deadlines and decisions.

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1. Listening Is an Act of Leadership

Every afternoon he’d come toddling in and the wait staff would fall in behind him as wound his way through the bar and headed to the patio where we offered draft beer for a buck a glass.  WE called it our really, really happy hour.  The first brew would land nearly simultaneous with his arrival at ‘his’ table.  He would smile a broken smile and settle in, shoulders slouched, ankles crossed, and adopt the thousand yard stare of a man who has been too many places but no place to go.

We became friends of sorts. I’m not good at having ‘buddies,’ especially when I have a restaurant to run.  He loved to start a conversation knowing it would lead to prolonged discussion.  Sometimes I could feel the day growing longer, passing in slow motion, but for him, I think the conversations made days going slowly nowhere feel a little more life-like.

He was a smart man.  He talked about encounters with great thinkers whose names I knew and books I had read but never dreamed of meeting.  And to be really truthful,   my little judgmental voice oftenwhispered that he hadn’t met such people either.

We sold the restaurant and I gave no thought about what would fill his long afternoons.

Within a month a flat, letter-size envelope arrived looking for all the world like it had been carried in a back pocket for a week.  The return address, written in dull-pointed pencil, read “Richard Cage” in block print letters that looked not much better than mine.

I thought, “Who the hell is Richard Cage?” and turned envelope every which way in a futile attempt to divine the answer.

Buns had just finished with her pile of mail and with the eagle-eye of a BINGO player poked her finger at the slab of Manila and pronounced, “You know Richard. He’s the buck-a-beer guy!”

Sliding the contents the envelope onto the table revealed a letter. Nine pages. Little did I imagine that this scene was to be repeated every month or so. Each envelope followed by as surprisingly artful rendition of an armadillo?

There were letters, all of them long, on a wide range of topics.  We discussed, via old fashioned post, aerodynamics, hydraulics, basic physics, management, history, and more. His final letter was on philosophy and his big point was, “You can’t punish or embarrass someone into doing something.”

Our hometown weekly paper includes a column by a local radio personality and, in this particular issue he told the tale of a local builder attempting to file a request for an inspection.  Being close to City Hall the builder entered the appropriate department and stated his business only to be told by the clerk that all inspection requests must be phoned in. (The system allows requests to be logged and performance measures to be reported.  In the vacuum of an office it makes pretty good sense.)

Not thinking, the busy clerk said she could not accept his request in person. And without further thought or explanation told the gentleman to just use his cell and an inspection would be scheduled right away.

Now there is some debate as to whether or not he was denied use of the department phone or whether or not it was suggested that he leave the building to place his call.

Even if you don’t believe the entire story there is still plenty of reason to shake your head and think, “Your tax dollars at work.”

If you think about it, someone who cares about the city might have called for a supervisor. But if your goal is not to solve the problem but to rub a face in an innocent mistake, you take the story to the media. Where it grows with each retelling.

Perhaps the intent was to make things better by “punishing or embarrassing someone into something.”

“Oh, golly!” said the poof of silvery hair that sits across the table from me at breakfast.  “Richard Cage died.”  I thought instantly of the pile of letters I had received and the pile that would go unwritten.

At the funeral there was a small clutch of Masons and, other than ourselves, only one couple who we guessed managed the small apartment complex where Richard had spent his final days.

When the preacher spoke we were surprised to learn that Richard had been CIA and Special Forces, an expert in the martial arts.  That he held numerous degrees from elite universities explained the long and thoughtful letters he shared with me.  He was someone. But I knew that.

And so I suspect that the clerk who just for a moment got a little stupid is also someone. Maybe she is a good mom, a loving daughter, and who knows, a budding musician or a community volunteer.  I’ve got a feeling that had Richard Cage been the one applying for the permit the situation would have turned out differently.  He would have recognized that this clerk was ‘someone’ and that you can’t punish or embarrass anyone into something.

(Richard, I owe you another seven pages.)

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