At our meeting last week we were introduced to another Nancy Friedman training video. Otherwise known as the Telephone Doctor, Nancy is a leading expert on client service and telephone etiquette. Although I disagree with her approach of referring to clients as customers, I still think she definitely knows how to convey the client satisfaction message.
In the video, Nancy introduce the concept of internal customer service. Some of her key points were:
1) Know the mission of your organization and the role of your department
2) Internal customer service is everyone’s responsibility
3) Respect employee differences
4) Recognize the personal space of others
e.g. loud music, strong odours
5) Work to resolve conflicts
e.g. peer to peer conflict resolution
6) Show Appreciation
Nancy also introduced the BIF approach. This 3 letter accronym stands for Behavior, Impact, Feeling. The BIF approach is a process that can help improve the method used with conflict resolution or to show appreciation more effectively i.e. express how a person’s behavior is impacting you and how you feel about the particular behavior. As always, tone of delivery and timing can play a large role in how effective the BIF approach will be.