Why GardaWorld's VP of Customer Support Puts Service in the Hands of Frontline Workers

This viewpoint is a guest post created by Joseph Smith. Smith is Vice President of Customer Support Services at GardaWorld, a global champion and leader in security services. A 25-year security and support veteran, Smith is responsible for supporting security employees in the field with IT, technology, and other essential tools.

In our fast-moving, increasingly competitive world, customer service is more important than ever before. Creating a memorable, positive experience for customers can create trust and goodwill that can last for years, while a bad experience can damage a company's reputation and even drive customers away.

Given the stakes, figuring out how to consistently provide superior customer service is a top priority. It's easy to pay lip service to good customer service, but it's much more difficult to put the people, processes, and technology in place to actually deliver.

As the Vice President of Customer Support Services at GardaWorld Security, a global champion and leader in security services, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to do just that. At GardaWorld Security, one of our most effective customer support strategies is enabling our employees to provide the best possible service they can.

It may seem counterintuitive-why not go directly to the customer and ask what you can fix? We can and do have direct lines of communication with customers to address any concerns. However, if that's your only support strategy, it can be exhausting for customers and employees alike.

GardaWorld Security's frontline employees are our ambassadors to our customers, and they are the best customer support we have. Here are three best practices that can help you create a proactive culture around customer service to set your organization apart.

1. Put frontline employees at the top of your organizational chart.

Building a culture that puts customer service at its core has to be grounded in the employee experience. At GardaWorld Security, our philosophy is that leadership works for our security officers in the field. We've actually inverted our organizational chart, so that our President is at the bottom and our frontline workers are at the top. We've also invested heavily in employee retention and building a strong overall culture. We believe employee sentiment matters, and we pay attention to employer rating sites, so much so that we earned the Great Place To Work Certification™.

I've seen this shift have a significant impact on our internal operations. Before, we focused on making sure we were driving money to the bottom line. Revenue is still important, but now a large part of my job is ensuring that our security officers have the equipment and resources they need to do their jobs effectively, whether it's a mobile phone, a vehicle, a guard shack, or anything else. Providing better support for employees is a key way to provide better support for customers.

2. Redefine what support means, for customers and employees.

In customer support, it's easy to get caught up in abstract customer sentiment metrics. It's important to listen to customers, but improvements in service delivery can come from places you didn't anticipate. For example, two years ago we were getting complaints from security officers about their uniforms. They said they couldn't take care of them easily, and it was impacting their ability to do their jobs.

To address the issue, we invested millions in redesigning and reissuing our uniforms. Some would say uncomfortable uniforms aren't a big deal, or that the fix wasn't worth the investment. But listening to employees and taking their concerns seriously is a powerful way to enable them to focus on their jobs and help customers succeed.

3. Technology is a powerful tool, but use it deliberately.

So far I've talked about empowering employees with equipment, but technology is also a critical way to help workers do their jobs more effectively and provide better service. However, it can be hard to know when the time is right to implement a new device or software, or how to balance the benefits you may get with the disruptions that may come with a new solution.

At GardaWorld Security, the stakes can be even higher. As a security company, we have to ensure that we are meeting the highest standards in physical and digital security, which often means there are some solutions we can't use, or we must do additional vetting and testing for those that we can.

That extra time and effort has a beneficial side effect. It allows us to be more deliberate about the technology solutions we implement, and spend more time educating and training employees about why we're using a new technology and how it works. It's not about using the trendiest thing, but deploying solutions that, once again, make employees' jobs easier and more satisfying.

Leaders are always trying to find ways to improve customer satisfaction. In my experience, starting with the stakeholders that are closest to your customers-your frontline employees-is the best place to start. With these best practices, you can empower your teams to make lasting improvements to customer support that truly raise the bar.

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