To provide excellent customer service, your organization must meet and exceed the expressed and unexpressed needs of your customers or patients. Meeting the expressed needs of customers or patients seems rather straightforward. For example, a hotel guest might ask for an extra pillow or a wake-up call. It isn’t difficult to fulfill requests like those, but sometimes—like the example below—your customer or patient may have needs that are more complex. Meeting Expressed Needs The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, Miami recently had a guest with severe food allergies. The mom sent the following letter to the property after their visit. "Our older son, 18, has severe food allergies. Prior to our visit, we exchanged emails and spoke with the Executive Chef. The Executive Chef asked questions about my son’s food preferences as well as special brands of foods that are safe for him. The chef team outdid themselves and made our trip the best vacation ever!! "Upon our arrival, the chef team was ready for us and already had plans for my son’s breakfast and other meals. They made pancakes for him (which is a huge treat for him since making pancakes without eggs or milk is no easy feat). During our stay, my son was able to order a variety of creative and healthy meals, including a ‘real’ pizza (sans cheese) for the first time in his life! Our whole family enjoyed the club’s and restaurant’s food, and we were able to relax, knowing that our son’s food was safely prepared." Meeting Unexpressed Needs Meeting the unexpressed needs of customers or patients takes a little detective work. Your employees must be on the lookout for clues about customers’ preferences. In the following guest story, the In-Room Dining Attendant didn’t simply pick up the dirty dishes. He paid attention to details and discovered a way to make the guest’s experience more enjoyable. He had his radar on and antenna up. A guest at The Ritz-Carlton, Doha was celebrating his birthday on the second night of his stay at the hotel. The Guest Relations team decided to arrange a beautiful cake and card to be sent up to his room. Later that evening, the In-Room Dining Attendant went to deliver orange juice the guest had requested. Noticing that the guest had only eaten the blueberries off the top of the cake, the In-Room Dining Attendant asked the guest if there had been any problem with the surprise. While the guest was appreciative of the gesture, he explained to the In-Room Dining Attendant that he was very health conscious and careful about what he eats. The In-Room Dining Attendant immediately returned to the kitchen and asked the Chef to prepare a sliced fruit platter featuring berries and seasonal fruits, as well as a jar of freshly squeezed orange juice. The In-Room Dining Attendant and several other Ladies and Gentlemen delivered the beautiful platter to the guest’s room, along with a card signed by the entire In-Room Dining team. The guest was very pleased by the surprise and thanked them graciously. However, the In-Room Dining Attendant was not finished with his exceptional service to this guest. He requested the Pastry Chef bake bran muffins to include in the guest’s breakfast each morning, and informed the team of the guest’s preference for health-conscious foods. This ensured that each time the guest would order food, the team knew to offer healthy alternatives such as green salad rather than the dish’s usual side of french fries. When the guest departed, he thanked each of the Ladies and Gentlemen he had interacted with during his stay. Making Service Memorable Service excellence happens when your employees are encouraged and willing to make extra efforts for your customers and patients. Meeting the needs of your customers and patients is a good first step. However, exceeding the expectations of your customers and patients results in personal, memorable service that builds brand loyalty. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Guest Story: Expressed and Unexpressed Needs appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Around this time of year New Year’s resolutions can start to languish - if they haven’t already fizzled out completely. To remedy this sorry state of affairs we launched a competition to help our followers in the UK get back on track. Judging by the volume of entries, a lot of you needed a boost! I’m delighted to announce our winner, Peter Carter, who hails from Wirral! Peter takes home a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 kitted out with a free annual GoToMeeting subscription - a handy toolkit for boosting productivity and re-energising your day, so you can focus on what really matters.  Thanks to all who entered. Look out for future competitions, as well as my regular posts with tips and tricks for increasing productivity. Because life’s too short to be stressed at work.     Photo Credit: familymwr via Compfight cc

"Setting customer expectations at a level that is aligned with consistently deliverable levels of customer service requires that your whole staff, from product development to marketing, works in harmony with your brand image." - Richard Branson, English businessman The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Superior customer or patient experiences can only be fulfilled when your entire organization is committed to service excellence. Without the buy-in of every employee, your service risks being inconsistent and could potentially disappoint your customers or patients. Leaders can foster an environment of service excellence by: Ensuring employees understand that customers are the highest priority Providing written service guidelines so employees know what is expected of them Offering training and modeling to employees to improve service skills Empowering employees to fulfill the expressed and unexpressed needs of customers and patients Asking for feedback from customers and patients to determine if service is meeting expectations Leaders at The Ritz-Carlton spend many hours focusing on discussions around our guest experience and how we all as a team can improve to consistently align performance (and culture, too) with the reputation of our brand.  How does your organization work together to focus on customer needs? ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Customer Expectations appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

The web has transformed how and where we work. But can it also hinder productivity? I’m sure you’re familiar with this scenario: Coffee at the ready, you fire up your computer one morning, poised to plunge into the emails that have piled up overnight. But wait! Something is wrong with your Internet connection. As the expected emails fail to materialize, you feel a sudden twinge of panic. What if someone’s waiting for you to reply? You can’t even access Twitter or LinkedIn. Your favorite news sites? Forget about it. You stare blankly at your screen. Your whole morning is ruined! At this point, you’ve got two options. You can accept that getting any meaningful work done is out of the question. Or, to paraphrase Great-Aunt Mildred, you can take a good hard look at yourself. Do you really need the web to do work? Come to think of it, could you be relying a little too much on the Internet?  Writer Joshua Fields Millburn certainly thinks so. He disconnected after his writing and health suffered due to a raging Internet habit. "The Internet is not evil, just like candy is not evil. But if your entire diet consists of candy, you get sick and fat fairly quickly," Joshua explains. "Thus, I don’t keep bags of candy at home, just like I don’t keep the Internet at home anymore either." Millburn is not the only writer to cut off the Internet. Jonathan Franzen, famous for dissing Twitter, glued his Ethernet port closed to keep the web at bay. And Zadie Smith rationed Internet access with software in the process of writing her novel NW. Of course, we are not all writing a novel, and some aspects of our jobs do require the Internet. But equally, it is healthy to question always-on connectivity and the work habits it cultivates. For example, answering emails as soon as they arrive can feel and even look like work, but it may not actually help you get close to achieving your tasks. Here’s my challenge to you. Try rationing your web activity for a week. Break up your tasks into those that require access (taking part in a video conference or replying to emails) and those that don’t (drafting a proposal or blog post).  Now structure your day according to these tasks. For example, set aside half an hour or 45 minutes to triage your email inbox. Do this two or even three times a day. The rest of the time? Sign out. Be strict with yourself. You could even try the tools Zadie Smith so gratefully thanks (Freedom and SelfControl). At the end of the week, honestly appraise how you’ve done. Have you been more - or less - productive?   Photo Credit: origami_potato via Compfight cc

Although our Citrix brand is global, we remember our roots and always strive to retain that small company feel. Because over 20 years later, we recognize that our growth is thanks to the many individual partners and customers who continue to count on our solutions to help them work better and live better. Since much of our success depends on these small but smart companies, we’ve teamed up with Silver Lining Limited to celebrate small businesses and their importance to us - and to the economy as a whole. Without small businesses, which employ over half the U.S. workforce, we wouldn’t be on the road to recovery today. Officially launched on Monday, January 28, the Thank You Small Business campaign is currently in the midst of a 10-city tour to spread the word about how we all win when small business wins. We’ve invited thousands of business owners to take part, and we’re offering free stuff, resources and events to help them grow and succeed.   I recently had the privilege to speak with Carissa Reiniger, founder of Silver Lining Limited, about the campaign. In one tweet or less, what’s Thank You Small Business? A movement to create conversation about how important small business is to the economy. How do you define a small business? An owner-operated, non-venture-backed, true blue business with under 20 employees. One of the reasons this conversation is so important is that organizations identify and categorize small business inconsistently. One org once categorized it as anyone with under 500 employees. That is insane, that is not a small business - that’s a big business. So these under-20-employee companies are having an impossible time getting access to capital and getting anyone to listen to them because they are seemingly insignificant. We’re throwing the term around a lot, but we need to get people on the same page and then figure out how we can help them grow. What led you to start this campaign? As I’ve grown my business and seen others do the same, I’m continually astounded by these very large macro-economic realities around small business and how disorganized the small business space is. So I wanted to write this book called Thank You Small Business that really looks at what’s happening, at the fact that small business is truly the solution. We have to change the economy one small business at a time. In the process of writing the book, I decided to bring a whole bunch of people together in this campaign to really increase the conversation, because we are better together than apart. We need a lot of the right people working together to solve this problem so we can see small business succeed. How do you think that problem is best solved? Do we change the top-down definition first or start with small businesses themselves? The latter. I’m a really big believer that small business owners are the most amazing people in the world. You are going to struggle to find another body of people who are more creative, perseverant, interested and invested in doing good with great intentions. The problem is that each owner is insignificant by themselves. They’re one voting voice. They employ fewer than 20 people. They pay fewer tax dollars. If each owner tries to figure this out on their own, they’re not going to make it. The way we solve this problem is to connect all these owners and everyone having this conversation so that we become more efficient. One by one, nothing’s going to happen, but if we get everyone together, we can make anything happen. So how has the campaign been so far? It’s been good! We had an amazing launch event in New York with almost 300 people registered, and we’ve got some great news coverage. But I think the most exciting thing so far is that the business owners have become engaged in it, whether they are on the host committee or attending an event. They are really becoming the voice for the movement. Real small businesses are actually stepping up, telling friends, mailing cards and getting involved. This movement is really about activating small businesses so we can help each other. And that’s actually happening, and that’s the number one thing we can ask for. What typically happens at the events? At the core of these events is the small business growth challenge. I put together a checklist with 25 questions divided into 5 sections, and each owner rates themselves on a scale of 1-10 per question. As we go through, I get them to think about their clarity of direction, their team, their customer acquisition strategy, their operations and their access to capital. At the end of the process, they give themselves a score and identify where in their business they can most improve. Inside the online resource center on Podio, I’ve taken each of those 25 questions and created a set of suggestions and documents for how the owners can get better. We give them a real gut check on their business with these very tangible steps about what they can do to increase the success of their business. You mentioned that you’re using a Podio workspace to host resources. How else are you using Citrix products to support the campaign? So we’ve got the Resource Center on Podio, and our goal is to get these resources into thousands of businesses’ hands. We are also doing 20 webinars through GoToWebinar, which are free to anyone in the world. We already have hundreds of people registered. And in the resource center, we’ve got special deals on Podio, ShareFile, GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar that anyone can sign up for. How long will these resources be available? Although the campaign comes to an end with the release of my book on May 16, the resource center will be up forever. And all the webinar recordings will go into the center. Any final words of action? Understand that your true responsibility as a small business owner is to grow your business. The economy needs small business to be successful, but every single business owner thinks their contribution is insignificant - it is not. You should have a huge sense of pride for how hard you have worked for our economy. And Thank You Small Business is all about recognizing this contribution. We can’t grow your business for you, but we’re here to give as much support as we possibly can.

Dear Ritz-Carlton: Do you create WOW experiences for your employees like you do for guests? How do you set this up? The above question is from an attendee at "Symposium: Your Journey to Service Excellence" in April. Answer from Jeff Hargett, Senior Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Absolutely! Just as we engage with our guests, we engage with our colleagues to learn about the things they like and are important to them. From their first day of employment where we learn about their favorite snack and surprise them with it when they return from lunch, to the outpouring of clothes and groceries and even furniture for a colleague whose home burned down. We are constantly on the lookout for ways to surprise and delight! We do this for our colleagues because the way I look at it, behind the scenes is our laboratory, the place where we perfect our craft. Oftentimes in the troubled world we live in, a WOW can come from a genuine smile and a heartfelt, "How can I help?" delivered to a distressed customer or colleague. Never underestimate the power in WOW! If you create the work environment where co-workers go above and beyond for each other, imagine what they will do for your customers! ∞ Join us for a one-day symposium, "Your Journey to Service Excellence." The day includes a keynote speaker, a Q&A session with The Ritz-Carlton executive panel, an optional networking reception and presentations about legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: WOW Experiences for your Employees? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Headed to South by Southwest? The annual conference is almost here and (as announced on the Podio blog earlier today) Podio is excited to announce a fun contest to help you get around Austin during March. To enter*, just take a picture of any of the 81 Podio Pedicabs and tweet it with the hashtag #PodioSXSW. The competition runs all month, from March 1st through March 31st. We’ll be selecting 4 random entries to win a Podio "Anyness Package", including: An iPad 3 Beats by Dre earphones with microphone A $250 Best Buy gift card Enter as many times as you’d like. Each unique tweet (with the #podioSXSW hashtag and a picture of a pedicab) counts as one entry. *This competition is for US residents only. For full details, read the competition terms and conditions. Photo credit: @PedicabGuy

Organizational cultures that foster teamwork impact productivity and employee engagement. At The Ritz-Carlton, excellent teamwork enables our employees—also known as Ladies and Gentlemen—to provide consistent and excellent service each day. Our Service Values reinforce this dedication to collaboration and encourage our Ladies and Gentlemen to: "create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met." Because we are Ladies and Gentlemen, we naturally treat each other with kindness and respect. The following DO’s and DON’Ts share practical ways that employees can contribute to an atmosphere of teamwork by expressing kindness and respect. DO provide feedback in appropriate settings Everyone makes mistakes. If a colleague makes a one-time mistake, then talk to the individual privately rather than discussing it at a meeting or sending a group email. It is kinder to "praise in public and coach in private." DO create structure for your meetings Providing a list of items to cover helps the group stay on topic and focused. Each agenda item should have a clear owner who can lead the conversation, and subsequent action steps should also have clear owners. It is respectful of your colleagues’ workload to structure meetings that promote responsibility, accountability and greater efficiency. DO respect your colleagues’ time Employees should arrive at meetings and join conference calls on time, and they should be prepared. They shouldn’t be scrambling to organize their thoughts and agenda items as the appointment commences. Conversely, meetings should end on time. Most people in the workforce know what it feels like to have days of back-to-back items on their schedules. Do not place additional stress on your colleagues’ day by making them late for their next engagement. DON’T interrupt your colleagues Respect your colleagues’ ideas and actively listen. Do not simply wait for them to stop talking, but make an effort to digest their point-of-view. This is particularly tough to accomplish when conversing over the phone because of the lack of visual cues. Be patient and listen carefully to ensure the greatest amount of success. DO follow through on your commitments Ensuring follow-through starts with setting reasonable goals and expectations. Allot the appropriate amount of time to ensure tasks can be done well and on time. If more time is needed, communicate the issue and ask for an extension as far in advance of the deadline as possible. Perhaps your team will provide additional support or resources in order to accomplish the task or goal. DON’T make your colleagues feel micro-managed Do not overload employees with email or hover over them as they work. As a leader, it is important to keep your team informed and be available to them, but it is equally important to act in a way that lets your colleagues know that they are trusted and respected. DO communicate effectively Create norms that generate a comfortable, open environment for communication, and act with consideration for teammates. For example, when stepping out for an off-site meeting, let co-workers know. Consider having a daily meeting to keep team members informed. At The Ritz-Carlton, we conduct Daily Line-Ups briefly at the beginning of each shift to communicate company values and announcements relevant to our operations. DO give colleagues the benefit of the doubt If a colleague seems to have made a mistake, treat the colleague as innocent and gather all the facts. Diana Oreck, Vice President of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, states, "Let’s not automatically start with criticism and blame. Kindness should always be one’s starting point." Even if it turns out that a mistake was made, continue to support the team member and remember to "praise in public and coach in private." DO remember the benefits of teamwork Organizations structure themselves in teams for a reason — "teamwork makes the dream work." When team members act kindly toward each other, they create a safe, friendly and positive environment that leads to greater harmony. When colleagues show appreciation and consideration for each other, they create a respectful atmosphere where everyone can feel valued. When the team embraces these two critical components—kindness and respect, there is greater unity, reliability and fidelity. And consequently, a better chance your organization will achieve its goals. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. Join us at our Symposium: Your Journey to Service Excellence. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation.  The Blog Post DO’s and DON’Ts for Excellent Teamwork appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

SXSW Interactive begins tomorrow, and everyone knows what that means: panels, parties and pedicabs. The GoToMeeting and Podio teams will definitely be attending the annual "spring break for geeks." And not only that - we’ll be sponsoring and participating in some fun events, too. Here’s what we’re up to in Austin. Tweet to Win Contest (All of March) Pedicabs are one of the best ways to get around Austin, and this year, all 81 of them are sponsored by Podio and wrapped in a cool spaceship theme. As part of the fun, we’re giving away "Anyness Packages" to the three winners of our Tweet to Win contest. To enter, simply tweet a photo of a Podio pedicab with the hashtag #PodioSXSW. All 3 winners will get a bundle that contains each of the following: iPad 3 tablet Beats by Dr. Dre headphones $250 Best Buy gift card For more details, read the official competition terms and conditions. Press Lounge (All of SXSW) Once again, GoToMeeting will be sponsoring the SXSW Press Lounge. If you have press credentials, stop by, say hi and pick up a fun box with 3D glasses and more. Happy Hour in 3D (Friday, March 8th) On Friday, from 5:00-8:00 PM at The Ranch, meet up with fellow SXSW-goers and enjoy a happy hour hosted by GoToMeeting. There’ll be good food, cold drinks and tunes courtesy of Austin’s own DJ Mel. This is an official SXSW party, so if you have a badge, come on over. If you don’t have one, there are still a few (free!) Happy Hour tickets left. Panel: Your Desk Job Makes You Fat, Sick and Dead (Saturday, March 9th) The productivity of the average worker has skyrocketed thanks to technology, but it comes at the price of a sedentary lifestyle. Mounting research suggests that sitting at your desk for eight hours a day can have a dramatic impact on your health. Given that modern technology can support mobile workstyles and a remote workforce, why are any of us still caught in the quagmire of the daily commute to our deadly desks? Will we ever see the day where big business decides to "kill" the office instead of its workers? The answer is yes! And it’s already happening. Join this session on Saturday from 3:30-4:30 PM at the Courtyard Marriott in the Rio Grande Ballroom and hear from thought leaders: Cali Yost - CEO & Founder, Work+Life Fit Inc. Jon Froda - Director of Podio Brand Strategy, Citrix Kate Lister - President, Global Workplace Analytics Richard Leyland - CEO & Founder, WorkSnug Have a question now or want to share your thoughts during the session? Use the #workshift hashtag on Twitter. SXSW Ball Tournament (Sunday, March 10th) Last year in the inaugural SXSW Ball tournament (run by the great folks over at AppStack), the GoToMeeting basketball team won 3 games but came up short, losing in the semi-finals. This year, we’re back - and we’ve been practicing. The tournament takes place Sunday at 9:30 AM in the Austin Sports Center. We hope to avenge our loss last year and bring home the trophy, but mostly we just want to have fun and meet some fellow hoopsters. Out and About (All of SXSW) The GoToMeeting and Podio teams will be all around the Convention Center, SXSW event spaces and parties. We’ll be recording short video interviews about workshifting and taking pictures with our SXSW GoToMeeting photo frame. If you see us around, feel free to come up and say hi. We’d love to meet you in person! See you in Austin!

"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own." - Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: On any team, in any organization, being able to see possibilities from many angles will set you apart.  Team members who can emotionally remove themselves from a process and view the situation as a customer, a guest or a patient have an instant advantage. Being able to look through the client lens is also valuable when reviewing the feedback generated about the experience you’re providing. The Ritz-Carlton encourages our Ladies and Gentlemen to take time and view the operation from the guest’s point of view by offering employee discounts at properties around the world. When we are able to be the guest and experience how we live our Gold Standards, we can learn how to serve our guests even better. How do your employees walk in the customers’ shoes? ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. Join us at our Symposium: Your Journey to Service Excellence. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation.  The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Point of View appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.