Question: How do you build reputation in the service industry?

Answer: You celebrate and reward good employees.

A service organisation is a company which provides services to a customer for a fee: like a painter decorating a room for a client, a pub or restaurant catering for its customers, a life coach delivering an online session, or a marketer using their skills to write content for a website.

The company’s success or failure depends totally on whether the person delivering the service satisfies the customer and caters to their needs.

The company name is nothing without the input and behaviour of the individual delivering the service.

Let me explain that.

X service company as a ‘thing’ doesn’t mean anything.

X’s employees meet or interact with clients every day. They perform services for clients every day. They either do a good job and make clients happy, or they do a bad job and leave clients unhappy, dissatisfied and angry.

Customers cannot hold or touch the service that the employee is delivering, but they can experience its value.

If a particular employee does a good job, builds a good relationship with the client, and makes them feel listened to, consulted, and satisfied, then the client will tell all their friends: ‘Hey, look at the awesome job this particular employee has done – X service company is fantastic, I really recommend them.’

If a particular employee does a bad job, is rude or impolite, or doesn’t finish the job to a high standard, the client thinks: ‘That employee didn’t treat me right, and they didn’t do my job well. I’m unhappy. I’ll tell everyone to avoid X company.’

It is individual performance which creates a client’s attitude towards a company in the service industry.

And that is what reputation is: it is how a client thinks or feels about a company.

An employee who goes out of their way to leave a good impression, to do a good job and to please the client should be applauded, because they are building X company’s reputation.

That happy client will tell lots of other people, who will hear the name of X company, and know that X has employees who care about the client, deliver fantastic services, and do a great job.

If on the other hand the employee does a sloppy job, is rude or doesn’t listen to the client, the unhappy client will tell lots of other people, who will hear the name of X company, and know that X company doesn’t care about the client and will probably not do a good job for other clients.

Good employees use client interactions to make sure the client gets maximum value from the service.

Good work brings in more work. That’s why it’s important for management to call out sloppy workmanship from service employees when they become aware of it, and to praise and celebrate good work.

If a good employee is not allowed and encouraged to feel proud of doing a good job, then their job satisfaction is destroyed.

Self-motivation is valuable. Not everyone has it. Some employees need to be told what to do at every step, because they have little or no self-motivation.

Other employees by their nature want to do the best job possible. They don’t need to be told what to do, how to behave towards the client, or how to do a good job – they just do it.

If self-motivated, good employees are treated exactly the same as lazy, poorly-motivated employees, then they will lose motivation. Soon they won’t care whether they do a good job or not – or else they will leave the company.

Either way, the company’s reputation will suffer.

It is important to remember that in a company in the service industry, reputation is based on the performance of employees.

Good employees create a good reputation.

Poor employees create a bad reputation.

If a service organisation loses good employees because they don’t treat them properly, don’t allow them to feel proud of doing a good job, and don’t praise them for doing a good job, then the good reputation (which, remember, the good employees have built) will slip away.

New contracts which would have been signed because of the good employees won’t happen.

The good employees will go and work for another company, who will benefit from the good reputation which that good employee creates. Their new company will sign the contracts, because the good employee works for them now.

So, if you have good employees delivering top quality services, celebrate them, praise them, and appreciate them: your reputation depends on them.