Profit is a mindset. Business is a mindset. Sales and customer service are mindsets. Training is an important part of business, sales, and customer service. However, for that training to be effective (i.e. for the training to produce the most profitable, beneficial, or desirable results) training must be an important value. Consequently, business, profit, sales, customer service, and customers must also be important values. If not, there would be very little motivation to develop any of these or to seek an improvement over what already exists. Unfortunately, many people are resistant to change, even if that change can be shown to produce more desirable results and even if the “change” would have actually been better as a convention in the first place. This is often the case in school particularly college where the convention is to try to stuff far too much with far too little organization or preparation into a far too short period of time. A more methodical, long term approach would be a change from the norm. But, the methodical, long term approach to learning would have been a lot better for many people if it had been the convention all along. Unfortunately, it is not. Therefore, anyone who seeks to develop true competence must seek to develop outside of conventional means like college. To do that, competence would first have to be an important value.
Customer Value, Product Value, and Company Value are the bases for superior customer service and sales performance.
However, it is truly remarkable just how little the customer, the product, and the company are valued by the sales people and customer service people who are supposed to represent all three. This is not inherent in the people doing the critical functions. It is a reflection of the changes in the American culture over the past several decades. In America, there was once a famous dictum that the customer was always right. Most people did not take this literally. No one could be right all of the time. Rather, it represented an attitude that the customer was all important. This mindset positively reflected customer value, product value, and company value. In many ways, Japan is like 1950’s America in terms of family, business, and culture to some degree. For example, in Japan the crime rate is very low. In Japan, most families stay together. And, in Japan the customer is king. These are not unrelated subject matters. Cultures where the families stay together tend to be more stable. The crime rate is an important indicator of cultural stability. There are other factors to be sure, but the crime rate is significant. Likewise, in business. A business climate where most employees stay with one company all of their lives, creates a much more stable, highly competent business climate. In addition, the changes in the cultural attitudes toward family and business reflect how much the customer, the product, and the company are valued in that culture. To change a company culture, the mindset or attitude (i.e. the values) of the employees have to change, and the most effective way to change employee attitude especially toward customers, products, services, and the companies they work for is through training, training whose goals are well established at the senior executive level.