Look to your neighborhood supermarket for a great lesson in how to get people to follow your instructions. This is important if you need to introduce employees to a new process, customer service procedure, or some special branding.
While you can explain how you want things done, you can’t constantly look over people’s shoulders to make sure they stay on course. How can you ensure your training sticks? Our lesson comes from a self-checkout machine.
Whether you like or loathe the machines, most of us use them, even though we never received any formal training.
Management has calculated an economic benefit to having customers do the work of clerks. As a result, there’s a process, with little prompts, designed to move us through the sale. Let’s deconstruct that process and give you some tips on how to get employees to follow your instructions.
Immediate Feedback
At the grocery store, when you drag your item across the scanner, you hear a beep, which tells you the item has been purchased. The sound is important because it keeps you from unintentionally shoplifting as well as ringing up a single item multiple times.
Yes, there is an on-screen display that shows your buying history but the beep allows you to do other things, at the same time, like put the item in your bag, rather than wait for the screen to acknowledge a purchase.
In your business, do people receive some kind of affirmation for their work? Maybe this is creating an acronym for a process and then having someone check a box if they’ve followed each letter’s respective step.
Make Sure People Don’t Freelance
Does a supervisor or a colleague make sure people follow the correct process? This is important because it’s possible to perform a task correctly, yet ineffectively.
Imagine if you had a full cart of groceries but only scanned and paid for one item at at time. You would then repeat this process for every item.
That takes a lot more time, when compared to putting all of your items through the scanner before paying. In this slow method, you are following the instructions but are not honoring the process in the most efficient manner. Not every method is correct.
To avoid people freelancing to possible shortcuts or different ways of doing things, make people understand the processs you want them to follow. Also stress why you want it done that particular way.
A Reminder
Self-check sounds also prevent other common problems. If you pay by card, the machine produces a slightly annoying sound that tells you when it’s time to remove your card from the machine. This keeps you from leaving without your card.
By having a buzzing sound, people keep their cards, close the door to potential credit card fraud, and prevent store employees from having to chase down forgetful customers, or act like detectives in search of missing credit and debit cards.
In your organization, what’s your “sound” that’s designed to prevent people from making a common mistake? Maybe it’s something like having people proofread work or double check an order.
In this concept, you create a step that prevents something that’s easy to happen.
Sometimes People Need Help
Even the best systems can be undermined by human imperfection. That’s why self-checkout areas usually have a nearby employee, ready to assist.
Sometimes the problem might be the equipment, other times it’s user error. Regardless, of the reason, you want the employee to quickly fix the problem and keep the flow of customers moving.
In business, do you have people who can help those who struggle to follow your instructions or need help with a specific situation? They may need just a minor adjustment but without the help, they will likely be stuck or make a mistake?
Keep in mind, it’s one thing to have a person who can help but they must be available to help in the moment. Have you ever been in the supermarket, needed help, and the clerk who is supposed to assist is distracted by their phone or a conversation with a coworker?
Without that commitment to serve, the effectiveness of your instructions will fall.
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