We’ve all seen it before: We send one of our employees to an offsite training event and they return all fired up with new ideas. The first week performance is up. Then, a few weeks pass and the excitement begins to fade. Old habits begin snuffing out the newly learned behaviors.

If that title sounds like a challenge, it is. I want everyone who reads this to think about all of the things that went wrong last year and write them down. Now that we know what gave us trouble in the past, let’s put some thought into what we can do about it.

How many of us have been in a situation where we are so utterly frustrated with an employee’s performance or behavior that we end up attacking the employee instead of the issue at hand? In this type of scenario, nothing gets resolved, and the emotional intensity puts the employee on guard.

I love technology and automation; I am a fan of things that help streamline our work lives and processes. I admire the concept of a paperless office. I like all of these things until they lead to poor customer service.

One of the things I often hear from managers as they grow their departments is that they don’t have time to do ride-alongs as frequently as needed. An excellent solution exists: Hire a dedicated person to perform ride-alongs and training for your technicians.

After all of these years in this industry, I am still more than a little impressed that consumers pay to be a part of our service company clubs. But I have a question: Can you say with all certainty that your club customers are treated across-the-board better than everyone else who uses your company?

Training means consistency, and consistency means predictable results for you and your customers. But where to begin? A good training plan consists of three things: schedule, content, and facilitation.

This is the time of year when we all think about thanking the people around us. As we enter the new year, we begin to make plans for how we will be better in the upcoming months. While we are in this mood, we need to seriously consider thanking the other people that make our businesses possible: the customer.

A business coach once told me to “always make the system the heavy” when coaching my technicians. What she meant by that was focusing on evaluating how well the tech was adhering to a sales system or process. In doing so, the discussion would remain based on facts and not my subjective opinions.

The holidays are a great time of year, depending on who you are and what you do for a living. Most people on the front lines in a retail organization will tell you that this time of year is exhausting. This time of year can also be stressful to our people in the home service industry.