Page 207 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

194B RE-ENGAGE

We want to make sure incentives are not in the wrong place in terms
of helping customers. So we changed that policy. We changed what success
was. We made sure the best interests of the Rackers were the same as the
customers’ and that all Rackers would be motivated to get the customer
into the right service. We always want our Rackers grounded in the ulti-
mate good of developing promoters—that is our “true north.”
Jackson: Customer service isn’t about a process. A process can make
you better, but don’t confuse customer service with the process. Cus-
tomer service is about people. We had a customer whose offices in
Florida were devastated by a hurricane. Thankfully, his servers
were here in San Antonio. He asked us if there was anything we
could do to help, and we had him come and work out of our offices for
several months.

Q: How did you get Rackers to embrace changes like the ones
you’ve described?
Weston: We get them involved in the change, gaining their feedback.
We don’t just inform Rackers of a change. We try to explain our
thinking. We try to get them involved.

Q: Does your culture allow Rackers to search for roles where
they might fit?
Weston: We’re passionate about helping Rackers find their strengths,
and we have a high tolerance for people changing roles.
We have one Racker, who everybody calls Sugar Bear, who’s
been with us from the beginning. For the first five years Sugar Bear
had several jobs in account management, sales, and purchasing. Al-
though everyone loved Sugar Bear, he hadn’t found his niche.
Because of our employee growth we needed to create an orientation
process for new Rackers, which we now call “Rookie Orientation.”
Sugar Bear asked to give a presentation at our first orientation. The
rookies really responded to Sugar Bear, and he came out of that talk
high as a kite. Since then Sugar Bear has been the “Master of Cere-
monies” for many companywide events and is also in charge of our
weeklong orientation process, which we believe is the best in the country.