Your company might have the greatest sales training in the world. It might have a highly responsive customer service back end. It might even have near-instantaneous social network response upon discovering negative comments. Without proper mentoring and monitoring, however, it won’t prevent bad customer experiences.

Allow me to explain:

Some time ago, I had an interesting exchange with a new Twitter friend, Steve Keating (@LeadToday). Steve was shopping for a new laptop at his local Best Buy store. He asked an employee if the HP model he was considering had a docking station. The employee said, “no, we don’t recommend you use this model near water.”

You can keep reading after you’ve finished sighing, groaning and rolling your eyes. It’s true, however; that was the response Steve got.

Let’s not automatically blame the employee, though. There are many reasons it may not be the employee’s fault. It’s possible the responsible supervisors are not attending to their responsibilities – in terms of training, mentoring and monitoring their employees. In fact, as I later learned, three employees were clueless as to what a docking station is. That seems to indicate a lack of follow-up to basic training.

In defense of Best Buy, I can tell you that my local store has some great employees. The folks in the camera department are very knowledgeable and helpful. And don’t get me started on how much I love the in-house repair crew known as the Geek Squad. This tells me the company probably has a decent training program.

Then again, I’ve hit some really bad ones. The kind where you read the product packaging six times, can’t find what you need, finally find all six computer department employees in the back sharing a bag of Cheetos, only to have one sigh, roll their eyes, walk back to the aisle with you only to read the product packaging! This tells me there’s a management team that isn’t paying attention.

I know from personal experience that their Customer Service call center receives useful training, and works hard to provide a pleasant and helpful customer experience. As of today, I know that the company also monitors Twitter and responds as soon as they see something amiss. Witness the following tweets:

Steve: At Best Buy, looking at laptops. I ask if this HP has a docking station – salesperson says – no we don’t recommend using it near water. Nice

Me: @LeadToday I find it very hit and miss there. Some are well informed and helpful. Others clueless and careless.

Steve: @lanebaldwin Yep, I was very disappointed, they are normally pretty good. Just a couple of goofs mess it up for everyone.

Me: @LeadToday Exactly! Just a few can make the entire team look bad. Leadership lesson there, I think. Hmmm… and an article, I think.

Steve: @lanebaldwin Yep, no doubt about that

Steve: @MIT560 “Best” Buy was certainly not at their best today. Went to an Apple store – they had ALL the answers.

Monday, at 2:34, Coral_BestBuy: @LeadToday @lanebaldwin I’d disappointed to read of your recent @BestBuy experience – what store were you at so I can work with mgmnt?

Steve: @Coral_BestBuy I was at Best Buy, Maple Grove MN. I was particularly disappointed because of what I do for a living. A very poor experience

I applaud Best Buy’s response, and I commend them for having a method to follow up with management. However, if there were more mentoring and monitoring at the store – and departmental – levels, there would be less need for Coral and her team mates. They wouldn’t need to work with management in this particular way.

In a situation like this, all of those good things are useless. The bad experience very negatively affected the customer’s opinion of the company as a whole. The company’s brand identity has been sullied, as has the image of the manufacturer of the product, albeit to a lesser extent. It only made matters worse that Steve next went to a competing single-brand store and had an outstanding experience. For all it’s exemplary effort, unfortunately Best Buy still comes out of this particular encounter with a big, fat FAIL tattooed across it’s big blue shirt.

How could Best Buy have prevented this? Certainly they have training. (It’s hard to believe they have proper testing, however, at least at some stores.) However, what about daily monitoring of employees and mentoring them to improve performance? Any boss can implement a poorly monitored training plan. It takes a leader to mentor. And the best mentors are servant-leaders, tightly focused on individual employee success.

The best mentors are daily coaches, guides, supporters and cheerleaders. They are constantly working with their team to improve performance, acknowledge quailty work, and to shore up weaknesses – all in a positive manner.

Servant-leaders know the key to true success is ensuring the success of the followers (employees). They know their job is to empower the employee to excel at their job, by providing in-depth training – and frequent testing to ensure assimilation of knowledge. They know that training is just the beginning, and that consistent monitoring to catch and correct weaknesses early are crucial to improvement and growth. They know that ongoing praise and encouragement instills a sense of pride and a desire to repeat correct behaviors and attitudes.

For me, mentoring has always been an important aspect of servant-leadership. I became a servant-leader because I was mentored by servant-leaders when I went to work for Men’s Wearhouse. I then turned around and mentored others – even before I held a management position, and doubled down on my mentoring efforts when I became store manager. Mentoring is an integral part of a servant-leader’s life. I’m convinced that if Best Buy had a culture of servant-leadership, it would vastly improve their service to their customers, and therefore their bottom line.

My new friend Steve knows all of this. You see, for the past thirteen years and more, Steve has been Manager, Selling Skills, for the Toro Company. And for more than seven years, he’s been an Area Manager for Dale Carnegie Training. And if I’m lucky, he’ll be my first connection on LinkedIn where he maintains a page.

In some ways it makes it worse when the offended customer is someone like Steve or me, a service-based sales/management professional. Of course, it’s ten times worse when that person then has several Twitter conversations for tens of thousands to overhear.

Social networking has magnified by a factor of hundreds, if not thousands, the old rule that a dissatisfied customer will tell everyone they meet, and Twitter is the worst of all social networks in this regard. No wonder Best Buy is monitoring the site, as are many other large companies. Unfortunately, in this particular case, it didn’t do much good. It would have been far better if Best Buy embraced servant-leadership and the mentoring and monitoring that comes with it.

A committed culture of mentoring and monitoring can drastically reduce the number of service lapses and negative customer experiences. If you are a leader at any level, you will better serve your team, your company, your customers, and yourself, by becoming a mentor. Because mentoring matters.

Do you agree or disagree? How has mentoring affected your career, or your company? Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts.

Permission to Reprint

©2010 by Lane Baldwin. Permission is hereby granted to use this article for e-zines and web sites, provided copyright statement and the complete following statement are included at the beginning or end of the article:

Lane Baldwin is an authority on humanistic management and servant-leadership. During his twenty-five year career, he has worked with businesses of all sizes – from mom-&-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies – helping them increase profits, enhance customer and employee retention, and enjoy greater fulfillment at work by embracing servant-leadership. Learn more at LaneBaldwin.com.