Customer Service Excellence Starts with Employee Satisfaction Strategy
Who knows your customers better than the line employees who work with them every day? By tapping into employee insights – and empowering your front line staff to make the right decision based on individual customer needs.
We’ve all seen Sir Richard Branson’s smiling face and inspirational quote pop up time and time again as we scroll through our LinkedIn news feeds. As founder of the Virgin Group of companies, he always says, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of employees, they will take care of the clients.”
You might think it doesn’t make much sense from your organization’s perspective. “That’s fine for him,” you think. “He’s not managing the front lines like I am.”
But Sir Branson hits upon an important truth in organizations. Treating employees as full-fledged stakeholders and respecting their responsibilities as they do their jobs for you results in top-notch commitment to serving your customers. As Branson explained to Inc., he was able to build Virgin into a global powerhouse by focusing on two key words: customer service – and he did that by putting customers second.
Access. Authority. Autonomy.
Who knows your customers better than the line employees who work with them every day? By tapping into employee insights – and empowering your front line staff to make the right decision based on individual customer needs – you are cultivating relationships with limitless potential (hint: Customer Lifetime Value!).
A solid foundation of engaged employees is Sir Branson’s (and your) best tool. A Gallup survey found that organizations with high employee engagement not only had less attrition, they also received higher marks in productivity and customer satisfaction.
Developing and sustaining engaged employees – at all levels of an organization – requires monthly meetings to keep them informed about their performance and ask them to share their ideas on how to make continuous improvement in their work with customers and one another.
Take control of your customer experience – by empowering your employees to deliver value that differentiates you from your competitors.
Written by Desander Mas