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Fundamental Truths That Define How Organizations Treat Customers – Law # 4

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Jun 8 2009

Bruce Temkin, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and resident expert on customer experience, has developed a framework for improving customer interaction called "The 6 Laws of Customer Experience." These rather tongue-in-cheek "laws" actually provide a great deal of wisdom about the challenges organizations face in providing their customers with the best possible experience in their everyday interactions. In the past few blog pieces I have examined the first three laws:

  1. Every interaction creates a personal reaction.
  2. People are instinctively self-centered.
  3. Customer familiarity breeds alignment.

Today I'll take a look at Law # 4: "Unengaged employees don't create engaged customers," or to put it another way: Customer Experience depends on Employee Experience.

Temkin's main argument here is that while it's important for organizations to focus on meeting customer needs, great customer experience cannot be sustained unless employees are informed and aligned with the effort. In other words, "If employees have low morale, then getting them to "wow" customers will be nearly impossible."

Over and over again a direct correlation has been shown between employee engagement and customer experience. More specifically, profit and growth are impacted by customer loyalty, loyalty is a result of customer satisfaction and satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers through employees.

Temkin has five suggestions for ensuring engaged employees:

  • Don't under-spend on training. Any change to customer experience requires at least some employees to change what they do and how they do it. And that requires training.
  • Make it easy to do the right thing. If it's hard for employees to do something, they are less likely to do which. This is why enabling technologies are so important.
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate. Develop a robust communication plan to keep employees informed regarding changes in process or strategy. And, just as importantly, solicit feedback.
  • Find ways to celebrate. If employees do things to help customers, reinforce that behavior by finding ways to acknowledge and celebrate those actions.
  • Measure employee engagement. Employee relationships with a company should be as well monitored as customer relationships. Temkin recommends that some type of gauge be put in place to track progress and identify corrective measures to be taken.

How is employee morale in your company? Do you think it impacts your customers' experience one way or the other?

 

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