Want to Delight Customers? (Put Your Employees First)

Great visions begin in the boardroom. But cascading this vision down to the front line and making it happen are the real challenges.

Take the happiest place on earth… Disney.

Institutional lore has it that once upon a time, a little girl dropped her favorite doll into a mud puddle. The doll was a mess. But the park staff gave it a wash, a new hairdo, outfit, and had photos of the doll taken with other Disney princesses before giving it back to its worried owner.  It was a fairy-tale ending and “pure magic” as her mother described the entire experience.

But remarkable here is what the park staff DIDN’T DO. They didn’t go by any corporate script or protocol for situations like these.  They didn’t escalate the mishap to the manager nor consult the company handbook.  What they did, however, was to respond to a small (but very real) crisis with what they felt was the proper response.

True or not, a story like this can still serve as a good example of how company culture should be cascaded to frontline customer service.  The benefits are mammoth huge.  The customer is happy and their loyalty will pay dividends (figuratively and literally).  When a customer is engaged, they are twice likely to recommend a product or service and purchase it another time.  It is because of this knee-jerk reaction that organizations are making CX (customer experience) a top priority.  So much so, that C-suite executives are in place specifically with this title/designation just for this purpose.

CX is a challenge to get right because the first obstacle is turning boardroom vision into a real customer experience at the front line.

Technology has made it easier for companies to understand customers as individuals and not just demographic groups.  And rightly so, because customer care is still a matter of “personal contact”. There is no shortcut to creating that emotional connection. Every interaction should be geared towards leaving a positive experience.

This means that it isn’t enough to have a product or service that works.  Companies should also ensure that the frontline employees – those who directly interact with customers are EMPOWERED AND MOTIVATED.

Customer experiences require an energized and engaged workforce.  They should be able to translate individual experiences into end-to-end customer journeys.  Further, they should be able to continue to improve each interaction to maintain a competitive edge. To do this, companies should appropriately motivate and reward employees because when they do, they show their commitment to their employees’ work.

Information, books, and gurus abound on how to build a robust frontline-employee commitment.  But in our experience with clients who have successfully implemented a unique CX, this is what worked for them:

• They find solutions to their employees’ problems and needs.
• When hiring, attitude is more of a priority than aptitude.
• They build motivation by instilling a shared purpose with their frontline workers rather than by implementing rules of conduct or behavior.
• They harness their frontliner’s creativity and innovative thinking by giving them autonomy and responsibility.

At CXperts, our teams and employees are high on the priority list.  This enables us to take care of our clients (and their clients’ needs) in the best way possible.

Get passion, creativity, and care with CXperts!