Engagement - Customer Service Principles for Employees.

[Mike Healy]

Companies focus on customer preferences, wants and needs to get more sales and higher profits. Providing excellent customer service has sound commercial reasoning behind it. Companies will give customers what they want so long as it makes good business sense. Not every customer gets exactly what s/he wants because it would not be feasible to do so.

I believe the same thing applies with engagement. Employers will put in place those interventions whch encourage employees to give more of themselves, where it makes good business sense.

A customer can choose to to buy a product or service or not, and an employee can choose to give more or himself or not. A customer can choose to shop elsewhere to get a better deal for the same price( if one exists) and an employee can move to a better employer with a similar salary/benefits/curlture ( if one exists). A customer, if he can afford it, can pay a higher price to get what he wants, and an employee , if he has the skils and talent to offer, can accept the price of working in a demanding orgnisation to get the rewards it brings

Customers develop loyalties unrelated to logical or rational considerations, as do employees

Maybe if we approached employees the way we approach customers we would find greater success in engaging employees. Maybe we should give them what makes good business sense to do so.

[Anja Schuetz]

Hi Mike,
I agree. The employees are one of a company's most important customers.

If an employee is supposed to give the best service to a customer, then the company needs to give the best "service" to the employee. The person to give this service to the employee is their manager.

That's why every customer service training for the front line staff should be accompanied by a training for the managers of the front line staff (in my opinion). Otherwise the CS training won't have a lasting effect and is a waste of money (especially for underperforming, unhappy, disengaged employees.)
Why should the front line staff improve their service, if they are not getting anything in return? By that, I mean proper treatment from management: interest in the employee's needs & challenges. Recognition of their skills, knowledge, achievements, etc.

I think customer service and people management are so closely related that often the words "employee" and "customer" are interchangeable.

Anja