Employees Are Customers Too
In "Are You Modeling Customer-Centric Behavior" I wrote about one of the key messages I glean from my conversations with three of our 1to1 Customer Champions -- Kevin Cantwell, president of Big River Telephone; Kelly Lam, manager of marketing services for BMW Canada; and Brynn Palmer, director of the customer experience for Charter Communications -- when we met to tape our next Champions webcast (watch for it in September!). That message was the importance of executives modeling customer-centric behavior to create a customer-focused culture.
Another must is an employee focus. All three Champions continually stressed how crucial it is to treat employees with the same respect and value as customers to achieve long-term business success, as well as to create a customer-centric culture that enables that success. They all expressed the importance of treating customer service representatives as businesspeople who help customers to resolve issues and to make important buying decisions. And they all noted the powerful impact of empowering front-line staff with the information they need when they need it and the training and support to make what they think is the best decision for the customer while understanding the business impact of those decisions.
This approach is delivering growth for all three organizations. What's your employee-engagement strategy?
