The One Absolute Must for Customer Engagement
You may have fabulous products, unique services, and abundant touchpoints, but if your employees are apathetic, customers are sure to depart for the competition. To build customer engagement, you must first have employee engagement. And that will only happen with...
a customer-focused culture -- where "customer" includes internal customers (employees) and external customers (paying clients).
Think about your favorite organizations to do business with, whether B2B or B2C. The places where the staff is upbeat and interested in your success and satisfaction. It's practically guaranteed that those businesses treat their employees the way the employees treat you. Think JetBlue, Starbucks, Patagonia.
I was speaking with Peppers & Rogers cofounder Don Peppers on this topic, and he commented that this is an area he's watching closely. "More and more, Martha and I have been intrigued by how important the actual employee culture is at a firm when it comes to success at customer-centric activities," he said. "It's never been a secret, of course, but lately we've been thinking through the role of employee culture in middle-management decision-making, and the impact on customers."
What organization do you think offers the best sales or service experience? And what about its corporate culture do you think creates the type of employee-centricity that leads to customer engagement?
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