Here’s the last post in my series about Maritz‘s approach to the Customer Experience.
Maritz recognizes the importance of the customer experience as a critical brand differentiator: “ … companies must take a more thorough, local, meaningful, and integrated approach to managing the people who are in regular contact with their customers.”
One point I would add is it’s important to ensure the process also includes non-contact staff; i.e., don’t forget the behind-the-scenes folks and the role they play in taking care of their fellow employees (aka “internal customers”).
However, there’s one excerpt from Maritz’s white paper that I question, and I wanted to bring it to your attention. “Maritz defines ‘the customer experience management process’ as creating greater value for customers by better understanding drivers within the experience, enabling the people who touch customers to act differently, and motivating them to care.” [emphasis is mine]
There’s something about those last few words … I know we can motivate employees to deliver a good customer experience, deliver on the brand promise, etc., but can we really motivate them to care? I keep thinking of the advice from the hospitality industry: hire people for attitude (i.e., those who genuinely like working with and helping people) and train them on the skill set you need.
Maybe I’m just having an issue with semantics here. Let me know what you think.