Tag: quotes

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Employee Satisfaction: Happiness Pays

“Dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers cannot compete in a highly competitive world.”  It’s one of my favorite quotes from nonprofit leader Frances Hesselbein, and it’s an important reminder for all organizations.

To all those reading this blog: how many people do you know who are truly happy in their workplace?  Most of my friends in this situation are the ones who are self-employed; i.e., spared the BS of inane office politics and the incompetents in charge.  (As I’ve explained to friends & family over the years, the reason I’m happily self-employed is because I work for someone I respect.)

Why should management care about how its people feel?  The benefits of a positive workplace go beyond the warm & fuzzy directly to the bottom line.  According to the Customer Loyalty Research Center, which specializes in measuring both employee and customer satisfaction & loyalty, employees who have better relationships with their companies are more likely to:

  • Stay with the company, reducing turnover costs.  (You want sticker shock? Ask Human Resources what this really costs.)
  • Recommend the company to other potential employees, reducing search expense (which also makes HR folks happy)
  • Be more productive on the job
  • Provide higher service levels, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction & loyalty (which should make everyone happy).

What does the Customer Loyalty Research Center use to measure employee satisfaction & loyalty? They look at variables that contribute to overall job satisfaction including:

  • Relationships with managers and co-workers
  • Customer-focus
  • Organizational improvement
  • Rewards & recognition
  • Communication.

How do you tell if your organization needs to get serious about employee satisfaction?  Here’s the magic question — just ask employees “Would you refer a friend to work here?”  It’s a loaded question, but one that will give you tremendous insight into your organization.

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Pop Quiz: Customers 101

Over the years I’ve developed internal marketing as an approach that recognizes the value of employees in serving customers. (Remember my mantra: take care of the employees & they’ll care of the customers.) 

You can use marketing to communicate with, educate, and motivate employees as effectively as you use it to communicate with, educate, and motivate customers. Especially when it’s based on respect — giving employees the tools they need to serve customers and each other (i.e., employees as “internal” customers).

I’m talking about the basics here … letting staff know as much as possible about your customers.  Basic stuff like:

  • who your customers are (e.g., general customer profiles & product usage)
  • what’s important to them in dealing with you
  • how they feel about your organization (from customer satisfaction surveys, complaint tracking)
  • what competitive options they have, etc.

Does any of this info get shared with employees, or is it kept for senior management’s eyes only? Excluding proprietary & confidential data, the more employees know about their customers, the better they can serve them.

Try giving your staff a quiz sometime about your customers (you can use some of the questions listed above). And if the very thought of doing this scares you, it means you have your homework cut out for you. Communicate with & educate your employees about your customers. The results will benefit everyone involved.

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Engagement Marketing

Art Imitating Life

Check out AirTran Airways ad: “Fired” created by Cramer-Krasselt advertising about an employee who gets a phone call from his boss telling him he’s fired. The boss is living it up at a conference when he makes the call. Then you see the fired-employee getting on an AirTran flight to the conference. Just as the boss is making his speech about how important employees are and how profits are up (yadda … yadda … ), the employee rushes across the stage to tackle the guy. (Right on!)

Unfortunately, too many organizations claim employees as their number one asset, but it’s only lip service.

According to Dilbert creator Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle, guess what line holds the #1 spot on the list of “Great Lies of Management?” It’s none other than “Our employees are our most valuable asset.”

Human capital … don’t you just love that term? Living, breathing “assets” or pure overhead? … What’s more important than what an organization calls its people is how it treats them. The truly smart, successful organizations are those who value both their customers AND their employees, and they demonstrate their commitment to both groups in their culture and operations. It’s what internal marketing is all about.

 

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Engagement Marketing Musings

Warm & Fuzzy Marketing? Get Real!

Since this is my first post on the new Quality Service Marketing blog, I wanted to tell you about my concept of internal marketing.  It can best be summed up by this quote from hotelier J. W. Marriott: “Take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your customers.”

It’s a philosophy and corporate culture espoused by Marriott and many others (whom I’ll be citing over time in this blog). And it’s based on the premise that the way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel.

What’s amazing to me is the reaction I get from some executives when I talk about internal marketing. You can see their eyes glaze over as they say to themselves, “Here it comes, the old ‘warm & fuzzy’ stuff.”

On the contrary, it’s not ‘warm & fuzzy’ but crystal clear in that customer relations mirrors employee relations. Here’s the bottom line: if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers!

Unfortunately, too many organizations claim employees as their number one asset, but don’t walk the talk. In this day and age where employees are expected to create a positive experience for customers and deliver on the brand promise, managers can no longer afford to pay lip service to employees. Employees can tell the difference and so can customers!

I’ll have more to share in future posts …