Tag: employee engagement

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Employees & the Customer Experience: A Question of Motivation

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.

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Employees & the Customer Experience: What Companies Can Do

As promised in my last post, here are the findings of Maritz’s 2006 Customer Experience study:

  • Almost half of all customers (43%) who defect do so because of service
  • 77% of these customer blame their leaving on employee attitude
  • 83% of these customers tell someone else.

Maritz’s white paper, “Delight or Defection: The Pivotal Role of People Inside the Customer Experience,” also outlines its approach on how companies can positively impact employee behavior:

  • Better (deeper) measurement of the customer experience:
  • Localized, “grass-roots” intervention (more on this shortly)
  • Meaningful motivation
  • Integrated & aligned action.

I especially like Maritz’s combination top-down & bottom-up strategy to enabling and driving change at the local level: share research results with employees … obtain their input on improving the customer experience … and facilitate action plans based on the research & particulars of the organization at that locale. According to Maritz, “Co-development of learning and action plans with front-line staff generates relevancy, greater participation, and employee buy-in.”

More on Maritz’s approach in my next post …

Categories
Customer service Engagement

Employees & the Customer Experience: Employee Engagement Isn’t Enough

That’s the takeaway I got from D. Randall Brandt, VP of Customer Experience & Loyalty, Maritz Research in his presentation at AMA’s MPlanet

Now that I have your attention, let me put his message in context. Brandt was talking about employee engagement as a variable in research on the customer experience. Most firms measure engagement by asking “what’s it like to work here?” That’s important, but it’s not enough. What’s missing are questions about the employees’ customer orientation; i.e,, how they’re enabled or inhibited in providing service quality.

Effective measurement of the customer experience needs to consider both employee satisfaction AND the employees’ ability to deliver a positive customer experience via customer-focus, readiness & empowerment.

I’ll have more on Maritz’s latest research on employees & the customer experience in my next post.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing – New Definition

Internal marketing is a critical management concept that is difficult to explain, let alone define. Throughout my work in the field, I’ve defined internal marketing simply as “the application of marketing inside an organization to instill customer-focused values.”

But now there’s a new, more comprehensive definition – thanks to the Fall 2005 graduate class in internal marketing, part of Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communications program.

“Internal Marketing is the ongoing process whereby an organization aligns, motivates and empowers employees at all functions and levels to consistently deliver a positive customer experience that helps achieve business objectives.”

What I love about this expanded definition is that it captures aspects of both internal marketing and internal branding. The new definition is a result of an Internal Marketing Best Practice Study funded by the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement.

I’ll have more on this study in my next post.

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Ooops! Learning from Our Mistakes

“I’m never wrong. I thought I was once, but I was mistaken.”  -Lucy Van Pelt, Peanuts

Lucy’s perfectionism aside (heaven help those who work for people like Lucy!), here are some non-threatening and productive ways to institutionalize learning from our mistakes.

  • Mistake of the Month – Have people share their mistakes & corresponding “lessons learned” at staff meetings.  Then staff vote on which one taught them the most.
  • Favorite Lessons Learned– This is a variation of the above.  Allow time at staff meetings for people to share one or both of the following:
    • “Favorite Mistake Not to be Repeated”
    • “Favorite Catch of Stuff Done Right that We Hope to Do Again”
  • I don’t have a name for this, but I found it on Christopher Hannigan’s blog and loved it.  CarMax CEO Austin Ligon uses this as a meeting opener: “What are we doing that is stupid, unnecessary or doesn’t make sense?”  What a great way to break the ice on an uncomfortable topic.

Let’s face it, no one is perfect (not even Lucy).  So we need to find ways to collectively share in the learning from our mistakes to avoid making them again.

Categories
Engagement

Work-Life in the Future: A New Vision

For an interesting look into how we might work in the future, check out the results of Career Innovation’s “Redesigning Work” survey.  I recently read a preview of their final report Manifesto for the New Agile Workplace.  (You can order a free copy of the executive summary in PDF format.)

Here are some highlights of their research into the work world of the future:

  • Work will be redefined by behavior and outcomes rather than tasks.  (This reinforces the need to hire by attitude first, specific skills second.)
  • Work will also be re-defined by project or customer requirements instead of the basic 35-40 hours work week.
  • A better work-life balance can be achieved when work commitments are better matched with life-phases.  For example, workers taking career breaks in their 40’s (when family and/or personal growth needs are great) and resuming work in their 60’s (so they can continue to work rather than retire).

This projected new world addresses current high levels of employee dissatisfaction with:

  • their ability to achieve work-life balance
  • their sense of achievement from work, and
  • the way their skills are being use … to name just a few pinch points.

I can empathize with the frustration found in the study — it’s one of the reasons I chose to become self-employed 18 years ago.  It’s also why I seem to be more satisfied with work than a lot of folks I know.

But for today’s workers, especially the younger ones, Career Innovation’s Manifesto offers an interesting & hopeful peek into a future work life.

Categories
Engagement

E-mail’s Impact on Workplace Relationships

My friend, Emily, prompted me to write this post and seek your input.  She’s looking for formal research on e-mail’s impact on workplace relationships, including the effectiveness – or lack thereof – of bosses who manage by e-mail.

Here’s the situation, and it’s one you might be familiar with.  Or at least know someone who is.

Managing by e-mail

A mutual friend of ours works in an office where the boss manages primarily by e-mail — giving directions and having electronic “conversations” with staff instead of talking with them face-to-face … even when their desks are only ten feet apart!  The result is a build up of resentment and misunderstanding that’s hard to overcome.

As Emily acknowledged, “It all comes down to using e-mail efficiently and choosing the appropriate medium for internal communication.  E-mail can be a great connector and communicator, but it can also break down relationships if it is used instead of personal contact.”

What we’ve found on this topic so far

Shawn Smith, a management & organizational development consultant, says in a white paper on workplace communication barriers:

“In this age of electronic communication, far too many managers use email as a substitute for personal interaction … While you should never seek to discuss sensitive or delicate matters electronically, even everyday business is better handled through personal contact when possible.  More direct contact will help create better rapport and trust.”

In Bosses: 10 Tips for Better E-Mails, written for Microsoft’s small business market, editor Monte Enbysk cites Vanderbilt management professor David Owens on managers’ use of e-mail:

“E-mail is an extremely valuable communication channel for today’s managers, but it can be abused if used carelessly or too much. [So] use e-mail as one channel of communication, but not your only one.  It’s fast and easy … But it also misleads bosses into thinking they can manage large groups of people through regular e-mails.  Use e-mail wisely, but don’t manage your company through it.”

Got research?

What I’ve learned in my own work with clients who want to improve internal communications is that too often there’s an over-reliance on e-mail at the expense of face-to-face communications.

I know lots of folks, including Emily, agree with me.  But to help her friend deal with this situation, we’re looking for formal research on the subject.  So if you know of any out there, please let us know.

Thanks!

Categories
Engagement

Bad Bosses – Real & Fictitious

Found this great post on Phil Gerbyshak’s blog about a group of employees who publicly posted their letter of resignation.

Whatever it was that led them to this point, one can only imagine … if only their boss had listened to them earlier!

Speaking of bosses, check out Hallmark’s free e-cards about the Workplace: click on “Honest Boss Interview” and enjoy (unless this describes your current boss).

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Business Communicator Weighs in on Internal Marketing & Branding

I love Shel Holtz’s post entitled “Employee communications is the chicken, marketing is the egg” in which he addresses communication’s critical role in effectively engaging employees in the context of internal marketing & branding.  He notes: ” … companies are putting their reputations more firmly in their employees’ hands, not only as producers of products, but as touch points for customers.”

What’s interesting to me, however, is to hear it from a business communicator’s perspective.  Shel builds his case (including citing GlaxoSmithKline’s initiative of turning its sales force into PR ambassadors) as a platform to garner management’s “renewed attention” on the importance of internal communications.

Why does management need to listen?  Because, as Shel so aptly puts it: ” … throwing employees into the public spotlight without the benefit of a strong internal communication effort is beyond risky.  It’s stupid.”

As a marketer, I’m with you 110%.

Categories
Engagement

Attention HR: It’s not just about the new hires

This story comes from a colleague of mine who’s making considerable progress in improving internal communications despite roadblocks from Human Resources.  Here’s the situation: HR spent over a year compiling a new employee handbook.  And the internal communications officer recommended it be distributed to all employees (to have everyone “on the same page”).

But it was not to be.  Since policies are likely to change, HR didn’t want to distribute the new & improved handbook to everyone; it was just for new employees.  And for everyone else?  They could find it on the organization’s web (according to my colleague, “buried” is more like it) in a 60+ page PDF.

What’s the message to existing staff?  You’ve been here so long, you don’t need your own copy.

I understand HR’s concern with putting out a document subject to continuous updating … it’s the nature of the beast.  But would it have been so terrible to distribute the handbook en masse – with a disclaimer about possible changes being posted on the web?  (Or if cost was an issue, giving employees the option of getting it in print or on-line?)

Sadly, with its selective distribution of the employee handbook, HR missed the opportunity to reinforce the value of ALL the organization’s employees.