Employees Are Most Important Customer Service Asset

According to new research by The Ken Blanchard Companies, organizations that have excited and passionate people are more likely to create a service-focused culture that delivers great customer service. And having a customer-focused workforce means that organizations must treat their people well so they, in turn, will treat their customers well.

Employees are in fact an organization’s most critical customer service asset – one that requires focused development and nurturing. These “sound-simple-but-difficult-to do” revelations are among the findings from a recent customer loyalty and service improvement survey conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Blanchard research over the past five years places customer loyalty as the fourth most important management challenge. In the same studies, customer relationship skills were cited as the second most important employee development skill, ranking just behind managerial skills.

To better understand the specific challenges organizations face relative to customer service and customer loyalty, Blanchard launched another survey focused solely on these issues. More than 800 mid- to upper-level line managers, HR and training VPs, directors, and managers shared their perspectives.

Most participating organizations agree that customer loyalty is a powerful driver of organizational success and one that ties directly to the bottom line. Statistics show that it can cost six to seven times more to gain a new customer than to retain an existing one.

Expenses related to customer losses cause many companies to recognize the need to channel resources toward retention. In fact, survey data shows that 74% of respondents declared that their organizations were highly focused on customer service improvement. However, only 44% indicated that their organization had a formal process for achieving these desired service improvements.

While respondents cited that serving the customer is everyone’s responsibility, they agreed that leaders and customer-facing employees have the primary ownership for creating a positive customer experience. Yet only 48% responded that their customer-facing employees are truly empowered to take action to resolve a negative customer experience.

Respondents stated further that customer-facing employees and leaders should be the primary recipients of training. This is supported by Blanchard survey data in which respondents cited training as the number one strategy for improving service, followed closely by making an organizational commitment to create a service culture.

The survey indicates that the most critical service improvement skills to address include

1. Developing systems and processes that make it easy to do business with the organization

2. Improving the skills of customer-facing employees to diagnose the customer issue

3. Improving problem solving skills

4. Empowering people to utilize their scope of authority

The findings from the customer loyalty survey support earlier Blanchard research which documented that there is a direct connection between leadership, employee passion, and customer devotion. That is, the way that leaders treat employees is the way that employees will treat the customer.

When organizations create an environment that allows employees to win and be passionate about what they do, employees in turn take care of the customers at a level that causes customers to return year after year. Strategies such as smart hiring, training, managing performance, and creating a recognition culture can help organizations’ develop their most critical customer service asset – their people.

Creating an aligned organization that is customer-focused means creating an energizing environment for employees and balancing concern for people with concern for results, and making sure that the first drives the second. It continues by building the leadership capacity necessary to create engaged employees who are passionate about delivering that experience and understand how their role fits into the overall picture.

As Ken Blanchard says, “If managers focus their attention and emphasis only on profit, they have their eye on the scoreboard and not on the ball. Profit is a result of serving the customer, which can only be achieved by serving the employee.”