This tip is for senior managers. I have met, worked for and with a lot of senior managers in my time. The ones that I have the most positive memories of are those who recognised that what went on at the front line of their business was the most important activity in the organisation. It’s the customer experience that will make your customers decide to do business with you, or not, and it’s also very much the customer experience that will make your customers decide to come back and do business with you again, or not, and to recommend you to their friends, or not.
Too many senior managers, in my experience, see themselves as above ‘all of that’. Often obsessed with their own status within the organisation, they spend their time deciding what company car to have to make them look more important than their colleagues, and obsess over travelling first class or business class when they are visiting their teams. I have known many senior managers to visit retail stores for meetings and never go near the front line people, saying that they ‘don’t have time’. Well, my advice to those people is to make time! There is no-one in your business more important than the people who serve your customers, whether that be in a store, hotel, restaurant, bar, visitor atttraction or contact centre. The people who serve your customers form as important a part of your business as anyone else, and arguably more important than most.
I once worked for a Regional Manager who decided that everyone in his team, including himself, was going to have a ‘basic’ company car, and we were all asked to stay in budget hotels and fly with low-cost airlines when we had to fly. I had no problem with that, although some of my colleagues resented losing their ‘status symbol’ company cars. Interestingly, as soon as that Regional Manager left for pastures new, cars suddenly got bigger and people started flying with full-service airlines and staying in luxury hotels again. It wasn’t long before employee turnover started increasing and the number of customer complaints grew. Coincidence?
My message – the most successful companies are those where everyone in the business is playing their part in creating a great customer experience!