Don’t Forget the Employees

Oftentimes companies speak clearly about their goals for serving customers, but forget that it’s the employees who daily carry their flag. A major airline, several years ago, launched an expensive marketing campaign to tell us how special we were to them as customers. They forgot to tell their employees — not only about the campaign, but they forgot that, one way or another, how they treat their employees directly reflects to the customer. The commercials were glitzy but the customer’s response remained luke warm — the employee’s attitudes had not changed. The airline continued to give poor service.

The great companies (and I mean those companies known for serving customers) are also great places to work. People are empowered to make decisions at all levels. People are given room to grow. People’s talents are matched to their job. They know what is expected of them and they are praised when they deliver. By the way, most of these great companies are also growing and profitable.

If you are not willing to treat your employees with trust, dignity and fairness, how can you treat your customers any better? You won’t.

So before you trot out the latest jingle, before you unleash the next great customer service slogan, take a long look at your leadership practices. Deeply examine how your employees feel about working for your company (there are some excellent tools available to help you do this) and make sure your employees are treated the same way you expect them to treat your customers.