Lead For Loyalty: A Great Customer Experience Starts With You

How we treat our colleagues influences how we treat our customers

Business leaders who are trying to elevate the quality of their company’s customer experience often struggle with a difficult realization:  They must rely on others to make it happen.

Top executives might have a clear vision in their mind about the type of experience they want their firm to deliver, but because they’re not the ones delivering it every day, they can feel powerless to move the needle quickly.  How can company leaders mobilize and motivate an entire workforce to optimize customer experience?

It’s a question I explore in my new book “FROM IMPRESSED TO OBSESSED: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans,” and it turns out leaders aren’t nearly as powerless as they might think, when it comes to driving customer-centric behavioral and cultural change across an organization.  That’s because there are many parallels between how great companies cultivate engagement with customers, and how great leaders accomplish the same with their workforce.  

Indeed, by virtue of the perch organizational leaders inhabit, they have an enormous opportunity to define and demonstrate what constitutes a customer-centric demeanor.

Whether they realize it or not, leaders are always on stage – their every move scrutinized by employees looking for signals around what behaviors the organization values.  Every workplace interaction, every eye roll, every grimace, every hallway utterance – these all represent opportunities for leaders to project behaviors (good or bad) that others will model.

On its face, this sounds like common sense. But leaders commonly forget how their own actions may advance behaviors that contradict the customer experience aspirations they themselves have laid out for the organization.

Take, for example, the concept of giving customers your undivided attention.  It’s a very desirable customer experience characteristic, as it makes the people you interact with feel special, given that they see you’re completely focused on them and their needs.

But how often is it that you multitask when a staff member approaches you for help?  Do you truly give them your undivided attention, or do you listen with half an ear – glancing at your phone, browsing through your inbox?  When milling about at a work event, do you stay focused on the person you’re speaking with, or do you scan the room looking for someone “more important” to engage?  

These are subtle behaviors many managers exhibit, and it’s easy to lose sight of how such cues can adversely influence the conduct of those around them.  But when a leader is more careful and purposeful with the behavioral cues they project, it can just as easily elevate the conduct of those who follow them.

Imagine if when an employee pokes their head into your office for a conversation, that you invite them in to take a seat, place your smartphone face down away from your reach, maintain eye contact, listen intently, and make that individual feel like they are the only person in the world.  The next time you urge your team to give customers their undivided attention, they’ll know exactly what “right” looks like, based on the example you’ve set.

The same lesson can be applied to a host of other behaviors that leaders encourage employees to demonstrate with customers, but neglect to consistently display themselves in the workplace.  This creates a “do what I say, not what I do” dynamic that is neither healthy nor sustainable.

 

All these scenarios reflect missed opportunities for leaders to shape a work environment that fosters customer experience excellence. Because how we treat our colleagues influences how we treat our customers – a principle that is especially true for organizational leaders, since they’re held up as a model for others to follow.

Whether you’re a CEO or a frontline supervisor, don’t squander these opportunities to show your team what “right” looks like. Because when it comes to delivering a great experience to customers, the example you set with your workforce is the one they may carry with them for years to come.