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Every Single Person Is Responsible For Customer Experience
Here’s a question that I’ve been pondering for a while and it just resurfaced lately. When management makes a person or a department responsible for customer satisfaction as their primary function, does that inadvertently absolve others of that responsibility? It was an issue I always struggled with as a membership development professional in the non-profit world and I also see it playing out in customer service departments in for-profits.
I guess the answer is that it all depends on the culture of the organization and whether that culture emphasizes that each person who enters immediately understands that no matter what their position is…providing a remarkable customer experience is task #1.
Yet, how many organizations can we personally count that have this type of culture? I don’t just mean they have a nice wall plaque stating that everyone is responsible for customer service; I mean actual living, thriving culture where this is acted out every single day. When you move on to the second hand, please let me know because you’ve just won a prize. And if your own organization is present as one of those fingers, you’ve won the grand prize…and I really want to talk to you because you have a story to share.
If you really want to improve the customer experience, start here: make it clear that every single position in the organization is customer-facing and responsible for their satisfaction. From the CEO to the guy who makes sure your IT infrastructure works, regardless of the position within the company everyone may be called on to speak to a customer about their experience, listen to a complaint, or gather their feedback about new ideas.
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Chris, you’re right about it being an inherent part of the culture in which everyone is responsible for customer service. For organizations who want to transition to be more service-oriented, it involves more than a slogan and adding customer service to everyone’s job descriptions in the catch-all line item “other duties as assigned” … it’s got to be integrated into both the culture and daily operations. This means providing training and ongoing reinforcement to all staff.
In my experience, you can always tell a service-oriented organization - it’s the one where staff take care of each other as “internal customers” in addition to serving their regular customers.
Sybil, I really appreciate the addition of that last sentence…it’s something you address in your book that all managers need to think about and take action on. Every single manager and employee should ask: Who is my customer here within the organization? And am I giving them great service? We get so caught up in what’s going on out there that we usually neglect the needs of folks two or twenty feet away.