Comments on: Five Ways To Treat Employees Like Customers

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:55:59 +0000

Appreciate your thoughts, Rick. Lately, I've heard more folks say they wouldn't recommend their company's products or services to someone else. Why? Because they know how these customers will be supported and cared for. People talk and referrals are made based on one's reputation – you won't tell a friend to so something if you know the outcome will be negative. Thanks again for sharing your insight.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:47:18 +0000

Chris, This is a great post. I believe the internal audience should always be first and foremost whether it is about the brand, customer service, reputation or crisis management. It isn't what you say that creates success it is what "you" do and unless it is a one person operation that means what each and every person in the organization needs to understand what must be delivered. Those people also have tremendous influence on what their family and friends think of the organization based on how the people who work there talk about it off the job. Not to mention, treating employees right both reduces turnover (a huge business cost) and attracts more qualified applicants for openings. Employees who 'get it' and 'believe' will create a great customer experience and much more. Thanks for the excellent blog and this post in particular... Rick My recent post RTRViews: RT @chris_bailey: Think customer service only happens outside the org? Nope, your employees are critical too http://bit.ly/bbh6Df

By: Dawn Westerberg

Dawn Westerberg — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:02:33 +0000

Chris, I agree with you 100% – if that girl were my daughter, I'd want her out of that situation IMMEDIATELY. You are right, her self-esteem is much more important.

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:33:57 +0000

Deanna, you're not wrong. I'm a dad to two girls that there are two particular things in your comment that trouble me. One is that the owner of this business is expecting a teenager to flirt with customers. The second is that he's making remarks about her body. I'm no employment law expert but I believe both of those things border on (if are not fully) illegal.

I know you say that jobs are hard to come by, but there's the matter of how this is impacting her self-esteem and her attitudes toward work itself. It's easy for me to advocate that she get out of this job immediately, but there's so much wrong about this situation I worry for her. I hope you and her figure out how to find work where you live that doesn't compromise her integrity and place her in a crappy situation. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

By: Deanna Daniel

Deanna Daniel — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:23:15 +0000

My daughter works for a bar-b-que place. On days she is allowed to work, she makes good money, but the owners refuse to give her a schedule and tell her they'll call her when they need her. They were the ones who called and asked her to work for them. The man who owns the place wants her to flirt with the customers and makes snide remarks about her not being "well endowed". The wife and husband are very upset at one another and talk bad about each other in front of my daughter. Since we live in the mountains and jobs are hard to come by, she needs this job. My daughter is a teenager and has a car payment and phone bill to meet every month. This makes me very upset with these people as I feel they are very disrespectful . Am I wrong?

By: Treat Employees Like Customers | The Workforce Expert

Treat Employees Like Customers | The Workforce Expert — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:36:43 +0000

[...] Okay, now let’s swap out customer for employee and answer these questions again. Do you approach them with a similar mindset? What if your organization applied the same degree of focus on the internal retention of employees as it does on the external retention of customers? Stephen Covey wrote a few years ago: “Some organizations talk a lot about the customer, and then neglect the employees who deal with the customer. This mindset produces unmotivated employees, worker-manager disputes and poor business results.” [Bailey Workplay, read more] [...]

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:37:34 +0000

Sybil, that’s a great suggestion! By turning it around, it keeps organizations from navel-gazing and forgetting their whole reason for existing. The best orgs seem to be those who see the symbiotic relationship between the care of employees and customers.

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:34:54 +0000

Howdy “website design”…I would love it if more folks and managers promoted this view and then developed the structures to integrate it into the working culture. Turns out that if we work in an organization, we all have internal customers. Easy to see why this has helped you snag those jobs. Thanks for adding that great idea and perspective to this post!

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:29:34 +0000

Thanks, Steve. It *is* enlightening to just observe how workers treat their colleagues and their organization when they think no one is paying attention. As for your experience with internal/external care, I’m also amazed at the stubbornness. I think this is yet another vestige of our industrial past when the job was done with little regard for the true welfare of the worker. It’s sort of a mind/body split set to the modern workplace. We’re getting there, just taking a while.

Safe journeys in your travels, friend.

By: Sybil Stershic

Sybil Stershic — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:45:14 +0000

Great post, Chris. And I think asking the reverse question is equally critical: Do you treat your customers like your employees?