The good customer experience
Satisfied and loyal costumers are one of the most important factors in a time when online shopping often provides a quick alternative for costumers the moment they’re met with any resistance. This resistance can be anything from a product not in stock to unhappy employees and bad service.
- It creates satisfied and loyal customers
- It keeps your customers coming back again and again
- It generates recommendations from your customers
- It transforms your customers into ambassadors
No matter which resistance the costumers face, the goal should always be to ensure a good experience. The good experience doesn’t just happen, but begins with the employee. It begins as soon as the costumers walks in the door, so it’s extremely important that your staff is ready to meet the costumer. They shouldn’t have any doubts about how to handle a situation, and they should supply an experience which spread smiles – for both the employee and the costumer.
But how do you ensure this? How do you create an environment where the good experience is always the goal?
You create committed employees.
Engaged employees generate the good customer experience
We know from working with Academy, that a higher level of commitment can be felt right away. It can be felt on the bottom line (which often steals the show from other perks), but it can also be felt on the excitement, which employees show in their work. They become happier, more productive and last, but certainly not least, prouder.
Take HiFi Klubben as an example. If you’re looking for good sound, HiFi Klubben is the obvious choice, because they’re experts in this area. But they’re not only known for their knowledge, but also their committed employees. They’re known for always going the extra mile to make sure their costumers are happy.
“HiFi Klubben has understood the importance of good customer service and I’ll be returning as a customer in the future.”
– Review on Trustpilot
And they’re not just doing it because it earns them money, but because they love it. They’re audiophile nerds, who love sharing their passion. This is where their journey to committed employees and the good experience began.
The right work culture creates engagement
Luckily, commitment isn’t something your either have or you don’t. It can be trained, developed and taught. With the right tools you can foster a work environment where the commitment comes naturally, but you need to put in the effort. You, your manager, and your employee.
Creating a committed employee can be done by expanding the employees knowledge on the product they’re selling. With knowledge comes confidence and with confidence comes ease. But it is just as important to train a common language and culture, which strengthens the spirit of the organisation. You need to create an “us”-feeling, so the employees don’t simply feel like an anonymous employee in a big company.
With knowledge comes confidence and with confidence comes ease. But it is just as important to train a common language and culture, which strengthens the spirit of the organisation.
You also need to make sure that the employees know what you, as a company, are working towards. If you’re having issues with unhappy costumers, who present the same complaints, then explain how you’re going to fix the problem together.
Reward and highlight particularly talented employees
If you use tools like Net Promoter Score, then make sure that the employees understand what NPS is and what it means. It’s easy to focus on a bunch of numbers, but if you don’t understand them or how they work, it becomes impossible to commit to a change and thereby reap the benefits of using them.
If you already have happy costumers or guests, then explain how you’re going to transform them info loyal costumers. With happy costumers you have the platform on which to build loyal costumers. And the importance of loyal costumers cannot be stressed enough. These costumers are the ones who are most inclined to return and buy or book again. These are ones who will recommend you to others. These are your ambassadors, and you can never have enough of these.
When these things are settled, the good experience will begin to show. Maybe only a little at first, but long-term it can be the difference that makes a costumer come back to you instead of going to a competitor (who then has the chance to make the person their loyal costumer, and then you’ll never see him or her again).
Engagement doesn’t always start at the top
If you’re in an organisation where it would take a big change to implement a commitment-driven culture, then you might fear that top management will have to spend a lot of resources on training employees. But they don’t need to.
Of course management has to be ready for the new culture and embody it. They have to be good role-models. But our experience shows that the most effective method of gaining more committed employees is for their closest manager to step up and handle the employee training.
In large organisations the CEO might show the way, but in the day to day management, it’s the local manager who the employee has to interact with, and who has the biggest impact.
Internal benefits of engaged employees
Other benefits of having committed employees are also a lower number of sick days, fewer mistakes and more efficient production. And numbers show that committed employees are more loyal – they simply become your internal ambassadors themselves.
Engaged employees have much lower number of sick days because they get up every day motivated and go to work in a good mood.
Engaged employees seek out more knowledge themseles and constantly strive to become better and more skilled. As a result, they make fewer mistakes.
Engaged employees are more efficient in their working time. As a result, they also produce more, which optimises both time and finances.
But how do you start creating and committed employees to reap all these benefits? Academy is a good place to start. With engagement scores and tools for motivating, recognising and training employees, the system is created to create confident and knowledgeable employees, who make a difference for your business.
