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| Image courtesy of Worthix |
There should be no doubt: companies must recognize that employees come first. Not at the expense of customer experience or anything else, but in the scheme of things, without a great employee experience first, the customer experience will suffer!
I had a great time talking about this and many other topics when I joined Mary Drumond and James Conrad with Worthix for their Voices of Customer Experience podcast.
Focusing on employees and making sure they have a great experience is something that I’ve been talking to clients and prospects about for the last 26 years. It’s nice to see that this topic is finally starting to get a bit more attention.
As I mentioned, we covered a lot of ground during the 30-minute interview. We started off touching on the 10 commandments of customer experience and the 7 deadly sins of customer experience – and why I make these religious references! All in good fun.
The gist really is that these are fundamental or foundational elements that must be in place to ensure a successful customer experience transformation. You can’t transform the experience if these commandments aren’t adhered to and the sins aren’t committed. Among the basics: executive commitment, listening to and understanding your customers, doing something with what you learn, putting employees first, and more. On this podcast, we do talk about how to get executives bought in and committed to the work that lies ahead.
From there, we talked a bit about today’s typical culture pyramid, where revenue and profits are put before employees and customers – actually, customers then employees, in that order. Sadly. We then talked about what a people-focused culture pyramid looks like, and summed it up as: focus on the people, and the numbers will come. (I’ll share my post on these two culture pyramids here soon, but if you haven’t seen what these two pyramids look like, you can learn more here.)
We also talked about
- my five-step approach to working with clients on their CX transformations;
- how to engage, empower, and motivate employees;
- core values and how important they are;
- and more!
I’d be honored if you’d listen to this conversation. It’s a 30-minute podcast. If you don’t have 30-minutes to listen, there’s also a transcript of our chat.
Customer Service is Suffering
If you consistently back your bad customers instead of your employees, morale in your company will plummet. Studies have shown that when you put your employees first, treating them in an exceptional way, they are happier. Happier employees have more energy, are more motivated and care about others. If it takes getting rid of a customer or two to keep your employees happy, do it.
Absolutely. A great employee experience leads to a great customer experience. Employees must come first (or more first).