If You Don’t Appreciate Your Team, Someone Else Will

Summary: The plain fact is that every business need not cater to every person. Each business can define its own target audience and strategize to connect with them. What is more important nevertheless is a loyal base of employees that feels appreciated and valued for their presence, to bring the right customers to your door and bring up the value of your company quantitatively and qualitatively.

A company’s capacity to satisfy customers directly correlates with a happier staff. Here is a star leader guide explaining why, in the 21st century, staff contentment is more crucial than client satisfaction. It is important to get over the adage that âThe Customer is always rightâ Thankfully, though, many companies today are abandoning this phrase because enforced customer service usually brings up the situation of disrespected employees. For authentic presence and service, employees need to be happy.

Wegmans is a regional supermarket chain which strongly believes that employees should have the ability to make key decisions even without consulting supervisors. For example, stocking products is an autonomous decision that the ground staff make based on demand. The managementâs idea is to display appreciation for value that their employees bringÂ to the table. This is what listed them on Fortuneâs âBest Companies to Work Forâ for 22 years in a row with 94% employees stating that they feel proud to say they work at Wegmans.

Here are 3 reasons why we need to give even more attention to employees than to clients.

It tends to create unhappy employees

When thereâs a conflict between an employee who works day in and day out, making your product what it is, and an unruly customer, the choice should always be simple – the employee wins. This atmosphere of care and appreciation makes employees feel saferÂ

1, giving them actual growth in personality and the feeling of satisfaction at the job. If they already know that youâre always going to support the customer, irrespective of how unreasonable they might be, even the smallest of problems is bound to create huge resentment and even resistance from clear communication2.

It gives an unfair advantage to the annoying customers

When you put the maxim âThe customer is always rightâ into use every time you face a bad customer situation, not only will you enrage your employees, but also give such customers an unfair advantage. Every single incident of this kind tends to put even more pressure on your employees, making their jobs that much harder. Instead, a company and its employees should focus on being generally kind and pleasant so as to keep customers coming back. Building the correct clientbase and brand equity is much more important than trying to get every customer who walks in through the door. And the way to do that is to take care of your employees first, so that they know you have their back and cater to quality customers in a quality way.

In the end, customer service takes the ultimate fall

A bunch of unhappy employees virtually leads to substandard customer service. If you don’t learn to put your people first, especially when they are in the right, youâre bound to make them resent both you as well as the customers. This is not just a speculation made in thin air, statistical analysis shows how employee satisfaction directly impacts customer satisfaction

2. This research even goes as far as to show that customer satisfaction tends to follow employees feeling supported and cared for at work, and almost never the other way around!

Employees you make feel cared for tend to care more about others, are more energetic, feel motivated to help, and usually are more fun to interact with.

Impact on Leadership

When you let your employees know that they come first

3 and you are aware that they are the frontline potential to reach out to customers and truly impact the user experience of your company, you causally create a system which churns out higher profits and makes every stakeholder satisfied

4. Happy employees will put in the extra mile for the company when you put in the extra mile for them because of the simple psychological principle of reciprocation.

Star Mindset

Incorporating appreciation into your professional life is simple and fun, and it has numerous advantages. In today’s world of remote working and innovative business practices, we should make sure that we are aware of the unrealized potential of this, especially for leaders and managers. The time is now more than ever to put this into action.

3 Immediately Applicable Action Steps

Come up with a list of expectations for your employees and keep rewarding those who fulfill any with praise and recognition.
When a customer raises complaints with service, truly hear all sides of it and reassure your employees that decisions are not taken with bias.Â
Regularly schedule times for reviewing what your employees have done well and urge them to lean into their strengths further.

References

Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007, August 1). Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open? Academy of Management Journal, 50(4). https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.26279183
Chamberlain, A., & Zhao, D. (2019, August 19). The Key to Happy Customers? Happy Employees. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/08/the-key-to-happy-customers-happy-employees
Hyken, S. (2017, May 27). How Happy Employees Make Happy Customers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/05/27/how-happy-employees-make-happy-customers/?sh=6b0eece65c35
Lebel, R. D. (2016, July). Overcoming the fear factor: How perceptions of supervisor openness lead employees to speak up when fearing external threat. ScienceDirect, 135, 10-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.05.001

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