Treat Employees Like Customers Want to be Treated
Customer care starts with thee way you treat your employees, S. Chris Edmonds, CEO & Founder of The Purposeful Culture Group explains in a recent article for Entrepreneur.com. When employees are treated the right way, they will pass that behavior on to the customer, resulting in gains in customer satisfaction and ultimately profit, he writes in the piece, “To Boost Your Business Treat Employees as Well as Your Customers.”
“You can’t expect stellar customer service from employees who feel distrusted and discounted,” Edmonds writes. “You can’t expect consistent top performance from employees who aren’t compensated fairly, given deserved responsibility or who see colleagues not carrying their fair share of the workload.”
Edmonds specializes in showing businesses how to improve their cultures, and cites a 40 percent increase in customer satisfaction and a 35 percent increase in profit within 12 months of instilling his culture changes, starting with the the way employees are treated.
So how do you accomplish this? One important distinction the article imparts is that culture — and specifically the way you treat your employees — is a holistic venture. If you want it to work, it’s important to treat all employees equally well. But finding out what improvements you need to make is simple — just ask! Engage your employees in conversation, Edmonds writes, and ask them what they love about working for your business, what you can do differently to reduce frustrations and improve work conditions, and how you can make them appreciate working there more.
