Written by: Jennifer Pollard
Customer Loyalty Correlates Closely to Employee Loyalty
Experts in customer loyalty have a new maxim: delivering exceptional customer care starts from the inside out. Or to put it another way, the most important thing you can do to win the hearts of your customers is to win the hearts of your employees first. Think about it. Your employees are the people you put on the front lines to engage with your customers in the all-important “moment of truth.” Your employees are the face of your brand when your customers need to resolve an issue or get something done—when your customers are deciding whether they want to continue their relationship with you.
A single interaction may forever shape how an individual customer perceives your company. If you have earned your employees’ loyalty and empowered them to engage with your customers in a meaningful way, they will be able to represent your company in a genuine and effective manner. Happy, engaged employees who live and breathe your values are the key to happy, engaged customers who repurchase and refer.
But what does it take to win their hearts?
At Microsoft Dynamics we believe that you can win the hearts of your customer-facing employees and transform your customer care efforts by providing business solutions that allow each person in your organization to thrive. By giving people tools that enable relationships rather than just transactions, you do more than inspire them – you enable them to do what they do best, to shine. Having tools that enable them to get the job done can convert your customer care team from the complaint department to the happiness squad. Your contact center will no longer be the customer’s dreaded avenue of last resort, nor will it be viewed internally as merely a cost center. It will become the heart of your organization, where a group of people are committed to delivering the best customer service your company has to offer.
Some of our biggest customers have established a correlation between employee satisfaction and customer loyalty:
- Since implementing Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Hard Rock International reduced employee churn by 25%—while notching a 22% increase in participation in its customer loyalty programs. Giving employees access to easy-to-use business tools helped them be more productive in an intelligent and connected way. But more importantly, empowering their customer care team with access to more complete customer data and better tools made them happier. Happy employees deliver better, more positive customer experiences—which was, after all, the ultimate goal.
- Employees at the Jelly Belly Candy Company also wanted technology to help them work more effectively and efficiently. Jelly Belly adopted Microsoft CRM Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and has seen similar improvements in both employee and customer retention—up to 50% in some areas. By giving employees ownership from the beginning and tailoring the system to meet their specific needs, Jelly Belly created a team that is actually excited to use their business applications.
Every company, no matter how customer focused, experiences that moment of truth when they are at risk of losing a valuable customer forever or securing them for life.
Ask yourself, are you ready? Are you prepared to deliver? Do your employees feel empowered to act? Do they have what they need to not only meet but exceed your customer’s expectations?
Give your employees the business applications that can help them when they need it most, because in the end, those are the moments that really matter.
Post originally written for Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/microsoftdynamics/2012/12/17/turning-customer-care-inside-out/