Are your employees empowered to do the right thing?
Is there a disconnect between what is the right thing being invested in? Does the connection exist between people who designs the service and those who are interfacing customer?
Employees in call centres or on the front-line, are the ones who interact with your customers daily. They know what your customers think, what is great, what is bad, what is making them smile, what is frustrating, what are the other needs that can be potentially met by expanding service level.
Recognizing the value of people on the front line (very bottom of the hierarchy) is essential to enable your employees to participate in the value creation effort.
Every activity, that can be repeated in a standardized manner, is prone to be automated , bringing the risk of disappearing from the workplace ecosystem.
Instead, why not benefit from creating superior experience?
Continuous feedback loops are so critical – and need to be strengthen on the interchanges between (*) those who make the strategy, (**) those who invest their funds into the business, (***) those who design products/service, and (****) those who ultimately deliver on the design.
As companies start to understand that designing superior experience around the value proposition is not just services and products - but also the relationships - this is bringing our confidence around establishing the measurement so much longed for: Return on eXperience – ROX (in the same way like we measure RoI).
We are discovering the underlying dilemma of comparison between (a) cost of implementing amusing service and scaling it up among your employees, versus (b) the potential value proposition that can be achieved: value of the customer and the long-lasting memorable experience.
There are however, strong examples of proving this right (see: UK’s Metro Bank ) where prioritizing the employee experience benefited with skyrocketing customer experience, lowered advertising expenses (what could be better than “word-of-mouth”?) and broader financial outcomes.
Very often service that is very routine to the provider, happens to be very special for the customer. Imagine a bank branch, where somebody walks in to get a loan for setting own small business. It is your employee choice (very often subconscious) whether one can "step-into-customer's-shoes". For the customer, this is not an average day in life - this is the moment that can be remembered for the entire life!