Creating and retaining customer loyalty.

Debbie explained that over her career she believed the most important thing to get right, before all else, is embedded internally – keeping staff happy and engaged. This has been Debbie’s formula for success over many years. Debbie suggested that with an engaged and motivated workforce, customer service will essentially look after itself.
The reason for this is that engaged and motivated employees will have a direct effect on the experience felt by customers and that nothing is more important in driving customer loyalty.
This is often known as the Service Profit Chain, a business model evolved at Harvard University. The chain establishes a relationship between profitability, customer loyalty, employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity, which works as follows:
• Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty.
• Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction.
• Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers.
• Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees.
• Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers.’
https://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/service-profit-chain-works-care-01639838

Why are disengaged employees the problem?

Generally speaking, engaged employees are conscientious, reliable and loyal whilst disengaged employees are negative, unproductive and lack motivation.
In the most extreme cases, unmotivated and unhappy staff can be ‘maliciously complacent’, meaning their level of care and diligence that they apply to their jobs is so low that they can almost be accused of making mistakes on purpose.
The undesirable consequence of this is that when a number of employees begin to feel aggrieved it can permeate the company’s culture. Debbie’s warning is that bad atmospheres are infectious and can cripple a business.
The impact of a bad customer service culture
The stats show that 47% of customers switch company after poor service.
There are further economic factors to consider, including the long term effects of high staff turnover on a business. Ever changing staff causes disruption and ultimately has an impact on the customer experience, not to mention the company’s finances as departing employees cost around 20% of their salaries just to replace.
Debbie mentioned that a lot of companies are starting to rely on technology to solve problems but suggested that this, ironically, can be a source of a problem. An over reliance on computers creates a culture where the human element of customer service becomes redundant. Technology simply cannot compare with engaged employees.

What is Debbie’s advice?
Debbie’s advices is to ‘train for skill, recruit for attitude’. Fostering a culture of care and diligence is key and staff should feel empowered to make decisions that make a difference. When staff feel trusted and cared for they inherently make better decisions for the business.
Debbie insisted that companies should undertake ‘customer satisfaction surveys’. In Debbie’s words, ‘if you’re not measuring it, you’re not managing it’. Debbie posed the question - how many companies undertake such surveys? There’s perhaps a suspicion that not enough do, and without such feedback from customers how can companies understand how their customers feel?
As an exercise, Debbie invited us to think about the following questions –

• Who is the best boss you’ve ever had
• Where was the best place you’ve ever worked?

As a follow up, we were asked to think about what so good about this employer, and what promoted positivity and engagement? Based on our answers we would then be able to create a model within our current organisation to foster a better culture centred on both employee and customer experience.

Conclusion
Debbie demonstrated that loyalty and price aren’t that connected. We sometimes think of them as being entwined, but a lot of customers are willing to pay more for a good experience.
We only need to think of Harley Davidson, Apple or BMW to realise that this is true.
Their customers don’t buy from them because they are the cheapest, not by far, but due to a positive customer experience. From the customer service to the product, such companies tend to always get things right with their customers. These types of companies have what’s known as ‘brand differentiation’ and this is how they distinguish themselves from the rest of the market.
Price will always be a factor and in some circumstances even the best brand differentiators will not beat price, but Debbie showed us that there is a nice balance to be struck.
Debbie’s parting advice is to listen and show you care, be prompt, and to do everything with a 5 star attitude.