Andrew Rondeau

Andrew is the owner of this website and has been a Leader, Manager, Coach and Consultant for the last twenty-five years.

All Managers Are Customers Too

By Andrew Rondeau
Published 07/24/2008

Whatever business you are in, you will find that there is one key cause of your success.

How your customers experience your business and service.

Many departments and companies have processes in place for assessing their services to their customers.

However very often the measures in place don’t reflect what the customer perceives to be important. They don’t reflect the true benefit and often processes which suit the business, are not customer-friendly, however much they suit the internal needs.

photo courtesy of aussiegall

What has the customer experienced?

In addition, the key for an excellent customer experience is in the relationship between person/department/company and their customer.

I had a new washing machine delivered recently. It arrived the day and time slot the company stated. Great!

If the company measures ‘did they deliver when they stated they would’ they would have a 100% service.

The managers will be proud of themselves!!

However, what they didn’t measure was my satisfaction. The delivery driver was the most miserable person I had met in ages.

He obviously wasn’t passionate about his job.

He left muddy footprints on my carpet.

So was I happy? No!

They may have delivered on the right day/time but my overall experience was poor.

Will I be using the same company again? I doubt it.

Do the managers of the company know? No!

They think they are providing a fantastic service because they are only measuring their processes, which suit them internally.

One of the keys to creating an excellent customer relationship is the interface between the customer and their point of contact within the company.

One way to avoid this issue is to ask your employees what gets in the way of making the very best of relationships with their customers.

What do they need more of (as well as less of) to deliver exemplary customer service?

Another valuable way to approach this is to ask your people what they find works well for them when they themselves are customers, as we all are, elsewhere.

What was good about it and what did they think could have been done better.

Also, ask the customer!

What was the experience like for them?

You could ask them to complete a questionnaire.

However, a great way would be to ring them a few days later.

Finally, experiencing the customer journey through their experience is probably one of the most value-creating actions that can be taken.

For employees to watch, listen and even act out the experience of one of the customers they would normally be serving, is a very enlightening role they can play.

This can be achieved by taking them out of their usual working role, for a while, and getting them to watch or listen to what happens when their customer starts the interaction. They then really share the experience and start to notice how things could be different.

If that can then be brought into a discussion forum where several share their experiences and propose changes, there are the ingredients for continuing progress and change.

Most employees want to do a great job. They want their customers to leave satisfied, thrilled even, wanting to do business again in the future.

Enabling your people to spend time getting all the pieces in place for their customer, really understanding how to meet their needs fully and even exceptionally is a way to get them motivated and excited to be part of your team. It builds team spirit and morale.

Using the capabilities of your own people, to give better service through sharing their thoughts and ideas, is a valuable exercise - and one, which creates untold value in your business for the future.

It is easy to establish such a way of working. Be the person to instigate such an activity. Make sure you implement some of the ideas suggested. Track the benefits as a result. You will be seen as the manager who ‘makes things happen’.