One of the standard rules of business is that "the customer is always right." While trying to enforce this sort of policy is an excellent place to start, a company can quickly find itself in hot water if it spends too much time trying to meet the wants of the customer at the expense of its own employees.
Finding the point where employees are happy and customers are satisfied seems like it may be difficult, especially since demands from both sides are important and, often, justified. To provide clarity, 15 members of Forbes Coaches Council explain how businesses can aim to balance the needs of the customer with the expectations of the employee to bring about long-term success.
1. Support Your Employees To Ensure Top Service
This strategy works best when employees feel secure in their job. Personal support from management increases employee confidence for handling challenging logistics and emotions that come with customer needs. Happy, confident employees take ownership of outcomes, vet great customers from potentially "bad" ones and gracefully direct the unwanted customers elsewhere. - Sharon A. Kuhn, Executive EQ
2. Set Clear Expectations
Set expectations with both the customer and your employees. The focus should be set fair expectations of employees as it relates to employee behavior and company culture, as well as the customer experience. A successful company finds a smart balance between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction by first focusing on its employees. A satisfied employee will provide a quality service. - Jacqueline Mitchell, Jackie Mitchell Career Consulting
3. Clearly Define Your Customer
Define your customer and how they behave. If your customer is someone who respectfully communicates their needs, interacts civilly with staff and keeps in positive communication, then you have a baseline positive relationship. When rules of civility cannot be followed and excessive demands by anyone who pays you must be taken, then there is no customer, no dialogue and communication breaks down. - John M. O'Connor, Career Pro Inc.
4. Put Integrity First
"Meeting the customer where they are" and honoring their standpoint is an important premise of high-quality client service. However, your employees should always be clear that integrity and honoring the company's values come before that—these two should never be put at risk for an individual client. - Marina Cvetkovic, The Peak Alliance
5. Be Proactive
The best way to manage customer expectations is to be proactive and not reactive. Getting ahead of issues before issues even arise is paramount in good customer relations. By doing this, you can set clear guidelines and policies that may not always be what the customer wants, but still makes them feel loved and connected to the company. - Jon Dwoskin, The Jon Dwoskin Experience
6. Define Out-Of-Bounds Zones
Clearly identify what constitutes “customer bad behavior“ by defining it and training the staff on what is absolutely considered out of bounds, no questions asked. The more you clarify what is unacceptable customer behavior, the more you empower your employees to make wise decisions. Include the customer service team in this collaborative process to ensure buy-in and create a more cohesive team. - Debbie Ince, Executive Talent Finders, Inc
7. Shift The Directive
Rather than employ "the customer is always right," what if, instead, you simply used this: "Tell the truth, regardless of the outcome!" If your team messed up an order, they would simply tell the truth and offer to fix the issue at your expense. If the customer, in truth, is not worth having, your team would tell the truth and you would politely decline unreasonable requests and part ways. - John Hittler, Evoking Genius
8. Focus On Clarity, Confidence And Care
When a policy is communicated by a confident employee in a caring way, both parties might feel satisfied. Policies should be clear so that employees will be sure what to say. Employees should be trained for emotional intelligence and be good at managing themselves to be resilient in case of conflict. Caring customers can be established just by communication or offering an alternative service or good. - Elif Suner, Elif Suner MBA, M.Ed, PCC - Coaching, Training, Consulting
9. Create A Smooth Feedback Loop
Virtually most tasks or functions of a business can be improved by ensuring a smooth feedback loop from all stakeholders. Customer service is no different. Creating a funnel that allows customers, employees, as well as others, to effectively and timely communicate their concerns and suggestions is the most effective way to collect comprehensive feedback, which can then be translated into actionable SOPs. - Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group
10. Always Empathize, But Don't Always Give In
Most of the time, customers don't want to be right. Their overarching need is to know that they've been heard and understood. Furthermore, they want to feel that their feedback and opinions have highlighted ways in which your company can improve. Adopt a more empathetic, human approach to customer service and you'll find that you'll have far less combative conversations with customers. - Irene McConnell, Arielle Executive
11. Empower Employees To Trust Their Gut
When employees have high gut intelligence, they trust that ping in their gut to alert them when customers are trying to take advantage of policies or them. To remain clear, calm and confident, they can take a deep breath and ask themselves, "How might I make a decision to uphold the vision, values, and goals?" This will help them respond with wisdom, instead of reacting to who is right or wrong. - Susan K. Wehrley, BIZremedies
12. Make Your Terms And Conditions Clear
Customers are often upset because the terms and conditions were not clear prior to purchase. It is important that companies train their employees to explain the terms and conditions at the point of purchase. If by chance there is any confusion after purchase, it is important to teach the employees to look at the situation from the customer's side and try to find a compromising solution. - Stephannie Addo, Dr. Stephannie Addo Enterprises
13. Balance Customer Experience And Employee Engagement
Companies can design their workplace to enable employees to serve the customer while developing a culture that allows for high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction through recognition programs. Recognizing the value employees bring will keep them engaged and inspire the rest of the workforce, setting the conditions for an engaged culture that provides high-quality customer service. - Jonathan Silk, Bridge 3 LLC
14. Promote An Employee-Centric Environment
While customer satisfaction plays a pivotal role in the growth of any business, employee satisfaction solidifies a company’s hold on the market. In an employee-centric environment, the employees don’t have to be explicitly told what's important. When they feel like an integral part of the organization, they ensure that customers are kept happy. Employee satisfaction is the key! - Anjali Chugh, Cosmique Global Inc
15. Strive For Excellence
When our teams are being intentional and striving for excellence, dissatisfied customers help us do that. That may sound counterintuitive; however, when an unhappy client gives us feedback, it’s an opportunity for us to improve and grow as an organization. The culture of intentional excellence should be modeled by the leader and include team feedback and collaboration. - Frances McIntosh, Intentional Coaching LLC
