How Your Employees Impact Customer Experience and Loyalty

Peter PsichogiosCustomer Experience, Leadership, Learning & Development

Each and every person in your organization has an impact on your customer experience and therefore your bottom line. Even those employees who don’t work on the front lines directly with your customers are serving your employees internally and providing them with the means necessary to perform their job.

“Customers don’t interact with an organization. They interact with you and your co-workers. It is that experience whether they buy or not, whether they become loyal customers or a lost opportunity.” – Peter Psichogios

Your Customer Service if Only as Great as Your Internal Service

It takes great internal service cooperation to provide seamless, flexible, hassle-free customer service. Whatever is happening on the inside of a company can be felt on the outside by the customers. If your talent is not fast, flexible and hassle-free with each other, how can they behave differently for your customers?

There are many ways that your internal employees might help serve your front-line employees to improve the customer experience. Leaders can serve your customers by providing front-line employees with the training, skills and competencies needed to do their best work. They can also remove obstacles that get in the way of providing the best experience to your customers.

Other internal colleagues might be involved in supporting those front-line workers with administrative work, stocking products, accounting and many other tasks that all contribute to a smooth customer experience. Read more about why if Your Internal Sucks, Your External Experience is Doomed.

Earning Customer Loyalty

Earning your customers’ loyalty starts with creating exceptional customer experiences at every touch point. The first step is having great internal service cooperation, and providing your employees with learning and development to enable them to better serve your customers as discussed above.

Earning customer loyalty is simple, but it’s not always easy. It takes dedication from your leaders, continuous effort from employees, and a commitment from your organization to align your organization on all levels.

Here are a few simple things you can do to earn your customer’s loyalty:
· Personalize your interactions and treat each customer uniquely as they want to be treated.
· Be authentic with every customer.
· Be friendly!
· Communicate clearly and effectively to set realistic expectations.
· Exceed customer expectations every time. Always go the extra mile for your customers!
· Honor your commitments. Follow through and do what you say you will.
· Provide them with fast, hassle-free service.
· Reward them with incentives to return and recommend!

It takes commitment and focus to understand that each interaction with your customers is an opportunity to create delight. But when you create exceptional experiences at every touch point, you will earn decades of loyalty.