Businesses compete on customer experience. 91% of organizations said that they aspire to be a customer experience leader in their industry, yet only 37% had started a formal Customer Experience initiative. (source).

We can invest enormous amounts in getting the right message across to our end-customers, making brand promises and ensuring that those are fulfilled so that we can differentiate ourselves from competitors. But in this principal pursuit, are we neglecting the very resource that could prove to be the company’s greatest advantage- our employees. They are, after all, our internal customers.

Creating a “Wow” Customer Experience will be at the crux of many corporate strategies for FY 17 and at the epicenter of this story will be HR. An unwavering focus on every touch point, every interaction and every need of the customer is an attitude which leads to longer, better relationships between brands and their audience (not to mention increasing sales and higher margins). Case in point: as per one CEI survey, 86% of buyers would pay more for a better customer experience.

But, customer-centricity is not an easy culture to create, and many companies struggle to get it right. This is often because they are paying attention to the wrong parts of the story.

When we break it down to the essentials, our customers can interact with the organization through various touch points- the website, in a store, at a sales meeting, through advertising, on a phone call, via social media, etc. What are the instances where they have the highest recall or where the strongest impact can be made? Usually it is when they interact with another person, whether face to face or virtually. It is the same for internal customers. No amount of handbooks, pens, posters or picnics can compensate for a hostile workplace.

Our new idea economy has required organizations to reconsider and rethink the way they do business: how to drive the behaviors they desire from customer facing roles and how they can guarantee consistency. This is where HR steps in. While companies have historically tried to achieve innovation through developing new products and services, in today’s reality, innovation can take place throughout the entire experience of all markets and stakeholders of the organization. In fact, a recent Dale Carnegie Training whitepaper on Experience Innovation 2016 expands on this philosophy in a concise manner.

So if you want to ensure that your employees take care of your customers, make sure that you put your people at the center of your business approach. Part of doing this is to ensure they have a clear value proposition, know precisely what they need to achieve and are given adequate resources to do so. Ask them what is important to them and be open to changing policy if that is what is in the best interest of the company. For example, at Dale Carnegie India, we introduced flexi-timings last year after a survey revealed that most of our employees travelled for an average of 1.2 hrs. to work each day. This small change actually succeeded in bringing down the number of grievances and even in increased the attendance rate!

Unravel complicated incentives and simplify processes. Communicate your company’s larger purpose in a straightforward manner and do it often to increase retention. Positively gamify your workplace by rewarding good behavior, more than penalizing bad. Empower people to take decisions and give them the space to perform. Encourage people in different functions to connect more frequently and converse meaningfully. The same solution might not be applicable for all workplaces, so first assess what makes yours special.

Improve the employee experience by creating learning journeys for each individual. As our whitepaper says,

“Using training and development as a strategy to drive retention, strengthens the individual employee and benefits the employer with a skilled and highly trained workforce.”

Put simply, if a person can see how he will be growing and developing for the immediate future, he is much more likely to be confident in his work, engaged with the organization and more able to tackle complex problems. This leads to your team being seen as trusted ambassadors to your customers, rather than detached workers. Mission Accomplished!