September 20, 2016
By Malcolm Saunders, Document Setting & Print Operative at Romax Marketing & Distribution.
So who is most important to your business, those who pay you, or those who you pay?
Is it your Employees?
It’s a simple obvious fact, happy staff, are always going to be more productive and loyal. If you put yourself out for your staff, it will be returned. Yet many businesses treat their staff like a number, expendable, easy to replace.
Speaking from personal experience, working at a company where staff were replaceable, never given acknowledgement when someone has put themselves out, or gone beyond and above what their job entails, can be massively dispiriting, and leave that member of staff doing the bare minimum they can get away with. This certainly isn’t good for any business, a whole workforce not working to their full capabilities?
Training is also very important, it makes an employee feel important, that they are part of ‘The Plan’. But what you really need to do before designing training is to go into the field and literally observe what’s happening. Go watch your people in action. Talk to them. Hear what they have to say! Where do they excel? Where is there room to improve? How do they interact with one another?
It’s also important to make sure your employees understand the company’s vision, The truth is that your employees are the audience for your strategy. They are the people, if treated right and armed correctly, who will authentically translate your message, your vision, and your brand to the paying customers you’re after. So you better make sure they understand it and are emotionally connected to it!
Managers play a key role in making this happen, as they are the link between leadership and the front line. They can be most effective at bringing your vision and strategy to life in a fun, emotive way that will help your people come to their own conclusions about why it makes sense. This is the key to enabling employees to live your brand in every interaction with customers.
“If the person who works at your company is 100% proud of the job they’re doing, if you give them the tools to do a good job, they’re proud of the brand, if they’re looked after, if they’re treated well, then they’re gonna be smiling, they’re gonna be happy and therefore the customer will have a nice experience. If the person who’s working for your company is not given the right tools, is not looked after, is not appreciated, they’re not gonna do things with a smile and therefore the customer will be treated in a way where often they won’t want to come back for more.”
Sir Richard Branson.
It’s absolutely true.
Is it your Customers?
Without customers, the business would not exist, and obviously, the purpose of the business is to fulfill the needs of the customers. Customer satisfaction is the heart of a selling process, it can cost five times as much to attract new customers as it does to keep an existing one, so therefore the relationship between the customer and business is very important. Approximately 95% of customers who have a bad experience will tell others, compared to 87% of those who had a good experience, the difference much greater for online reviews.
Conclusion:
Let’s face it, 99% of companies treat their customers as their most important asset, and there’s good reason for that as highlighted above, the customers keep the business alive.
But so do happy employees, again, speaking from personal experience, being made to feel part of the team, rather than a number, can improve your production and customer satisfaction by a startling percentage.
So, I have it as a dead heat……….both have equal importance, and both should be cared for, made to feel important and irreplaceable because a business cannot cope without either.
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