Can we talk? Your employees are confused about their customer retention roles.
And if your employees are confused, think about how their confusion translates. Into customer experiences, customer success and customer retention.
First, ponder whether your hiring processes focus on hiring employees to fulfill customer retention roles.
You have an A, B and then Z model. Sure, Step A is to hire employees. And then, Step B is to organize them into “teams.” Yet, most groups of people are teams in name only. You create a gap in executing hiring strategy. As though being part of a mandatorily-assigned “team” magically translates into emotional, logical and skill-related activities. After Step B, you fast-forward to Step Z. Theoretically, employees are now ready to function flawlessly, on behalf of better serving and retaining customers. What happened to those critical-to-outcome Steps C through Y???
Then, consider whether employee teams focus on fulfilling departmentally-specific customer retention roles.
More often than not, each department has a different definition of serving customers. Also, each employee, within that department, often has a different definition of what serving customers entails. Finally, each employee, on each team, in each department may be more focused on meeting their KPIs and retaining their own job, than they are in retaining customers.
As a result, employees, within departments and between departments, remain confused about their customer retention roles.
More often than not, employers pay lip-service to being customer-focused. And, the workplace has a disjointed “feel” to it, rather than a contiguous synergy, vibe and energy.
Employees “do their thing,” in a linear, rather than interactive, manner. Because the prevailing business and workforce models create linear assembly line activities. Just like the production lines during the Third Industrial Revolution, The Age of Mass Production. Taking input, executing throughput and handing off output. To “someone else.”
Except that, Today, Tomorrow and in the Future, customers do business in The Fourth Industrial Revolution environments. Not in assembly lines.
The Age of Customization and Personalization represents non-linear inter-connections between machines, software, processes. And most of all, people. Acquiring and retaining customers, today, tomorrow and in the future, involves different internal compatabilities and relationships.
What are the tiny shifts you can make, Today, to catalyze a more profitable workforce focused on retaining the customers you work so hard to win? Tomorrow and in the Future?
Action Items: Discover what is Possible, Tomorrow.
- Share my content with the professional associations you are a member of.
- Hire me to speak or conduct a workshop at your next corporate or association event to catalyze your mindset and skill sets.
- Book an appointment with me to better serve your customers.
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Babette Ten Haken catalyzes organizations and associations, like yours, who want to leverage a more profitable workforce to retain the customers you work so hard to win. One Millimeter Mindset™ speaking and storytelling programs are dedicated to: Leveraging Collaborative Business Models and Profitable Workforces to Retain Customers. Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Babette’s Playbook of collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Her professional speaker profile appears on the espeakers platform.
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