Golden Oldies: Who is Your Customer?
by Miki Saxon
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
For centuries ‘customers’ were the people who bought a company’s products or services. A few decades ago that started to change and not just. Governments started recognizing that taxpayers were, in fact, customers, as did schools and universities, with regards to their students. Hospitals and doctors embraced, or were forced to, the idea of patients as customers.
Through most of that time customer service was mostly a function of caveat emptor. Even before the web and social media made both complaining and complimenting easy ‘ before that, gossip and message boards spread the word. The change is most easily seen in the medical world where Medicare/Medicaid and insurance companies, paying based on outcome, as opposed to fee-for-service, have forced radical change in patient care.
It was during this period that management academics and gurus put forth the idea that workers were customers and customer service was the responsibility of their direct boss—not HR.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
Customer service is a major topic these days (more on that tomorrow); as is employee retention, but do they really have anything in common?
Absolutely.
Every manager, from team leader to CEO, is also a customer service manager, because your people are your customers.
That’s right, customers.
More accurately, that makes you an ESM—employee service manager.
Why do you service your people? To
- help them achieve their full potential;
- assure high productivity;
- lower turnover; and
- create an environment that’s a talent magnet.
How do you service your people? By
- cultivating the kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that truly values people and understands how important it is to manifest that;
- offering high-grade professional challenges to all your people and making sure that they have the resources and all the information necessary to achieve success;
- fostering fairness so that people know they are evaluated on their merits and favoritism plays no part; and
- always walking your talk and living up to your commitments.
What’s in it for you?
- Better reviews, promotions and raises;
- increased professional development;
- less turnover and easier staffing; and
- what goes around comes around—everything that you give your people will come back to you ten-fold!
Flickr image credit: Angela Archer
August 31st, 2018 at 1:15 am
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