Focusing on Employee Culture to Gain Customers

As companies struggle in the battle between brick-and-mortar stores and online shopping, the game plan is always changing. There is one thing that is consistently needed, though often gets overlooked amidst the smorgasbord of new technologies and business models put into place. That one thing is the employee culture of a company. Having a healthy employee culture can and should lead to a healthy customer culture, which provides a better foundation for customer loyalty.

The employee culture is part of the foundation of any business. A couple of weeks back I touched on an aspect of this idea of employee culture in my article Two Approaches to Engaging Employee, which looked at getting in touch with an employee’s strengths to place them in a position where they will be most motivated to succeed in. Let’s go a little further with the idea when discussing employee culture. Forbes contributor Christine Crandell has this to say:

For employees, a great culture is measured by the degree of trust they have in colleagues and their employer as well as the pride they have in their work. This can be measured in dimensions, like credibility, respect and fairness. For companies, an environment of trust leads to higher performance by employees that are focused and team-oriented on the organization’s objectives, leading to a greater focus on customers as opposed to “just doing their job.”

Various aspects of a bad employee culture are some of the most common complaints heard from people who grumble about hating their job. Bad boss, bad co-workers, favoritism, disrespect, it all plays a part. Disgruntled employees do not make motivated workers. Unmotivated workers will often lead to unsatisfied and disgruntled customers. Managers always stress listening to customers, but that needs to likewise be applied to employees.

The discussing and focus on culture is not a new idea, it has been around pretty much as long as business practices have. Unfortunately, it is “something we lost touch with a long time ago,” Crandall says. It is now resurfacing in the discussions by management due to insight from the world of social media. “The bottom-line is that we need to look at customer relationships differently. Instead of looking at through the lens of your business model, start with the culture of your organization,” she says in closing, and that is definitely a step in the right direction.

It is important to see the necessity of building a great employee culture in order to have that flows over into a better customer culture. A happy CSR crew is much more productive and motivated than a frustrated, beaten down one. Companies are going to have to if they truly desire to prosper in this highly competitive market.

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