Customer Satisfaction Improvements Depend on Employee Authority

 

Work backwards with me.

If you want a satisfied customer (internal or external), those serving the customer must perform to the delight of the customer. To make those serving the customer perform exceptionally well, much has to be in place, among them

• Training to develop competency
• Powerful tools to provide the service
• And proven processes

Hold a minute on that last one. What about full control over their activities without tight restrictions? Would you give them that? Could you handle the risks? Could your organization?

What are the consequences of giving workers more authority in their job anyway? A recent article (may require registration) explains what American Express is doing differently now in their service centers and describes the changes which have occurred. The tactics and results seem to have applicability well beyond a service center.

They have dumped scripts and other behavioral control restrictions and replaced them with:

• Ability to have unscripted problem-solving conversations anytime with the purpose being to deepen the customer relationship rather than get onto the next call
• Detailed individual metrics so that employees can see for themselves what is working and what is not.
• Plenty of feedback and quick-response training to fill performance gaps found, especially emphasizing "soft skills".
• Selection of candidates with different experience than before, more service-related experience

Their strategy is working with improved employee satisfaction, employee performance, and most importantly customer satisfaction and business results.

This is simply a different management philosophy with a different objective than the philosophy to install tight controls. In your project, in your organization, if you want better relationships with stakeholders, functional managers, vendors, external clients, and the rest, you must consider changing your objective for the workforce to relationship management and away from transaction management. Once you establish this objective, give workers more authority and the skills and support to achieve success toward that objective.

This strategy is not all wine and roses. There is a quotation in the article from an academic describing how you have to accept some downside risk, not the least of which is the potential to lose some high performers that have absorbed significant investment. But to replace overly-restrictive processes with more worker capability and authority will enable more significant business performance improvement. That's what improved HR management is supposed to achieve.