Customer Experience
Elevating Employee Experience For Customer Experience Success
By Carolyne Gathuru
Customer experience quick fire quiz question number 1 : The internal customer is more important than the external customer - True or False ?
Nine out of ten times during customer experience training sessions , the team at which this question is lobbied will lift their hands and quickly respond False ! This is immediately followed by expressions of perplexion and consternation when the verdict that their answer is “ incorrect ” and zero points awarded to the team is announced . After the entire quiz is complete and the debrief on areas requiring clarification is ongoing , it emerges time after time how much organizations are conditioned to understand that the external customer is a small god , and how the customer is always right , no matter the prevailing circumstances at hand . Very warped notions as far as customer experience excellence is concerned , and very skewed in the direction of oppressing internal customers whilst glorifying external ones .
All customers are important , both internal and external , and excellent customer service standards must be applied in both the external customer journey mapping , as well as the internal customer journey mapping . The efforts to anticipate , meet and exceed customer expectations need to apply both ways , else the hope of running sustainable enterprises will be gone like the early morning mist on an incoming sunny day .
The sanity and mental health of internal customers is a matter that needs to feature on the strategic blueprint of all organizations irrespective of size or sector , and there is urgent need to ensure that the toxic workplace syndrome that is rapidly becoming a pandemic is abated . We need to flatten the curve and bring to order internal customer experience excellence across the divide .
Culture is driven from the top , and the drive to inculcate a culture of customer experience excellence thus rests on the shoulders of those mandated with the responsibility to develop , implement and oversee organizational strategy - the board and top leadership . It is also a given that leaders bring in the weather and control
Does it not thus behoove every leader in a position of authority over others to lead as they would wish to be led , and not perpetrate the narcissistic leadership tendencies , and toxic boss affliction currently roaming about terrorizing internal customers , and causing strife at many a workplace ? the temperatures in the organization . Does it not thus behoove every leader in a position of authority over others to lead as they would wish to be led , and not perpetrate the narcissistic leadership tendencies , and toxic boss affliction currently roaming about terrorizing internal customers , and causing strife at many a workplace ?
Institute of Customer Experience , the professional body that sets standards and leads customer experience professionalism and excellence , has this year unveiled # ElevatingEXforCXSuccess as the national theme to guide CX activities all year round . This is a direction whose time has been long coming and that is poised to recognize the valuable assets that employees are to every organization . Elevating employee experiences will take the edge off the need to step all over the workforce in the bid to serve external customers , and happy employees will translate to happy customers .
Curating great employee experiences calls for the entire end to end employee journey from recruitment , onboarding , performance , stay and exit , to be managed in a way that has all parties experiencing win-win . Internal customer comfort including workplace ergonomics , physical , mental , psychological and emotional welfare , as well as environmental dynamics , will need to be prioritized . To achieve this organizations , need to invest in capacity building that will yield the desired results of having a workplace that not only commits to internal and external customer experience excellence , but also upholds an environment that lends itself to mental wellness at work .
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