In the time when companies try to get their product to as more customers as possible with fewer resources, including employee participation tactic in company development plan brings lots of benefits. Every CMO understand the power of employee engagement in brand building, but if you not – read this article to uncover some ways of how to do it.
Customer equity. How do you define it? Frequency? Share of spend? Elasticity? Loyalty? Advocacy? All of the above? No matter how you measure it, customer equity is the holy grail when it comes to increasing lifetime customer value and holding customer acquisition costs in check. It’s no wonder that CMOs are all ears when it comes to employee participation in driving those measures.
But is it news good for all companies that aspire to lofty customer satisfaction scores? Sad to say its not. It seems that many firms are finding that customer expectations, employee attitudes and service delivery are not necessarily aligned. Truth is in most models they are not even close.
Data from The American Consumer Satisfaction Index and J.D Power suggest that most companies overestimate their delivery of service and underestimate customer demands. An examination by Bain & Company suggested that 80% of companies believed they delivered superior service while the majority of their customers strongly disagreed with that statement. (They must have done their Holiday Shopping in the same mall as me.)
So where is the disconnect? Do all the high paid diagnostics you’d like but chances are the gap is widest where your brand lives, right at the mark where customers and employees interact.
Engaged employees think of heir job as their business and tend to own the customer experience as their own. Innovation, creativity and accountability are all byproducts of employees believing and embracing the gist of the brand while empathizing with the consumers’ goals. That is in a nutshell how a value proposition becomes real and how employee participation in the workplace can help you build a stronger relationship with your customer.
We are all consumers on one level or another and have all felt the frustration and disappointment of a buying experience that didn’t live up to the hype. If you want customers to connect with your brand, at the human level, you will need a population of believers, advocates and doers.
CMO role in improving employee participation
As you plan to hone your competitive advantage in 07 think seriously about the hidden asset that exists in the attitudes of your people. Ask your CMO to get on board and perhaps help fund initiates (marketing budgets have room for improved customer service scores). Get your customer facing population tuned into the meaning of the brand and the expectations of customers. You will both be pleased with the payoff.
Conclusion
Regardless of how complicated it may seem, you can find methods to enhance employee participation and give them the feeling of building a business together. Let them contribute in their workplace and appreciate initiatives coming from them. Don’t make the mistake to underestimate the impact good workers have on your business image.
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