Why Everyone Needs to be Responsible for the Customer Experience

As we mark CXDay (Customer Experience Day) at Hallmark Business Connections, we celebrate the employees who concentrate on putting the customer at the center of our operations every day, an approach that figures prominently in the article below by Micah Solomon

, customer service consultant and author. I am delighted to bring Micah’s voice to our blog this CXDay.

Question: who should be responsible for the customer experience at your company (or at your department, or in your division)?

Before you answer, a warning: How you answer this question can make or break you as an organization.

Here is my answer. It’s kind of a hard line, but it’s the only answer that makes sense.

Make everyone responsible for the customer experience.  Responsible for handling complaints. For suggesting improvements in your processes. For maintaining the customer-friendly processes you already have. If you don’t, you will find the actual responsibility for the customer experience at your company devolves quickly “no one” or possibly to a few overachieving people whom you’re setting up for inevitable burnout.

The picture of customer service we need to get out of our heads — and out of our businesses — is the old, compartmentalized version: an isolated clerk on an upper floor of a venerable department store, or the employees who answer the phone, respond to social media, live chat and email from customers.

Instead, teach Joan in Sales and Jeff in Shipping how they themselves can initiate a service recovery. Jeff may not be the right person ultimately to fix the problem, but if he encounters an unsatisfied customer, he needs to know how to do more than say ‘‘I can’t help you, I’m just in sales.’’ Even Dale, who writes the code for changes to the ERP system, should be empowered to ward off problems before they occur. Many of the downstream problems that customers encounter are the results of employees who were technically getting the job done, but weren’t doing it with an eye toward the desired customer experience.

Now, take it a step farther. What if every employee approached their job as an opportunity to delight customers, putting the customer at the center of the employee’s work, rather than treating the customer as an afterthought? This changes the focus changes from the work to the customer, and it’s more motivating to serve a customer than to serve a list of perhaps mundane tasks prescribed by your company.

Employees will feel better about themselves and your company, customers will feel better about their experience and that results in more loyalty and revenue. Everybody wins.