[9 July 2021] Day 39 of the nrp* in Malaysia
This is already the 4th piece about empowerment. If you are not already convinced, here’s a major benefit of empowering your employees — According to a Gallup study, organizations that empower employees experience higher customer loyalty by as much as 50%.
Your customer’s experience with your brand is largely dependent on what is happening inside your organisation — employee satisfaction. Empowered employees take personal responsibility for doing a good job. The business reaps the benefits of this mindset.
Ritz-Carlton famously empowers its employees to spend up to $2,000 to make a customer happy, and a baristas at certain international coffee shops are authorised to give you a free drink if you have an issue with the service. No wonder these brands rate high in customer experience and satisfaction.
Resources and tools
Your employees can deliver superior products and services if they feel engaged in the organisation. They want to be able to address day-to-day challenges of customer handling more effectively. If there is an unsatisfied customer, do they have the tools and authority to make a decision to fix the problem immediately?
As a business leader, it’s good to think about how and what your employees can be empowered to do. And then, think of what resources are required for them to be able do it. What kind of changes to you need to make to your systems and processes to accomodate this?
Many years ago when I was on a business trip, I arrived at my hotel to find that my room was not ready. The staff kept me waiting at the lobby for 2 hours. Despite my complaints, they were not empowered to upgrade me to another room. And for some reason, the hotel’s General Manager was ‘uncontactable’ for that 2 hours. That was the last time I ever chose to stay in that hotel.
Compare that with another hotel that paid for refreshments for my family and upgraded us to a suite when the same thing happened on one of our holidays. No fuss; the staff at the reception are empowered to do it. Did they get my loyalty as a customer? You bet, they did!
(Read the other parts about empowerment)
(*nrp stands for National Recovery Plan.)
(Feature Image by Rodrigo Salomón Cañas from Pixabay.)
About the Author: Gina Phan is a consultant and trainer with Zinfinity Consulting. She currently conducts courses in workplace performance skills. Click here to contact her, follow her on Facebook or connect with her on Linkedin.
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