Engaged Organizations Key to Customer Service

By George Anderson

A study from the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement at Northwestern University, The Impact of Employee Attitudes on Market Response and Financial Performance, says there is a direct link between employee and customer satisfaction and a company’s bottom line results, even when the employees are not involved in a customer service function.

“This study supports the idea that internal marketing and communications needs to be implemented as rigorously as external marketing and sales programs,” says Francis J. Mulhern, Ph.D., associate dean and chair of Northwestern University’s graduate program in Integrated Marketing Communications. “After all, the products produced by an organization’s employees are the embodiment of the attitudes and behaviors of the employees who produce them.”

The study identified key characteristics of companies with engaged employees.

  1. Organizational communication is directly tied to employee satisfaction.
  2. Internal competition is geared to coming up with better ways to serve customers.
  3. Customers of these companies use their products and services more often.
  4. Customer commitment is not relegated to those within the organization that have direct contact with customers.

Moderator’s Comment: How important is a company’s culture? How can businesses create a culture of service? Are there retailers that you believe really
get this?

George Anderson – Moderator

BrainTrust

Discussion Questions

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