How HR Can Add Value to Customer Experience Excellence
Customer experience is no longer a function of the customer representatives’ only or customer-facing employees only, but the entire organization participates in ensuring customers experience high satisfaction levels. They all act in different capacities that lead to superior customer experiences. Human resource department is the force behind employee engagement with the blessing and guidance of the top management. When the senior management sees the employees for who they are – internal customers- they will do what it takes to ensure they are motivated, engaged, valued, appreciated and satisfied. We know that an engaged employee will perform at optimum and thus provide excellent services. The above statement is a generalization; let us get down to the specific actions that the Human Resources department can undertake to add value to the customer experience. Have a Dual Vision For the human resource department to be efficient, they need to align their strategy to external customer engagement strategy. They do this by first understanding customer expectations and employee behaviors that will help meet those expectations. A dual vision will help them set clear objectives, and strategies to achieve them. When the HR takes care of the employees with the customers in mind, they will have a greater impact on the service delivery process. That customer driven strategy will contribute to the overall success of the organization in customer service excellence. Be Approachable and Available Just like an organization positions itself to be readily available to customers with positive or negative feedback, so should you to your “customers”. The only way to understand the employees is to have a dialogue with them. When you keep your doors open for constructive conversations, you will influence the employee behaviors. Think about how easy it is for them to do business with you; are you putting into practice what you are teaching them regarding their behavior towards customers? Is it easy to get in touch with you? Do you give them timely feedback? Do you have channels that your customers can reach you when and how they choose? These questions will guide you in developing a customer focused strategy, as well as know the best channels to communicate with your staff. Recruit Meticulously A core responsibility of human resource is staff hiring. However, to add value to the customer experience excellence, you need to hire differently. For instance, you can focus on recruiting staff that have the right attitude more than the skills. Reason being, you can train on the skills but not attitude. When you have the right team from the onset, with the right attitude towards customer service, then you are on the road to excellence. Facilitate cross-functional collaboration All departments need to work as one because a customer looks at the company as one entity, not units. The human resource department promotes partnerships between the other units. If there is no unity and a process of handling customers, it affects the quality of services delivered. For example, if the representative needs technical support to resolve a customer’s grievance, but the technical team takes too long to respond to the escalated issue, then only the HR manager can mitigate that problem. He or she will open lines of communications and instill the need for all departments to collaborate for the benefit of the organization. At times, they organize team-building activities that encourage cohesion among the staff. In summary, the human resource department play a crucial role in customer experience excellence. It is all about people when HR takes care of the internal customers and by default, the excellence flows to the external customers. This blog was first published on LinkedIN
