A culture of serving the customer can improve the experiences at any business, but that culture won’t come together if it’s just a mandate from on high.
Workers are usually interested in offering a good experience, leaders said during a session at Customer Contact Week Las Vegas last week. Businesses just need to offer them training and support that helps them serve customers.
“In general, most of our people want to serve clients well,” Adelaide Ness, director of CX enablement at tax advisory firm Baker Tilly, said during the panel. “They just don't always know how to.”
The most important ingredients of a CX culture include values that go beyond slogans and proper training for new employees. Leaders have an important role to play as well, from how they talk about CX to how they treat employees.
Credibility is important, according to Evan Pardue, director of brand and CX at Condado Tacos. Accountability is a two-way street, and a great CX culture requires everyone working in unison.
Brand CX is more than slogans
Organizations often confuse slogans for values, according to Ness. CX goals can’t just be words that sound nice — they need to be actionable instructions that guide expectations for employee behavior.
Ideally, employees should be able to answer two questions about the company’s CX brand, Ness said. The first is “What kind of experience are we trying to create?” The second is “How does this help me do what I need to do tomorrow?”
“If they can't answer those two things, it's just a slogan,” Ness said. “There’s nothing wrong with a slogan, but until it becomes the non-negotiable way that you do things, it's just marketing.”
The customer experience is owned by every single person in the organization, from the people who pick up the phone to the CEO, according to Ness. If they don’t understand the CX values the company is striving for, they won’t be able to support them.
Condado Tacos has embedded its CX values into its accountability structures to its entire team work working within its ethos, according to Pardue. Every CX touchpoint contributes to the brand, and its customer-facing workers are tasked with making its brand experience come to life.
“Our frontline teammates are the ones that create the brand promise,” Pardue said. “Marketing is just evangelizing it. If you don't have that attitude, you will always see CX as a marketing function and it will never be impactful.”
A good experience starts during onboarding
A brand may have strong CX values, but new employees don’t know that. A good onboarding program can help internalize what a company’s experience should look and feel like.
“Having a CX brand is great, but if you don't train people, it's useless,” Ness said. “Really give them the opportunity to learn how to demonstrate these behaviors, because people don't know what they don't know.”
This especially true for businesses that operate in a hybrid model, according to Ness. When workers aren’t in an office or store as often, they don’t have the same opportunities to learn by watching others.
Even employees who usually won’t be working with customers directly can benefit from customer experience training, according to Pardue.
A back-of-house manager that has spent time working the counter or answering customer calls is better equipped to assist his people when problems arise, Pardue said. “Everyone understands every role, so that then you can hold each other accountable and grow.”
Leadership shapes the expectations of CX
Culture and training are the core of creating a better CX culture, and they work best when that culture is visible every day for every employee. On the frontlines, that job falls under the purview of the managers.
Pardue sees “maniacal hospitality” as one of the brand pillars for Condado Tacos. It’s up to the company’s managers in the field to internalize that goal and present it to frontline employees in a way that makes the mission feel real to workers.
“In the restaurant they can filter their decisions through the language of the brand,” Pardue said. “Am I being maniacal about this guest experience? If I'm not, how can I get there, and how can I help the server get there?”
The way managers treat frontline employees matters as well, according to Ness. If companies let some workers get away with bad behavior, even if they excel at their job, that can weigh on others’ willingness to live up to the brand’s CX standards.
“There is nothing more of a culture killer than having something that I call the high performer but low culture person,” Ness said. “The person who may be good at their job — great salesperson, great back-end technician — but they're a jerk.”
Companies can talk about how employee experience is vital to CX, but if leaders aren’t rewarding positive behavior while letting negative behavior go unchecked, the average employee won’t believe it.
“Your people are smart,” Ness said. “When they see bad behavior and when we turn a blind eye, that is one of the most prevalent reasons why good people leave. It makes CX hypocritical when we say one thing but we allow different behaviors.”
