Want an Amazing Subscriber Experience? Start With an Amazing Employee Experience
I’m challenging you to consider the employee experience as you do the subscriber experience. Service providers work very hard to acquire and retain subscribers. What if we made the same effort to keep our employees?
Let’s start with the premise that what happens inside an organization is felt on the outside by our customers or subscribers. In the 1980s, I gave my first presentation on internal customer service. I realized that almost all the techniques we use to acquire and retain our best customers can be used to hire and keep our best employees. Happy and fulfilled employees are more productive and, most importantly, more engaged with our subscribers.
3 Ways To Improve the Employee Experience
Let’s consider three ideas that positively fuel the internal employee experience (EX): the “employee golden rule,” empowering all employees to act like leaders, and understanding the Employee Hierarchy of Needs.
The Employee Golden Rule
When we were young, many of us learned about the “golden rule,” which is to do unto others as you would like done unto yourself. The employee golden rule is a twist on that childhood lesson—do unto our employees as we want to be done unto our customers.
In other words, treat employees right—maybe even better than you want subscribers to be treated. I tell leaders and managers they can’t treat employees one way and expect them to treat fellow employees or subscribers differently. What’s happening inside the organization is felt on the outside.
Act Like a Leader
You don’t need to be in a leadership position to act like a leader. In this case, acting like a leader is how you treat others.
I love sharing the story of Clark, an 18-year-old server who worked at a pizza restaurant. One evening, someone asked, “Are you the owner?” He responded, “No, but why would you ask?” The guest said, “You are doing such a great job taking care of us we thought you must be the owner or at least the manager.”
Two things were happening in the background that influenced Clark’s service. First, he liked his boss—who also happened to be the owner—and wanted to be like him. Second, the owner empowered him to take care of his guests. He told Clark, “I hired you because you had a little experience—but more importantly, you know how to treat people. Just do what you know is best.”
At that point, Clark chose to be so good that every guest might think he owned the restaurant. Imagine if all employees acted like that, as leaders!
The Employee Hierarchy of Needs
If you want employees to stay and better engage with team members and subscribers, you must understand what employees want.
I took a creative license and played off Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Just as Maslow had five levels in his model, I’ve identified five levels focused on the employee in this version.
- The Paycheck: Compensation is the base of the pyramid and typically represents the basic reason employees come to work. Compensation can include wages, insurance, retirement plans, PTO, and more.
- The Culture: Does the culture you’ve created in your organization align with what is important to your employees? This is often the difference between companies with high and low turnover. Employees want to be proud of where they work, which starts with culture.
- Uniqueness: Exploiting an employee’s unique talents and capabilities is often an overlooked opportunity. Do they have a unique talent, speak a foreign language, or have some other skill that can be incorporated into their responsibilities? Find something special your employee is good at—and, if possible, something they would also enjoy doing—and make it part of their job, even if it’s just a small part.
- Growth Opportunities: Employees want to grow. This gives them a sense of purpose and growth. Growth isn’t just a promotion. They want to learn new skills and advance their careers, with regular opportunities for professional development.
- Fulfillment: This is the top of the pyramid. Fulfillment comes from an emotional connection. Just as you want subscribers to love doing business with you, you want employees to love their jobs. Love is an emotion, and it’s special and meaningful when an employee says, “I love working there.” It means they enjoy their job, coworkers, and their boss—and they feel appreciated for the talent they bring to their role. Combining compensation with other needs in this model will help you keep your best people.
These simple ideas are foundational. When you make the same effort for the employee experience as you do the subscriber experience, you enable proud employees who act like leaders. Build a culture that creates an emotional connection with your employees—be where they love to work.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and CX expert, an award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, and a New York Times bestselling author. Learn more at www.Hyken.com.
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