Empowered Employees' or Upset Customer

Empowered Employees’ or Upset Customer

One of the things that have always struck me as being odd is company policy. Even more odd is the fact that companies instruct employees to regurgitate company policy often in times of trouble (much like a safe word) especially with a distraught or disgruntled customer. If a customer is already unhappy enough to be complaining about a particular product or service, having the employee inform the customer that their unhappiness is nothing more than company policy only perpetuates the customers’ aggravation. One could argue that if a policy has been written about said problem, then the problem is known, and therefore why hasn’t it been fixed, but I digress.

First and foremost, let’s set the record straight; the term company policy is a fallacy, a farce if you will. They are more guidelines if anything. Like an insurance company that denies all claims on the first pass, company policy is there to deter customers from taking their case any further up the flag pole and deflect the issue back to some mythical entity that cannot be contacted directly. This is an insult to the customer whom for whatever reason feels wronged and an insult to the employee whom apparently lacks the capacity to make intelligent decisions.

So where does this leave us? Well, in the small business arena, usually an upset customer can be turned into a repeat customer with a little help from employee attitude and access to the key decision makers within the organization. This is the advantage to purchasing from small businesses. No matter the issue, the customer is usually dealing with someone only a level or two removed from the stakeholder(s). Furthermore, small businesses empower employees’ far more than large corporations. Employees are allowed to make decisions on the fly without the worry of loosing their job or some other form of disciplinary action.

Large organizations on the other hand have policies in place so that no matter the store location, employees are trained to say the same thing. Like robots, they are trained to repeat company policy, almost verbatim, in any situation that is not already predefined by the great big book of answers covered in the company manual. It is like calling tech support for Dell Computers, you reach the level 1 desk that instructs you to do a series actions. These actions are listed on a sheet the level 1 technician must follow; any deviation from said list and the level 1 technician either reverts back to answer 1, or places you on hold to check with a level 2 technician… you get the idea.

In all, any company has but one question to ask: Empower your employees to make decisions on their own (within reason), or continue having upset customers? This is not to say that the customer will or should always get what they are asking for or demanding, rather customers are much more lenient when they see employees doing everything they can to help the customer. What baffles the mind even more is that companies are taking a more hard-nosed approach to this method of service in an economy where customers are much less likely to spend their hard earned money. In the end, the customers you want frequenting your establishment are the ones willing to pay a little more for far greater service, not the ones looking for rock-bottom prices. The latter customers are not loyal, and will drop you for the cost of an extra value meal. Remember the 80/20 rule of business, 20% of your customers’ makeup 80% of your business; you must keep those 20% happy.

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