Empowerment……a critical ingredient in business success and stellar customer service

I want to give three quick examples around empowerment of employees that have occurred to me in the last month or so. Two amazing; one appalling.

The first was in a major national supermarket chain a month or so back.

A few bottles of wine had made it into the weekly shop (!) one of which did not do the requisite pinging noise as it went through the till and the trainee check-out assistant (I still insist on using the tills where humans interact) proceeded to call the wine department for a price. When there was no answer she called the supervisor over; by this point there was a reasonable queue building, and the supervisor asked me if I’d had the wine before and did I remember how much it was. 

Now I’m not much of a comparison shopper or indeed that brand loyal - especially with wine. In this instance I’d had the red before but not their white, so I gave a rough estimate that I thought it was around the $15-17/bottle range (being a cheap-skate they are rarely more expensive than that and frequently cheaper).

What happened next was quite astounding. “So, $13 okay then?” She then proceeded to ring the wine through. Total time about 20 seconds….wow !!! It took longer for me to say what an amazing thing she had just done for firstly, the supermarket brand in question, secondly the customers in the queue behind me, the visible lesson for the trainee checkout assistant and finally me….the inpatient one. 

The second event was at a restaurant on a very wet Queen’s Birthday weekend in a locale that will remain anonymous suffice to say it is located on a very tourist focused destination requiring a ferry trip from Auckland.  

To be fair the meal quality was excellent, and the service – at the outset - was very good. However – and we’ve all been here – of the main meals to arrive one was somewhat delayed. 

The words “remind me what you ordered” are ones you never want to hear from a waitress when yours is the only plate missing. The meal subsequently came out some 10 minutes later, the waitress was then politely asked “what were they going to do about it” implying that sorry was simply not good enough. The immortal words “I’ll see what I can do” were issued forth like some staple from the “Guide to waitstaff 101” (available from all good bookshops) and whilst the food was excellent the inability to deliver a meal on time with the others, in my mind certainly, calls for some kind of compensation as after all that’s why you pay for something you can create at home for a fraction of the price.

When it came to paying, the more senior employee said they’d taken a lesser priced item off the bill instead of the item that was delivered late! We were arguing the toss of around 3% of the total bill; it wasn’t about the money it had rapidly escalated into principal and value. 

Sure, they’d offered something off but it was not relative to the issue, coupled with statements of “well it wasn’t that late” and “we are busy” raises a whole host of issues about resources, processes and your restaurant needing to be 50% smaller in order to serve customers but also about the central purpose of the organisation and a singular focus on customer centric service. Eventually the offending item did come off the bill however it left a very sour experience, a lot of negative comments (mostly mine!), a whole lot of unnecessary loud conversation for an amount of money that is hardly going to see the restaurant issue profit warnings or break its banking covenants. The greatest damage is the unseen hand, I’m sure as hell never going to eat there again- irrespective of the good food – and have gone out of my way to recommended to others not to eat their either.

Fast forward 18 hours and we were having lunch in another establishment (it was one of those weekends!) and a number of our party had what might be described as less than optimal seafood dish and had left the offending body parts on their plates. The waitress on noticing these asked what was wrong with the food and took the plates away to reappear two minutes later saying they’d be taken off the bill. No arguments, no issues, straightforward apology and positive customer centred action.  Of note here was the action in the question “Is there something wrong with the food?” rather than “was everything okay?” whilst the first can, if delivered incorrectly, sound like an accusation the second version puts the emphasis on the customer to fess up and the usual awkward “no everything was delicious” hyperbole (often seen in the restaurant of the hotel in our covering image!)  

So, it’s not exactly Mensa questioning to know which gets the repeat custom and recommendation and it centres around our topic of conversation. Empowerment.

Customer Facing

Let’s face facts. You’re a business owner….it may be your name on the sign outside, you may be the first person the shareholders ring or the bank rings, your assets as well as your name could very well be on the line but are you the person every customer sees and speaks to? 

In any reasonably sized business, you will not be able to speak to or even know every customer. Whilst you may have a key account or something, your business will not operate successfully or in the long run without a diverse customer base. This means other people; your employees, will ultimately be central to the success or failure of your business.

Why? Because all services are delivered at the “front desk”, whatever form that might take in your business, and whilst we’d like our employees to act (cue Hot Fuzz quote) “for the greater good” it may seem to some employees that many firms operate at the other end of the spectrum and they work under extreme Soviet era doctrine with the secret police listening to everything.

So how do we create empowerment? Quite simply it cannot be imposed but has to grow from the bottom and employee-centric but fully supported by the executive.

What needs to be in place……well purpose and ethics as we’ve discussed before. These remain the utmost guiding elements, the authentic fabric of what your company is about, what it wants to achieve and how it is going to behave to get it. However there needs to be some other ingredients too. (the following looks like a pictorial stream of conscience but I have the graphical design skills of a squashed banana but hopefully it serves a purpose) 

Starting with the requirements of the employer

Permission As soon as the immortal words “I’ll have to go and ask a manager” you know you’re in for the long hall, explaining things again and possibly in for a fight. From a company perspective this is the point where you’re about to lose credibility. Now realistically there will be some instances where a manager need to be called, that’s cool; just explain to the customer that their issue requires more attention. 

As an aside here this is all about scale. We are assuming you are not negotiating a deal for fighter jets or oil tankers here but is a transaction that is time and value limited in the ‘big scheme” the structure around complex negotiations is more involved and never instant so we are limiting this to restaurants, bed linen, pizzas etc. 

Studies have shown that competence in dealing with an issue far outweighs apologising (obviously do this but do it once and at the outset – don't keep apologising) and employees, need not just the permission to act but the permission to improvise. Create options for the customers…don’t ask what they want. That just gets people angrier and in this day and age of immediate broadcasting on social media no one is more inspired to write something negative over something positive than an irate – possibly hungry - customer.

The point I’m getting at here is that an employee’s indecision due to lack of permission could end up costing you far more than the cost of the dinner or returned item. 

The quantum a particular employee can “give back” should be agreed beforehand as part of policy and procedure (with sensible leeway of course). A company should look to maximise the number of queries able to be handled there and then, and a method to record, feedback and alter systems to reduce the chance of it happening again put in place.

Ultimately you want employees doing something; doing nothing is a bad thing.

Transparency This is going to be hard for some but sharing as much corporate information as possible...even those financials…is vital to the success of empowerment. Why? Because employees will know the consequence of their actions, where they fit inside the big picture and purpose of the organisation. Working in a tight silo or narrowly defined role will not help empowerment and the consequences of action, or indeed inaction, and the implications of this not understood. 

Feedback essentially the good kind is required here. What went wrong, what can be put in place to stop it happening again, in a no blame manner. Don’t forget what went right also! Never forget to celebrate.

Resources If you provide all the resources required for your employees to do their jobs you show you are willing to invest in them and take them seriously. How about asking them to do more with more!  

Now the two-way street

The correct application of these resources also creates a self-imposed accountability on the employee (it removes an excuse for starters) and there is a strong element of what psychologist’s term reciprocity. It then creates a natural bridge of employers wanting to be able to hold employees accountable without being dictatorial. Also, if you’re in a spiral of persuading people to do more with less then something is fundamentally wrong with the purpose of your business and the what and how you do your business needs addressing urgently.

Trust – this is two way and is developed through time – it cannot be imposed with targets, regulations or procedures. It kind of just happens, takes effort to maintain and can be destroyed in an instant from both sides. However once established is highly effective. 

The Employees bit. Apparency, Aptitude, Attitude

As discussed in the article on culture you have to have people who have Apparency, Aptitude and Attitude (3A’s) basically are they Willing, Capable and Able. This was defined by USAA in their drive to improve employee empowerment and improve customer experience and we’ll see how effective that was in a second. 

But basically we are saying here is ensure your employees are able and ready to be empowered, you can’t impose empowerment overnight.

So how do we know empowerment is working and what are the benefits?  

Quite simply your staff will tell you, or through observation you will notice improvements, retention rates going up, engagement going up and most likely those staff you really don't want may up and leave.  

As with all of these things if you are going to implement more empowerment it’s going to take time and there will be lots and lots of learning required. It will go wrong and need to be adjusted but don't allow retrenching to old habits. If you are a fan of targets (see previous articles on my thoughts on these) make them customer centric. 

As just discussed USAA, a US insurance company, strived for employee empowerment in their call centres – probably one of the most unlikely areas of modern work to want to do that! One of the very few targets was not “deal with as many call as possible in an hour” but “resolve as many customer issues in the first call”. A simple customer-centric measure.

Did it work? Well I’d consider a 400-fold rise in net assets driven by only a 7-fold increase in employees over a 20 year period a pretty good success…what’s even more interesting is that they started employee empowerment in the 1960’s. There is nothing new under the sun!

In summary lay the ground work and don't undermine it….live it…embody it…..demonstrate it….

I don't see many barriers to this being implemented in any business to be fair. It will work just as well with full time and part time employees and temporary workers…..we’re not asking them to translate the Iliad or write a quick treatise on James Joyce’s Ulysses. Embedding empowerment through these rules should be quick, cheap and EASY to train and instill. It’s about your culture after all.

If it works, people will want to work for you… you’ll have happy (repeat) customers….oh and you should be happy too as you’ll be making money