Culture as Customer Experience King

In case you thought it was April Fool’s, we’re actually into the second quarter. This month, we’re tackling the idea of customer-centric culture as customer experience idea #1. Little else has the impact on the experience you deliver to your customers more than the experience your employees have. Your culture – that internal customer experience – is about as vital as it gets.

How important is employee engagement to business results? How do you create a customer-centric culture?

• In one study, it showed restaurant employees with better employee experiences had per-person check averages that were $2.02 (6%) higher than restaurants with a fair to below average employee experience. That’s saying something.
• According to a Profiles International study, about $350 billion is lost because of employee disengagement. (What should we call anti customer-centric cultures?)
• Those companies with high traditional engagement had a slightly higher margin of 14 percent. Companies with the highest “sustainable engagement” scores had an average one-year operating margin of 27 percent, according to a study by Towers Watson.

Your friendly neighborhood CXI® team is here to investigate why a customer-centric culture seems easy for some and elusive for others, as well as other cultural conundrums during the month of April. Here are a few topics we’re excited to explore:

1. What does employee engagement actually mean?
2. How do you measure your customer-centric culture authentically?
3. What are the best companies doing to ensure positive customer-centric cultures?
4. What can growing companies do to tackle this issue?
5. Why should you invest in culture? What are the best investments?

You with us? We hope so. The best investigations are collaborative, and we’d love your input! What do you think are the keys to a customer-centric culture? What are the downfalls?

Photo credit: CourtesyChevy via Creative Commons license

Read more: Being Anti-Customer Centric