Reading mystery shopping reports for twenty plus years has been interesting. I’ve gained a lot of insight into how different companies – and industries – train and measure the performance of their employees.
Not to mention some eye-opening customer stories. Like the mystery shopper who saw the employee in a retail store eating fast food while hiding under a desk. Or the property manager who encouraged a prospect to look at the apartments next door, “because they were nicer.”
Overall, there have been far more good customer experiences than bad. Enough to allow me to confidently report,
“Good people make good employees who want to do a good job.”
So how does management hang onto those good people?
What Good Employees Want
According to Hays, a Global Recruitment organization, learning and development are the primary factors in motivating and retaining employees. Employees want to matter to your business. By providing opportunities to learn and to grow you are communicating to them that they do matter.
In the 2017 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report, the Learning and Development professionals participating stated the most important skills to train for are:
- Leadership/People Management
- Career Development/Soft Skills
- Customer Service
Note how two out of these three focuses on relational skills, not technical skills.
Real behavior changes result when a company places value on growth and improvement for individuals. And communicates how their actions can positively affect the entire organization.
When an organization places value on growth and improvement for individuals and communicates how this can positively affect the corporation – real behavior changes can result.
And it is the behavior of your employees which create the best of customer experiences.
Placing Value Where it Matters Most
When measuring the customer experience through mystery shopping, some clients are sticklers for ‘doing it by the book’. They ask mystery shoppers to observe if the company representative says hello, makes eye contact, extends their hand, and so on.
Other corporate managers and business owners are less concerned with the exact steps of introduction, greeting, and other courtesies. They want to ‘see’ if their employees pushed for the sale and the close. After all, that is the reason they are out on the front line. To sell – and upsell – products or services.
At restaurants, retail, financial firms – it doesn’t matter which industry – there is that checklist of things that matter to current management which are measured and analyzed.
But what always matters most in these reports is when the mystery shopper rates their customer experience. Often, it has less to do with the greeting or the pursuit of a sale, but rather with how they were treated.
“Good people make good employees who want to do a good job.”
In the LinkedIn study, one of the professionals’ top three measures of success of a learning and development program was positive feedback from line managers that employees are more productive.
Productivity on the front-line means increased sales and increased customer retention. It means being creative and knowing how to interact with personalities – real people. And doing a good job –receiving a ‘10’ for customer experience on your customer survey rating scale.
Do your training and learning and development programs create real behavior change? Is there a measurement program in place to recognize employees who have made the change?
- Create an environment that places value on learning and development.
- Measure the change so you understand the ROI and effect on your bottom line.
- Don’t let your good employees leave to do a good job at your competitor.
- Show each employee you value their expertise and want to help them grow.
Good employees = Successful Company!
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