Customer Capability is Key

When I wrote "The Seven C's of Employee Engagement," I led with Customer Capability. Here's the reference:

Customer Capability may be the most important and yet most over-looked "C". Employees must be proud of their product and/or service and how it enables customer success.  Ask employees to design, sell, make, deliver, service or bill for products or services that are a poor value for their customer, and over time they will offer less and less of their discretionary effort. 

I promised to write more about this later.  So, here it is.  

How many times have we heard in sports that "winning cures what ails a team?"  In basketball, the Miami Heat's LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Eric Spoelstra (the coach) seemed to struggle to get along during the season.  With those struggles was a sense that, together, they simply did not appear to make each other better.  Then came the NBA playoffs and a first round series win and all of a sudden it seemed that the three of them energized each others' greatness; right through to their victory in the NBA Championship round.  Similarly, in football, the New York Giants seemed to be a collection of under-achievers in 2011.  They started out 6-2, lost four games in a row, and suffered through one common lament:  "Neither Eli Manning (their quarterback) nor Tom Coughlin (their coach) inspires effort!"  Somehow the Giants slipped into the playoffs, earned an opening round upset victory, and fed off this victory right through to their Super Bowl win.  Their inspirations?  Eli Manning's play and Tom Coughlin's game planning!

You see, in sports, winning is the business equivalent of "designing, selling, making and delivering" something of value for a team's customers.  Losing is akin to selling something of poor value.  Winning feeds employee engagement.  Losing steals it.

In 2011, MSN Money and IBOPE Zogby International completed a customer-service survey (Reference:  
http://money.msn.com/investing/the-complete-list-of-company-rankings.aspx).  

Here are the companies that received an "excellent" rating from 35% or more of the respondents:

1. Amazon (50.4%)
2. Trader Joe's (48.9%)
3. NetFlix (48.0%)
4. Nordstrom (45.2%)
5. Southwest Airlines (45.0%)
6. Publix (45.0%)
7. Apple (40.8%)
8. FedEx (40.2%)
9. Costco (37.2%)
10. UPS (35.9%)
11. Whole Foods (35.0%)

Now, this is admittedly anecdotal.  And, I don't know if these companies offer excellent customer service because they have engaged employees, or if the employees are engaged because the company values excellent customer service.  But if you've spent any time at all in Trader Joe's, Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, an Apple store or Whole Foods, or received deliveries from FedEx or UPS, you have seen employee engagement. 

Coincidence?  I think not...

One last example - The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), Fort Worth Texas.  My wife and I went a couple of months ago to obtain drivers licenses from the State of Texas.  In order to obtain a drivers license we needed to bring with us a pile of documents that one would have to experience to believe.  Take a look at this website and see the (1) primary documentation; (2) secondary documentation; and (3) the supporting documentation required to obtain a drivers license 
(http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/DriverLicense/identificationrequirements.htm)

My wife worked for hours, literally, to ready us for our appointment.  The woman sitting in the entrance was employed by DMV to assure that we had all required documents prior to letting us in the door.  We needed to get through her to join the legions of souls whom had earned the right to sit and wait.  This woman knew that there was no way that we were getting through; her experience taught her this as not one of the three people ahead of us got through, including one poor soul who walked away in tears. 

But the DMV hasn't met my wife - someone who studied that website, called to confirm, and practiced her presentation just to assure that we'd win the right to drive in Texas. About 90% of the way into her review our earnest DMV employee proclaimed, "OMG, I think you may have gotten this right!"  My wife grinned.  And then, with just 10% of the process left, retorted "Got ya!.. You may not pass through."  

Evidently, we checked some box on one of the forms indicating something that I still don't understand and, for that one mistake, our punishment would be a return trip to the DMV on another day. I still have nightmares where I see this woman's face and hear her say "Got ya!" Really, who says that???

This DMV employee was clearly NOT engaged.  But here is the sad truth:  I promise you that with the product she is compelled to deliver to her customers, full of complexity and almost guaranteed failure, there is no humanly possible way that any employee, anywhere, for any length of time could be engaged.  The persistent wave of angry and disappointed "customers" of the DMV has obviously stolen her engagement.  And, until that product is improved, I can't envision the DMV ever reclaiming her discretionary effort.

The Learning

Employee engagement starts with customer capability.  Employees are all about enablement of customer outcomes or, said another way, making customers winners.

Steal this from your employees and with it you will take their engagement.

Paul E. DuCharme.  October 2012