Two Questions Every Customer Service Manager Should Be Asking Everyday

By Bill Quiseng  

Your most important assets are not your customers and your employees. It’s how your customers and your employees feel about your company. Your success as a manager is directly proportional to your ability to drive simultaneously customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Happy employees are inclined to go above and beyond for your customers. And when your customers feel they are cared for, they will return. You can’t satisfy customers with disengaged employees. Start there first. So what can you do to ensure your employees are engaged? As a first step, begin by asking at least one employee these two questions every day:

What are you hearing? You cannot even begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the potential dissatisfiers within their experience. The American Customer Satisfaction Index found that the response rates for electronic surveys were averaging between 5% and 15%. So if surveys are your only source of feedback, then at the most, you personally know 15% of all your customers’ angst. If you are interacting with customers while you supervise employees, you may know between 20 – 50% of your customers’ dissatisfiers. But your Associates know 100% of your customers’ complaints and concerns because your customers tell them everyday. So find out what they are hearing and act to systematically remove any potential dissatisfiers.

What can I do for you? Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS Airlines and author of the book,

The biggest complaint from employees of their managers and supervisors is a lack of communication. Ask these two questions every day to generate a flow of ideas to continually improve the employee and customer experience. Then act on the feedback you receive to drive engagement and empower your employees to deliver exceptional service that your customers will rave about to you and others.