Despite the digital world encroaching on nearly every aspect of our lives and taking up more of our time than ever, employee-customer interactions are still vital to sustained success in business. Many industries rely on making a positive impression with customers, and ensuring that your clientele enjoy their experience at your establishment is essential to building relationships that can power your business well into the future. Fortunately, here are four ways to help you get started improving employee-customer interactions:
Amenities Make a Difference
Five ways to improve your business’ waiting room experience
When you operate in a customer-based industry, the environment you present to your customers is nearly as important as the product you provide. As such, it’s imperative that your waiting areas or lobbies are spotless and well-maintained. Modern furniture and creature comforts like vending machines will go a long way to putting your customers at ease (especially important in medical fields where patients are often nervous) and improving their overall experience.
Equip Your Employees
5 Ways to Engage Employees To Build A Better Customer Experience
You can’t ask your employees to do something if they don’t have the tools to do it. That’s why you need to provide them with adequate information, equipment, training, and technology to best serve your customers. Again, this is especially pertinent in the medical field. A cutting-edge pharmacy point of sale can do wonders for your drug store, for example.
Staff Accordingly
Understaffing of Baltimore paramedics leads to long hours, overtime spike
There’s no faster way to irritate employees and customers alike than to make mistakes in staffing. Failing to plan for busy hours and forcing a few employees to do the work of many will lead to an inevitable deterioration in customer-employee interactions. And while the occasional misstep can be forgiven, consistently committing errors in regard to the number of staff available to service customers can lead even the soundest businesses down the road to ruin.
Lead by Example
10 EXAMPLES OF TREMENDOUS BUSINESS LEADERSHIP
We’ve all heard the phrase, “treat others the way you’d like to be treated.” And while that’s a good place to start when dealing with employee-customer interactions, an even better one to consider would be this: “treat others the way you’d like your staff to treat them.” If you’re an owner or a manager of a customer-oriented establishment, you need to set the tone for how best to communicate with your customers. Failing to provide adequate leadership and examples for dealing with customers will leave your employees confused at best and unhelpful and resistant at worst. So be sure to treat every customer interaction you have as if the whole world is watching because ––in some ways –– it is.
At interview, most of these future employees will tell you how good they are at interacting with customers. Still, it is very important to show some examples on their first few days so you know they are approaching them the way you want.