Author Archives: Shep Hyken

About Shep Hyken

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

10 CX and Customer Service Predictions for 2024 (Part 2)

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10 CX and Customer Service Predictions for 2024 (Part 2)

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

As promised, I’m back with the second part of my top predictions and trends for 2024 in the world of customer service and customer experience (CX). You can read the first five here. So, let’s get started with number six.

6. Social Cause Increases Customer Satisfaction — Earlier this year, my customer experience research found that 43% of consumers believe it’s important that a company supports a social cause that’s important to them. Only 24% said it wasn’t important. Furthermore, those who claim it’s important are the younger customers: Gen-Z and Millennials. Companies are recognizing this, and you’re seeing more advertisements about how brands are focused on important causes like climate change, diversity, poverty and more. Sustainability is one of the top social causes. The Human8 annual Global What Matters Report found that 78% of U.S. respondents believe brands bear a significant responsibility for the planet’s future. Consumers are factoring in a company’s cause and impact on the community—and the world—as they choose where to do business. Forty-one percent will even pay more if the company has a cause that’s important to them. In short, a social cause is now part of the customer experience!

7. Fewer Chances To Get It Right — In our customer service and CX research, we asked, “How many chances would you give a company you were loyal to before switching?” In 2021, the typical American consumer gave a company 3.4 chances if it made mistakes. In 2022, that number decreased to 3.3, and in 2023, it dropped to 3.1. I predict customers will only be loyal to the companies and brands that are loyal to them, which means delivering a service experience they can count on. And I have to emphasize the word loyal in this prediction. That number is even lower for customers without loyalty or love for the company. When it comes to customer service, the bar is higher than ever. Looking back at the first prediction (from last week’s article), our customers are smarter and compare their experiences to the best they’ve had from any brand, not just your competitors. So, get it right the first time. You won’t have many chances, if any, to win back a customer if you don’t meet their expectations.

8. Customers Want It Now — Customers will appear to be less patient than in the past because of what some refer to as the Amazonation of the consumer. Amazon has set the bar high for fast delivery, and now customers get frustrated when another company can’t meet their delivery expectations. But it is more than just delivery. It’s about time. My friend and customer experience expert Jay Baer did a consumer patience study and wrote a book about it, The Time to Win. He discovered that 64% of people say speed is as important as price. Speed, as in delivery and response times, is an essential part of customer experience, and it will only increase as the companies and brands that get it right put pressure on all the others.

9. Convenience Rules — Before the pandemic, convenience was a “nice-to-have” offering. During the pandemic, customers needed convenience, primarily in the form of delivery. And it’s no surprise that it was so well received that delivery became the norm. Convenience in all forms, not just delivery, is appreciated by the customer, and the demand has increased in all areas of business (B2C and B2B). Just as many people will pay more for speed (see No. 8), they will also pay more for convenience—even more than for a good customer experience. (Imagine if you combined service, speed and convenience!) More companies are recognizing what their customers want and adopting a convenience strategy, making it easier to do business with them. This trend will accelerate as convenience—just like a good customer experience—is demanded by the customer and becomes the expectation.

10. AI Will Not Eliminate Jobs — Yes, some jobs may be eliminated and changed, but for the near future, as in 2024, there will be minor disruption. I spend much time studying the contact center/customer support department. This is one place that AI could be used to eliminate jobs, as ChatGPT and other technologies create human-like experiences. Just six months ago, I wrote a Forbes article about my collaboration with Capterra on their 2023 CX Investments Survey to learn how customer service and CX leaders were investing in technology. We specifically asked about AI’s impact on increasing or decreasing CX staff. It was good to learn that only 9% are reducing staff because of AI, while 63% are increasing staff. Fears of layoffs will continue, thanks to hyperbole and overreactions to new AI capabilities, but for the most part, those fears are unfounded. There will be some layoffs, but there will also be opportunities for employees to learn new skills and find new places to work as a result of AI.

So, there you have it, my top predictions and trends for 2024. I’m always optimistic as I look to the future. That doesn’t mean I’ll put my “head in the sand” and ignore negative trends. When appropriate, I’ll share those as well. For now, let’s embrace the opportunities that are in front of us. May 2024 be your best year yet — and each year thereafter be even better than the last!

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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10 CX and Customer Service Predictions for 2024 (Part 1)

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10 CX and Customer Service Predictions for 2024 (Part 1)

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Here we are at the beginning of 2024. The big trends in customer service and customer experience (CX) revolve around technology. Generative AI has been around for a while. Then along came technologies like ChatGPT, which was introduced at the end of 2022. Hardly any consumers understood what it was—or how powerful. Six months into 2023 a large percentage of consumers still didn’t know, but that has changed, and I’ll share my prediction about ChatGPT-type technologies in the list. In addition, our customer experience research has benchmark questions we’ve used for three or more years to track trends, some of which influenced what is included below. So, here are the first five of ten customer service and experience trends and predictions for 2024:

1. Smarter Customers — I have started my annual predictions with this same one for many years. Our customers are smarter and more demanding than ever (again). Customer service and CX continue to be a focus for most companies. The ones that get it right have taught all customers what good customer service looks like. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling B2C or B2B. All customers are consumers and have experienced brands that deliver an exceptional experience. And those rock star brands are the ones you are now compared to. So don’t just look at your competitors and think you need to be as good as them. Look at the best companies—in any industry—and let them help set your benchmarks. Once again, customers are smarter than last year!

2. Digital Customer Support Improves — The technology that everyone loved five years ago is so outdated compared to what is available today. Not only is today’s technology better, but it is also less expensive to implement. With an investment that’s easier on the bank account and generative AI and ChatGPT-type solutions improving, companies and brands will deliver self-service support that will make customers happy.

3. A Big Mistake — As a follow-up to No. 2, some companies will make the mistake of thinking the latest technologies can replace human-to-human customer support. These companies will become so enamored with the latest and greatest technology that they will make the mistake of thinking they can shut down phone support. Making the switch to 100% digital will not work 100% of the time. More competent companies will recognize the opportunity for a balance between digital and the human-to-human experience. That said, the balance isn’t the same as in the past. Digital will be more important because customers will learn that it’s easier to use and can provide answers faster, but companies must back this up with human support. Finding the right balance is crucial and will vary between companies and industries.

4. Employee Experience (EX) is as Important as CX — This trend has been going on for several years. I included a version of this last year amid what everyone called The Great Resignation. Companies and brands continue to recognize that employee retention is as important, if not more so, than customer retention. Organizations will make more significant moves to keep their best employees. They will create competitive wage and compensation packages (including insurance, PTO and more). The fulfilled employee is more engaged with customers. It is what will drive a better CX. As I’ve said many times before, what’s happening inside an organization is felt on the outside by customers.

5. Fewer Phone Calls, More AI — I could be wrong about this prediction, but I will put myself out there. Our CX research found that year-over-year, more customers preferred making a phone call for customer support than using digital self-service options. In 2021, 59% of customers preferred the phone. In 2022, that increased to 65%. And in 2023, 69% of customers chose the phone over self-service options. Looking at this trend, one might believe that in 2024, the phone will be even more prevalent, but as previously mentioned, today’s AI and ChatGPT-type technologies are not only better, but they are also less expensive. The result is that more companies will be providing better digital service experiences, which means more customers will be happier using them. Our 2024 survey will go out the first week of January, and I can’t wait to see if I’m right or wrong. (Either way, I’ll let you know in a future article.)

Well, that’s the first five of my ten predictions and trends for 2024. Next week, I’ll be back with five more.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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Can You Become the Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company?

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Can You Become the Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company?

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

If I asked 10 people who they thought could be planet Earth’s most customer-centric company, I bet a majority would have the same answer. I’ll share that company’s name at the end of this article. For now, you can guess.

Cindy, from my office, had a customer service issue. Here are the steps she took to resolve the problem:

She went to the company’s website and clicked on customer support.
She answered a few questions, and once the technology identified her problem, a chatbot popped up.
After interacting with the chatbot briefly, the bot wrote, “Let me transfer you to an agent,” moving from a chatbot to live chat.
At some point, the agent suggested getting on the phone, and rather than have Cindy call, she asked for Cindy’s number. Once Cindy shared it, the phone rang almost instantly.
From there, the agent carried out a conversation that eventually resolved Cindy’s problem.

I asked Cindy how she liked that experience, and she quickly answered, “Amazing!”

Just a few minutes later, Cindy received a short survey asking for her feedback with the message:

Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.

With that in mind, let’s look at some lessons we can learn from the company that aspires to be the most customer-centric company on the planet:

Digital First – The company made it easy to start the customer support process with a digital self-service solution. While there was a live agent option, it wasn’t presented until later. Cindy had to answer a few questions and click a few boxes before moving on. And this part is important. The process was easy and intuitive. She was digitally “hand-held” through the process, which included the chatbot.
The Human Backup – The chatbot was programmed to understand when it wasn’t getting Cindy’s answer, and it immediately transferred her to a live chat with a customer support agent. Eventually, the live online chat turned into a phone call when the agent wanted more details and knew it would be easier to talk than text. Rather than Cindy calling the company, she simply had to enter her phone number into the chat, and within seconds, the phone rang, and she was talking to the customer support agent.
A Seamless Omni-Channel Experience – The definition of an omni-channel experience is a continuous conversation moving from one form of communication to the next. Cindy went from answering questions on the website to a chatbot, to live chat, and then to the phone. All was seamless, and the “conversation” continued rather than forcing Cindy to tell her story repeatedly. The agent on the phone picked up where the chat ended and quickly solved her problem. This is the way omni-channel is supposed to work.

This is a perfect example of the modern customer support experience. And did you guess what company this article is about? If you said Amazon, you’re absolutely right!

Image Credits: Shep Hyken, Pexels

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Is it Free or Unlimited?

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Is it Free or Unlimited?

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

My friend Norman Beck sends me interesting articles and newsworthy information regularly. This one is worth talking about here. A grocery store chain had a sign in front of its entrance that read:

Free Delivery – $99 a Year!

I had to smile – even laugh out loud – thinking of how many people would roll their eyes when they read that sign. It’s not free if you have to pay $99 for it! But some brilliant marketers must think the public won’t know the difference. Perhaps a better sign would have read:

Unlimited Delivery – $99 a year!

I’ve shared similar information about this in the past. How often are we told a company offers free delivery, free returns, free refills on soda … you get the idea. It’s not really free. It’s in the price you pay.

I’m okay with that, and it’s actually a pretty good marketing strategy that works. As an example, if I order a soda at a restaurant, I like the idea of refills. But are they free refills? Or are they unlimited refills? Either way, I’m happy. It’s just that one is a more accurate description of the value provided.

So, consider this simple concept. For any business to make money, it has to charge for whatever it sells. By giving too much away, it would lose money. But if the company leaders know how much they can give away without losing money and incorporate it into a competitive price, they may have a value proposition that gets and keeps customers.

Southwest Airlines is the perfect example of this. It markets the heck out of Two Bags Fly Free®. Southwest knows that when other airlines charge for something that they don’t, it can be perceived as free. By keeping operating expenses low, they can charge a competitive price for an airline ticket that doesn’t require the customer to pay extra for checked baggage.

After reading this, some of you may think I’m against free. On the contrary, I’m a huge fan of free. Even if I have to pay for it, if the perceived value is that it’s free, that works for me. I just think that we should be careful about putting a sign in front of a store that basically says you have to pay $99 for “free” delivery.

And, while I’m talking about free, there is one other form of free that I love, and that’s hassle-free, something I know your customers will love too.

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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Customer Service and CX – Not Just For Front Line Staff

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Customer Service and CX - Not Just For Front Line Staff

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Customer service is not a department. It’s a philosophy that everyone in an organization must embrace. It’s the same with customer experience (CX), which most people view as a strategy. However, both customer service and experience must be rooted in a company’s culture. Everyone plays a part in the customer’s experience, regardless of how deep they are inside of the organization.

My friend Kelechi Okeke, a certified customer experience specialist in Lagos, Nigeria, recently wrote an article about the potential breakdown across different teams and departments when attempting to create a customer-focused culture. The goal is for the entire organization to work in unison, eliminating breakdowns due to disconnects in messaging, not aligning with the culture and just being so “siloed” the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I contributed a few ideas to his article and thought I would expand on them and share them with the Human-Centered Change and Innovation audience.

When an organization chooses to be more customer-focused, the decision rests with leadership. The mistake is that the attention is fixed on the front line and anyone in direct contact with customers. Many don’t realize the effort must go much deeper than the customer-facing employees. Some, however, will recognize the disconnect and understand that customer service and experience must be an organization-wide effort that is embraced by all employees.

When we work with clients to create a customer-focused culture, the process starts with leadership and department heads meeting to create a customer service/CX vision I refer to as a mantra. This is a simple one-sentence (or less) statement that is short and memorable. For example, Texas Health Huguley created a purpose statement: “People serving people like those we love the most.” That sums up exactly how they want all employees to treat patients, their family members and other employees. That type of statement isn’t a theme for the year. It’s strong enough to be permanently baked into mission, vision and value statements. The mantra is where it starts. It’s the “north star” that everyone focuses on when it comes to customer service and CX.

Once that mantra is defined, it must be communicated. It needs to be reinforced in many ways through ongoing communication over time. This can be through leadership and management presentations, email signature lines, posters, wall art, promotional items, etc. No matter how long ago the mantra was created, all employees must know, understand and live by it.

The next step is training, which is where many companies fall short, specifically in two areas. Some don’t realize that training isn’t something you did. It’s something you do. It must be ongoing and reinforce the original intent of the training. You can’t take people into a room for a day, train them to be customer-focused and hope they will remember it five years later. Once an employee goes through the initial training, there must be (much) shorter training sessions, even just a few minutes in a weekly or monthly meeting, to reinforce and remind everyone what they need to do.

The second area in which many companies fall short with their customer-focus training is that they only train customer-facing employees, typically people in sales and customer support. As already mentioned, an organization must go deep with its training. Everyone must be trained. Of course, customer support agents’ training will be far different than that for employees in the warehouse. The point is everyone must know how they support the customer’s experience. For example, employees in the warehouse may never need front-line customer support skills, but they must understand that if they improperly pack a product that’s shipped to a customer and the product is damaged en route, that falls on them. They become a significant part of the customer’s experience, yet they never have any customer interaction. The point is that everyone must be trained to the initiative, not just people who interact with customers.

If you focus on the first three steps of the process—creating your mantra, diligently communicating it and properly training all employees—you’re on your way to becoming an aligned organization without the breakdowns of some companies and brands that are set in their old ways.

One final thought on this process. When people and departments—or the entire company—are meeting your customer service and experience goals, let them know. Celebrate successes, share stories and let people know they are doing a good job. Good behavior and success that are recognized beget more of the same!

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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Master the Employee Hierarchy of Needs

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Master the Employee Hierarchy of Needs

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Last week, I introduced you to The Customer Hierarchy of Needs based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This week, we focus on our employees. Before you can have a strong customer experience, you must have a good employee experience. So, here are the five levels of the pyramid that make up The Employee Hierarchy of Needs:

1. The Paycheck: At the base of the pyramid is an employee’s primary need: money. Money is generally the reason people go to work. Without money, employees can’t pay their rent or mortgage, put food on the dinner table, send their kids to college, and more. And often, money is just part of the compensation. Other benefits include insurance, retirement contributions, and other less tangible, yet still important, reasons related to the paycheck.
2. Alignment with Beliefs and Vision (The Culture): While money may be a basic need, the culture of the organization must meet the employee’s needs and what they value. This motivates them to come to work and helps keep them employed with you. Employees want to feel excited about going to work.
3. Uniqueness: This is often an overlooked opportunity. One way to get more engagement and productivity out of employees is to recognize and appreciate their individuality and make it part of their jobs. For example, an employee may speak a foreign language. If one of your customers speaks the same language, doesn’t it make sense to let that employee talk to the customer? Whatever skill or talent the employee has, find a way to incorporate it into their job, even if just for a small percentage of the time.

Growth Opportunities: Most employees want to advance their careers. They want to know there will be opportunities to grow, learn, and feel better about themselves. Early in the interview process, there should be discussions about opportunities to grow.
Fulfillment: At the tip of the pyramid model is fulfillment. When employees are fulfilled, it usually means they love their job, who they work with, and even their boss. This corresponds to Emotional Connection on the Customer Hierarchy of Needs. Other words to describe fulfillment include satisfaction, happiness, and completeness – all emotions that potentially drive employee loyalty.

Nobody wants to work in a place that doesn’t emotionally fulfill them. Employees may tolerate a work environment that doesn’t meet their needs beyond a paycheck, but there is little incentive to stay when something better comes along. If you want to create a powerful and positive customer experience, work on the employee experience. Remember, what’s happening inside the organization with employees is felt on the outside by the customer.

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons

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Master the Customer Hierarchy of Needs

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Embrace Customer Expectations

Master the Customer Hierarchy of Needs

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who created a model for understanding human behavior. Specifically, he was interested in what motivated people, and he devised five levels in the shape of a pyramid representing each of those needs. For those who need a refresher in psychology, those levels, starting with the basic needs at the bottom and working their way toward the top, are physiological needs (such as food, water and sleep), safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization.

I’ve been thinking about a similar model for customers. I’m not a psychologist, and I’ve not done formal research on this idea, but I’ve been studying customer and employee experience in some form for more than 40 years. I’ve identified five areas (at least) that are important to customers when they buy from you and put them into logical order. So, here is ‘The Customer Hierarchy Of Needs’:

Customer Hierarchy of Needs

1. Products that Work – We’re starting at the bottom of the pyramid and working our way up. This is the base, and it’s simple: whatever you sell must do what you promise it will do. It doesn’t matter how great your customer service and experience (CX) are, if the product or service doesn’t work, customers will find an alternative.

2. Alignment in Beliefs – Your mission and vision statements are your beliefs. Your customers shouldn’t have to read those statements to know what they are. They should experience them when they do business with you. They will quickly learn how you treat them. If they like the experience, they align with you and what you stand for. While that can be enough, they may also enjoy doing business with you because of something that may or may not be in your mission and vision statements. That is a cause, charity or community activity your company or brand is involved with or contributes to. It adds to the emotional connection you’re trying to achieve with your customers.

3. Trust and Safety – If the company or brand has a bad reputation, getting and keeping customers will be tough. Even customers willing to take a chance may eventually experience what others have warned them about. Trust and safety belong together, but let’s first discuss trust. A sense of trust comes from different areas that can include (but are not limited to) a good reputation, positive reviews and ratings, customer-friendly policies (like easy returns), simple and friction-less processes, fast response times and friendly, helpful employees. Safety comes from assurances, including data privacy, secure websites, safe physical environments and more. Even if you have products that work—the basic need—without trust and safety, you might not be able to keep your customers past the first sale, assuming you have any at all.

4. Feeling Appreciated – Every customer willing to pay you for your goods and services deserves to feel appreciated. If you don’t acknowledge the customer with a simple thank you, they may not notice the first time. But there will be a point at which they feel underappreciated, and when they do, you put yourself at risk of losing them. Never miss an opportunity to express appreciation to your customers.

5. Emotional Connection – This is where you move customers from being satisfied to becoming loyal. Satisfied customers come back until something better comes along. Loyal customers come back because they like doing business with you and have made an emotional connection with you. They know your product works, they trust you, you make them feel confident (and safe) when engaging with you, they believe you have a good company and there may even be a cause or charity you mutually support, and every time they interact with you, they feel appreciated. At that point, your customers are feeling emotionally connected to you. Trust and appreciation are emotions. When all the boxes are ticked, you have the emotional connection that drives customer loyalty, advocacy and evangelism.

I could have written an entire article—or even a chapter in a book—on each of these five customer needs. Consider this article as a conversation starter. Perhaps you can add to this list of customer needs. Just because Maslow had five in his model doesn’t mean we are limited to that number.

Next week I’ll cover a similar concept, but instead of customers, I’ll focus on ‘The Employee Hierarchy Of Needs’. Stay tuned!

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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Win Customers Not Arguments

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Win Customers Not Arguments

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

In a confrontation with a customer, you have a goal: win the customer, not the argument. I’ve written about this before, and it’s worth coming back to this topic from another angle with a different example.

First, an interaction with a customer should never result in an argument. The best people in customer service, sales, or any front-line customer-facing job avoid escalating a confrontation to the level of a dispute. Instead, the best people de-escalate a confrontation to a mutually agreeable solution.

Here’s what I witnessed this week. I was on a plane and noticed that the flight attendant greeting passengers was more interested in telling passengers the rules than offering a warm, friendly greeting as people boarded the plane. There was a woman with a small pack strapped to her belt. It was maybe an inch thick and barely larger than a cell phone. It probably held her phone and maybe her wallet, but it wasn’t big enough for anything else.

Rather than the flight attendant saying, “Welcome aboard,” he pointed at her belt and said, “That’s going to have to go in the overhead or under the seat.”

The passenger said, “I’ve been flying with this for 15 years, and nobody has ever asked me to remove it from my belt.”

The flight attendant replied, “I’ve been flying for 20 years, and I know the rules.”

Shep Hyken Win the Customer Cartoon

So much for trying to win the customer. As I watched this, it was hard for me not to go to the flight attendant to introduce myself and suggest an alternative response that might have been friendlier and helped him convey his message. First, he could have extended a warm greeting. Then, he could have worded his statement as a friendly request rather than an order.

How is this different from what I’ve written about in the past? First, the customer (or passenger) didn’t walk on the plane with a bad attitude. She wasn’t coming into the conversation upset or angry. She didn’t have a complaint that eventually could turn into an argument. The opposite was happening. The flight attendant started it. Even if he was right and had to enforce a rule, he could have approached his request in a friendly manner that included an attitude of diplomacy and an explanation. Instead, he started the confrontation with an aggressive tone and a command that put the customer on the defensive and made the passengers around her uncomfortable.

There’s no good ending to this story. The passenger complied, but the employee never made things right. His angry and militant attitude continued throughout the flight.

It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not about blame. It’s about a customer-focused, friendly approach that doesn’t taint the experience.

Image Credits: Shep Hyken, Pexels

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How Sales and Customer Experience Connect

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How Sales and Customer Experience Connect

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Customer service and customer experience (CX) are more than what happens after the sale. It’s not just a department to call when there is a problem. It actually begins long before a customer ever makes a purchase. Then, there’s the experience during the sales process and what happens after the sale, which could include a typical customer support call and more. Every interaction the customer has with us, from learning about our company, our marketing messages, the sales experience and then anything after the sale, is all part of the customer experience.

I’m often asked to be the keynote speaker at sales meetings. Most of the audience expects to learn a new sales technique or tactic; instead, I teach customer service and experience techniques and tactics. I refer to this as Selling with Service. I share how to create the experience that makes customers want to do business with the company, not just buy the product. That’s also the experience that gets customers to say, “I’ll be back!”

Customer Experience Department Cartoon by Shep Hyken

So, today, I have three tips for anyone who interacts with customers (not just salespeople) that will help you create an amazing customer experience.

Respond Fast – I love to talk about the Jimmy John’s experience. For those outside of the United States or those in the U.S. who aren’t fortunate enough to live near a Jimmy John’s, it is a chain of delicious fast-food restaurants known for its super speedy service. Whether you are ordering your sandwich in the store or having your meal delivered, you will experience what Jimmy John’s calls “freaky fast!” So, be “freaky fast” in responding to your customers’ calls or emails – or any other way customers reach out to you.
Always Do What You Say and More – One way to blow credibility is to not do what you promise. So, this is simple: Just do what you say you’ll do. The “and more” of this tip falls under the strategy of “UPOD,” which stands for the old saying, under-promise and over-deliver. If you say you’ll get back to a customer by the end of the day, get back to them a few hours earlier. By the way, if you create an expectation you plan to exceed, ensure the customer will still be happy if all you do is meet that expectation.
Be Prepared – If you want to frustrate your customers, be unprepared. Even if you’re not unprepared, you may exhibit behaviors that make you appear to be so. Being unprepared is a sign of disrespect toward your customers, and I don’t know any customer who enjoys doing business with someone who doesn’t respect them.

The commonality between sales and customer service/CX is not just about getting customers but keeping customers. These three tips I’ve shared are just the beginning. Over the years, I’ve shared hundreds of tips just like these. Regardless of what department or role you have with the company, your goals should be to create the experience that customers want and crave and to be so good they wouldn’t even think about taking a chance doing business anywhere else.

Image Credits: Shep Hyken, Unsplash

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9 of 10 Companies Requiring Employees to Return to the Office in 2024

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9 of 10 Companies Requiring Employees to Return to the Office in 2024

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Happy employees mean more engaged and productive employees. I’ve written many times that what’s happening inside an organization will be felt on the outside by customers. A good employee experience (EX) will positively impact the customer experience (CX). And of course, the opposite is true. A “ripple effect” of employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction will inevitably reach your customers, impacting their overall experience.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced a shutdown, many companies and organizations realized—or at least thought—their employees could work remotely. Many companies walked away from their offices and didn’t renew their leases. This shift in the traditional in-office, five-day-a-week schedule was either eliminated or modified, and many workers discovered they enjoyed working from home. However, it looks as if this “experiment” didn’t work out as planned, and many companies will start requiring RTO (return to office) in a schedule that looks similar to pre-pandemic office hours and attendance requirements.

In August, ResumeBuilder surveyed 1,000 corporate decision-makers about their RTO plans. Here are the main results:

- 90% of companies will return to the office by 2024.

- only 2% say their company never plans to require employees to return to work in person.

- 72% say RTO has improved revenue.

- 28% will threaten to fire employees who don’t comply with RTO policies.

The Opportunity

Why return to the traditional office environment? The answer is something we already know. Because companies potentially make more money.

The move to return to the office started in 2021, just after the lockdown. That year, 31% of companies required employees to return to their offices, 41% in 2022 and 27% in 2023. Most of the respondents to the survey claimed they saw an improvement in revenue, productivity and worker retention.

And for those companies that plan to demand RTO in 2024, 81% say it will improve revenue, 81% believe it will improve the company culture and 83% say it will improve worker productivity.

These decision-makers aren’t making an arbitrary determination. They recognize the negative impact an RTO policy can have. Many of them (72%) said their company would offer commuter benefits, 57% would help with child-care costs and 64% would provide catered meals. But are the perks enough?

The Danger

There is concern that a shift back to full-time office hours could cause a company to lose good employees in a hiring environment in which candidates are “calling the shots” and working for companies that not only give them a steady paycheck and traditional benefits, but also a work schedule and in-office policy that aligns with their need for work/life balance. Even so, according to the survey, 28% of the decision-makers surveyed claimed they would fire employees for not complying with their RTO policies.

As we navigate the complexities of a post-pandemic working world, companies face a tough choice that will shape and impact both the employee and customer experiences. Suppose a company decides to require a 100% return to the office. It must recognize and weigh the opportunities—primarily, increased productivity and revenue—with the negatives—less-than-enthusiastic employees and the potential (even probable) loss of employees.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

Image Credits: Shep Hyken

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