Do you put customers or employees first?

Should You Put Employees First and Customers Second In Your Cleaning Business?

The purpose of any business is to maximize profits, provide outstanding service, and create value for its customers. And since company profits are generated from its customers, it only makes sense to put customers and their needs first.

But should customers come ahead of all other things, including employees in your cleaning business?

Bill Gates once said; “Every day we're saying, ‘How can we keep the customer happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this?'… because if we don't, somebody else will.”

There is no denying that a satisfied customer will continue to provide revenue as well as referrals for a cleaning business. And if you create a history of exceptional customer service, you will without a doubt convert them to lifetime customers. After all, business philosophy has traditionally been customers first and everything else second. But there is a new strategy being used by many companies.

Two professors from Manchester (UK) Business School; Gary Davies and Rosa Chun, conducted field interviews with 4,700 customers and employees of 63 businesses. What they learned is service companies were more likely to achieve growth potential if their employee satisfaction exceeded their customer satisfaction and employee views tend to be transferred back to customers.

"What separates you from your competitors are the knowledge, skills, abilities and commitment of the people who work for you,” said Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

As the adage goes; Happy Employees = Happy Customers = Successful Company

So how does a business owner change from customer first to employee first? Let's begin by first analyzing what could happen to a company if it allows stress and negativity to infiltrate the company and what may cause an employee to harbor negative feelings.

• Low morale
• Poor communication
• Conflicts between employees and management
• Lower productivity
• Quality control problems
• Resistance to change
• Missed opportunities
• Negative, stressful work atmosphere
• Higher employee turnover
• Poor customer service
• Higher customer turnover

It's important to realize that negativity is a learned behavior

The work environment contributes to the employee's outlook – positive or negative. Once that culture has been polluted with negativity, it's difficult to fix. Most negative people don't see themselves as negative – they believe they are realistic. You can't change someone else's attitude; they must be given motivation to change themselves.

How does negativity get started in the workplace?

Following are some of the reasons people burn out and become stressed or angry:

• Excessively high workloads
  - This is common when an employee does exceptional work – we pile on additional work to pick up the slack of the under-performers.
• Unrealistic deadlines
• Conflicts between employees and/or management
• Lack of respect
  - Let your employees know how important their job is. Even if the customers don't respect what they do, employers need to show respect for what their employees do.
• Lack of recognition and reward
  - Employees want to be recognized and rewarded for exceptional work
• Lack of feedback on their performance. Good or bad, people need feedback
• Lack of team spirit
• Boring, repetitious work
  - Additional training can keep work interesting.
  - Performance incentives can motivate people to out-perform co-workers.
  - Additional coaching for supervisory or other positions in the company can keep employees motivated to stay with the company and elevate their position.
• Poor performance by supervisors and coworkers
  - If employees regularly see co-workers and supervisors getting away with sub-standard work, they have no motivation to continue doing exceptional work.

As an employer, it's important to keep a pulse on the attitude of your work force and your company's organizational culture.

 Here are some tips for recognizing burnout and stress:

• Irritability
• Depression
• Anxiety
• High performer's work is no longer up to standard
• Makes poor decisions
• Has a “don't-care” attitude
• Lost sense of humor
• Complains of more physical ailments and lack of sleep
• Increased absenteeism or sick leave

How important is it to create an organizational culture within your business? You don't have to look far. Costco is a perfect example.

According to Bloomberg Business Week, Costco's sales have grown 39 percent and its stock price has doubled since 2009. Even after the retirement of the company's well-regarded CEO, Jim Sinegal, Costco's share price is up 30 percent under new CEO, Craig Jelinek (at the time of this writing).

The report also found a high level of employee retention. Among employees who have been with the company for over a year, the turnover rate is 5 percent. Among executives, it's less than 1 percent. 

As CEO Craig Jelinek wrote to Congress, the company believes that “it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty.”

Read more about:  What Companies Can Learn From Costco's Organizational Culture

How can you motivate employees to be happy, productive, and reduce the amount of stress in the workplace?

 It begins with you! You are the boss and your employees will be looking to you for leadership and guidance. You need to create an environment where the entire team is working towards the same company goals.

To effectively create a great team around you, employees will need to feel as though they are part of the big picture and that their contributions to the company are essential in achieving this vision. Being a visible leader and keeping your employees informed while providing ongoing company updates will help reduce employee uncertainty and stress, especially during the downtimes. Creating excitement about the company will in turn create employees excited about their future and their work.

Boosting employee happiness doesn't need to cost a lot or be time consuming. With just a little resourcefulness and some forward planning, companies can have happier motivated employees if they really want to.

Here are a few ways to get started:

• Keep workloads fair among all employees
• Just because someone is an exceptional performer, doesn't mean you should pile extra work on them
• Provide competitive compensation
• Recognize the importance of work-life balance
• Provide a clear career path
• Have employees participate in decisions that affect their jobs
• Improve communication between management and employees
• Develop and implement team building activities
• Teach them new skills
• Provide opportunities for more social engagement between employees -- providing snacks or lunch, volunteer activities you can all do together, etc.
• Provide ongoing training, short training sessions
• Do not play favorites - treat everyone with dignity and respect
• Encourage and empower employees to solve their own problems
• Criticize or coach in private
• Compliment and praise in public (or privately)
• Listen to your employees' ideas, concerns and suggestions and don't shut them down because "we tried that and it didn't work". That kind of remark de-motivates them and they'll stop communicating with you.

Happy employees are productive, motivated and inspired to work at their potential. Even your best performers will leave when they are unhappy.

What you can expect from happy employees:

• They use fewer sick days
• They are rarely late to work
• They are more productive
• They look for ways to contribute to the organization beyond their job descriptions
• They give their best and do it with a positive attitude

Listening and understanding your employees' wants and needs, engaging them, and providing the right motivations will do wonders for their morale, which in turn will do wonders for your company and its success.

Put your employees first, and customers and profits will follow. Happy and content employees not only make for a productive and efficient company, but transfer that “happy and content feeling” onto customers.

PDF Download Your customers generally judge you, your reputation, and your quality of service by the way your employees handle themselves and deliver on the promises you make. Do your employees really know how to represent your company in the way you want it to be represented? The Customer Care Training Program for Cleaning Technicians will pay big dividends with your customers! Why is customer service training so important? 96% of unhappy customers don't complain, however 91% of those will simply leave and never come back. – 1st Financial Training services One unhappy customer will tell 9 to 15 people about their experience. - White House Office of Consumer Affairs 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. – McKinsey It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. – “Understanding Customers”  by Ruby Newell-Legner Customer Care Training Program for Residential Cleaners (PDF Download)