Among the different parameters that are used to measure the organization’s success, customer satisfaction has always remained a high priority over the years.
Many entrepreneurs consider that ensuring customer satisfaction is highly expensive and very difficult. Well, if you are one of them, you are definitely not alone, but at the same time, you have mistaken the concept.
Did you know that getting your customers satisfied gives you more significant revenue? Well, it does. Approximately, there is an increase between 10% – 20% in your regular revenues. But the question is, despite many efforts, some companies do not manage to get their customers satisfied. And just like back to square one, find themselves asking each other what to do next? What are the strategies that we could implement? And so on.
Have you ever given a thought as to what the human resource manager could do in this scenario? For those who don’t know, HR can indeed work wonders if the right strategies are implemented. Therefore, we shall discuss the role of HR in enhancing customer satisfaction in the next few minutes.
What can HR managers do to ensure customer satisfaction?
As mentioned, many wonder if there’s seriously something that HR can do in this aspect.
It is because many of us overlook the fact that HR themselves have customers – “the employees” and are trying their best to make them happy in the organization.
Since the last few years, the very concept of the HR employee management solution is redefining itself. And the department, unlike earlier, is no more limited just to recruitment and complying with the state’s rules. But are today involved in strategic functions of the organization. This development has enlightened a new perspective that HR managers can also play a vital role in satisfying the company’s clients.
Again the question is – “HOW?” Here is a list of points discussed to understand the strategies that an HR manager can undertake to ensure happy customers. Read on to discover them:
Get The best talents to give the best output to the clients.
The very first step in HR making sure of customer satisfaction is by hiring suitable candidates for the organization. As discussed earlier, it is true that nowhere does the HR manager come in direct dealing with the company’s clients for business purposes. But the HR can satisfy the customers by putting in place the right people who deal with them appropriately. Refer to the image that follows. It is clear that recruitment and placing the candidates rightly can really work wonders.
In fact, we are very well aware of HRD’s significant function – “getting the right people, for the right job.” Therefore, coming up with the right strategies to ensure that the recruitment process is appropriately implemented to acquire the best talent would be the first step in ensuring customer satisfaction.
Because when the chosen candidates are good performers of the assigned tasks, the rest is sure to fall in its place as they are aware and willing to accomplish their tasks with eager responsibility. And this feeling of responsibility will enhance their skills and willingness to address the customers in a more appropriate manner.
HR software solutions like Zelt, an all-in-one platform, can significantly enhance the recruitment process by streamlining candidate sourcing, screening, and onboarding.
With Zelt, companies can ensure a seamless hiring experience while also managing employee engagement, payroll, and performance, making it an invaluable tool for improving both employee and customer satisfaction.
Sense HR being an all-in-one software solution for various-sized organizations can help with resume screening and pre-employment testing to quickly filter out candidates who do not meet the necessary qualifications.
Additionally, Sense HR can provide tools for interview scheduling and candidate communication, streamlining the process and ensuring a positive candidate experience. It can also help with onboarding and training new hires, ensuring that they have the necessary resources to succeed in their roles and contribute to the company’s success.
Employee satisfaction is inevitable for customer satisfaction.
Let us consider this aspect in continuation of the first point that we just discussed. Imagine your strategies for recruitment were excellent and your HR department succeeded in acquiring the best of talents. But what is the outcome if the employees are not satisfied and happy with the organization? Kindly have a look at the following image.
A simple yet valuable saying to always remember is – “Happy employees make the customers happy.” And as a part of the people management process, it is an important function of the human resource department to make sure that the employees are happy. If they are not, it is essential to determine the reason for their discontentment and address the issue without much delay.
On the other hand, if the employees are happy, they naturally feel engaged and encouraged in all the tasks that they do. Their satisfaction will surely be reflected in the service offered by them to the customers. In this case, it is important to realize that we aren’t just talking about those employees who directly deal with the customers, such as ‘customer relation management team or marketing.’ It also includes the R&D or the production department, who start to contemplate and think about what suits their customers the best and begin the whole process.
Thus, starting from the very first aspect of the business cycle, the employees contemplate on what is best and makes the customers happy. Of course, this desire comes forth only when one is satisfied. And hence, HR’s next strategy to make the customer happy is by making their (the HR) first customers – the employees happy.
Enhance collaboration among the company’s different department.
An organization, as a matter of fact, has various departments focusing on its own functionalities. However, the ultimate goal is to increase the business and its profitability. As much as each department has its own functions and responsibilities, the collaboration of the different teams is vital. And as the managers of the crucial resources called people, HR has to take the initiative in bringing all the teams together to discuss and share the opinions.
Especially when we talk about collaboration, for instance, the R&D team can provide inputs on the needs of the customers, the production team can put forth their opinions on how and what to produce, the finance team can allot the funds based on their opinions while marketing and sales team can decide on how to reach out and of course CRM can look into addressing the customer’s queries.
The joint efforts can bring the best outcome, and its continuity can multiply the outcomes twice or thrice.
When the customers receive what they desire for, their road to satisfaction is evident.
Thus, when HR takes the initiative for a collaborative approach to ensure customer satisfaction, the shared skills and efforts indeed will pave the way for the desire to become a reality.
Linking and analyzing the feedback reports.
In many large and successful organizations, linking the feedback reports from both employees as well as customers and analyzing them is considered to be a key way of obtaining more profound insights into the operations of the business. As an HR manager, prepare questionnaires and take timely feedback from your employees. Similarly, the HRD can suggest and encourage the sales team to collect feedback from the customers. Linking these reports will help in identifying the key aspects that need improvement in engaging the employees as well as satisfying the customers.
A study reveals that about 83% of companies that have followed this strategy experienced benefits in an improved CX. In comparison, 75% of the companies experienced a more motivated work culture and engaged employees. It is proved that 6 in 10 companies, which is 58% of them, also witnessed a positive impact on the activities directly connected to business objectives.
Many companies today are successfully using this strategy because they value their employees and customer’s feedback while a few don’t. It isn’t necessary to implement the very next day the changes suggested by the employees or customers. But the fact that they are aware that the company values their opinions is what matters the most to the employees and customers. And it leads to immense satisfaction among both parties.
Prioritize communication, flexibility, and honesty in the workplace’s policy.
There are certain values that can never be overlooked, be it an individual or a company. And 3 important aspects among them are communication, flexibility, and Honesty. When an HR manager makes sure to follow these in the workplace, it indeed enhances customer satisfaction.
Communicate to the employees the prospects on how to deal with the customers and the important aspects of the product or service. Address their queries regularly and take into consideration the feedback submitted by them. And not just that, as discussed earlier, make sure that the communication among the different teams is effective.
Being successful requires flexibility. Imagine a customer asks hundreds of questions, and it’s already time for the lunch break. You can either prioritize your customer’s queries or your lunch. The choice is yours. Yet the results differ, as you already know. This is a very simple example, but similarly, one might find oneself in much more complicated situations, such as cost, replacement, timings, etc. Being flexible is what will play the role of rescuer at such times.
Well, Honesty is an important virtue, not only to be successful but also to gain goodwill and an everlasting reputation. Today, we all remember TATA Group of Companies, not just for their business success, expansion, and profitability. But for their goodness to society and honesty. This virtue not only contributes to customer satisfaction but also highly contributes towards their customer loyalty. Therefore, the HR manager should make sure that while recruiting itself, these things are clearly understood by the candidates as the core company values, as well as ensure that it is implemented and followed by the existing employees.
Wrapping up.
The world is developing at a pace that at times becomes difficult to keep up with, but yet not impossible. Therefore, there is a need to develop one’s mind to the updates that happen each day. Especially, the preferences and tastes of clients always keep changing. Hence there is a need for the entire organization to work towards building the right strategies, including the HR department.
By doing so, the organization can be supported by an engaged workforce and collaborative teams striving to achieve a common goal. And do we realize what this combined force results in? Truly a more potent competitive edge that is a need for today’s competitive business environment. So what are we still waiting for? Shouldn’t we take up the right measures today? Worth a thought, isn’t it? And I leave you with this thought to come up with a more appropriate decision.
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