There is an ongoing difference of opinions on the key component of business success: employees or customers. Some say it’s all about the customers. From my viewpoint, it is that ‘chicken or the egg’ theory: Which came first? I have to give employees the nod.
An employee is the first contact a potential customer has with your product or service. Their first experience with your company may be the receptionist who answers the telephone or greets them as they enter your place of business. It could be a delivery person, or a maintenance person who shovels snow from your front entrance. None of these are high paying, technical jobs, but they are certainly important to your firm’s success.
Imagine a day without any one of those people doing their best to represent you. The phone rings repeatedly with no quick, friendly answer. Your customer relations specialist doesn’t respond in an interested, polite manner. Products stack up on the loading dock, waiting to be delivered by a skillful, friendly representative of your firm. Customers arrive at your door, irked because they had to climb through snowdrifts to get to you. Odds are, customers will not be in the most receptive mood to do business once they have found you without good employees meeting them at all touch points.
Finding and hiring good people is only the beginning of the process. Once you get them, how will you keep them in this highly competitive job market? Is yours a good place to work? Do you pay a fair wage for their contributions? Do you show them basic respect as a part of your team? Have you assigned a training budget for your workers? Do you let them know that no matter how low their job is on the corporate totem pole, that they are important to the success of your business?
Training your people is one way to provide them with tools they need to succeed and be productive. Empowering them to do their jobs the best way they see fit is another. Recognizing their achievements goes a long way to making them feel that their efforts have been noticed and appreciated. What, if anything, are you doing to support the people who support your business?
Find ways to reward innovation and excellence. Rewards need not be expensive. Like the saying goes: It’s the thought that counts. Reserve a parking space near the door for the ‘Employee of the Month’. Feature an employee in the company newsletter where other employees and customers will see it. These kinds of rewards cost little but go a long way in making an employee feel valued. Gift cards or gift certificates to local restaurants, and tickets to concerts or sporting events are inexpensive ways to tell an employee that you’ve noticed their contributions and appreciate their efforts.
Employees or customers? Who comes first in your small business? Leadership needs to decide and then develop policies and guidelines to support that, or both, groups in the best manner. In reality, ‘you can’t have one without the other’ as the old song “Love and Marriage” tells us. Both are critical pieces of every successful business.
