How poor employee training can damage a brand’s value
Employees are the most valuable asset in the customer experience game and poor training can have do serious damage to a brand’s value, writes David Blakers, managing director of MaritzCX.
In May this year, Starbucks closed 8,000 of its stores across the United States for racial-bias training after two men were arrested in one of its stores in Philadelphia. A video of the arrest was widely shared and sparked protests and calls for a boycott over the alleged racial-profiling by an employee.
The fallout from Starbucks’ racial bias scandal is a timely reminder of the effects of poor staff training on a brand’s reputation
The incident serves as a timely reminder that the actions of one employee can have a significant effect on operations; Starbucks is known for providing excellent customer service and a good working environment (famously providing health insurance for part-time staff and free tuition for all) but this incident has, for the moment, cast a shadow on its reputation.
This is why it’s important for brands who are investing in customer experience programs to remember how critical their employees are to the process and invest in both understanding their engagement and improving their employee experience.
In almost any large organisation, what is their point of engagement with the brand?
The pimply 18yo hired to do the customer contact because everyone else is “too important”.
The staff who deal with customers are the actual brand ambassadors – and most organisations make their most junior/least motivated staff member do it.
The most important job in the business…being done by a hung over kid who’s only got the job because they have yet to learn how to stand up for themselves (there go your three Es) and will be out of there the second they have enough experience for their next job.
Invest all you like in customer experience programs. You can’t fix an attitude (I don’t like dealing with customers so I’ll hire someone desperate enough to do it for me) with investment. As the author says, the tone comes from the top. That means in most Aussie business….they’re on a hiding to nothing.