Management or Service Team Members

Customer service is often the driving force behind good and bad customer satisfaction. At any store that deals with customers directly – especially stores that sell identical products to other competitors (grocery stores, retail shops, etc.), the difference between them is going to come down to price and service. It’s with that in mind that many people argue for greater levels of employee satisfaction.

The idea, of course, is that if the employees are satisfied they will deliver better customer service. Several studies support this belief. So management often tries to improve employee satisfaction hoping that it will lead to an increase in customer satisfaction.

They are correct, at least in theory. Employee satisfaction should be considered an important force behind better customer service, and ultimately greater levels of customer satisfaction.

However, there is one issue that this does not address. Or, rather, there is an issue that this addresses in a misleading way. Management that focuses only on employee satisfaction is assuming that the service employees are the only ones that are affecting satisfaction.

The truth is that management often plays a tremendous role in customer satisfaction, and not just with their limited interactions with customers. Management is the group that decides on the entire customer service process, including what technologies are used, the organization, best practices, and so on. Management is the group that decides what products go where, how they’re sold, methods of moving customers through the store, and so on.

Customer satisfaction is certainly affected by the quality of the service, and that does have to do with the way the service employees interact with the customers. But management plays a role in numerous things even beyond the actual service quality, because they are the ones in charge of nearly every aspect of the business beyond customer interaction.

This is why it is important that you do not put the entirety of the blame, or focus, on the employees themselves if the satisfaction scores are not as high as you’d wished. There are many different factors that go into satisfaction, and while great customer service is certainly one part, the organization of the service process, the tools at the disposal of the service staff, and much more are all dependent on management. It’s quite possible that when things go wrong with your satisfaction, it is management, not service, that is to blame.