By Jerry Guirlinger, President and founder of Mobile-Shop System
Most companies recognize that good customer service is key to competing for today's savvy consumers. In every industry, a few stand out in the crowd for making *superior* customer service—in presentation, in operations and in service delivery—their driving mission.
The two companies that we spotlight, Gaylord Entertainment and Waterton Residential, epitomize this principle. And not surprisingly, both companies recognize that investing in their employees—by providing them with the training and equipment necessary to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities—is a critical component to delivering superior customer service.
Gaylord, who refers to all of its employees as "Stars," is seeking the best of the best, and they recognize that in order to attract and retain the best, they must treat them accordingly. And Waterton states right in its corporate mission that "educating, training and motivating our employees is one of our biggest investments."
In her article *Think Training is Expensive? The Cost of Ignorance is Higher* (www.hotelmotel.com), Renie Cavallari, founder and Director of *Inspiration, Aspire,* cites some revealing statistics on the relationship between competent employees, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. As she states, "Incompetent employees make for unhappy employees. Unhappy employees are talking to your guests (or customers, or tenants), who are soon to be unhappy guests." Cavallari goes on to say, "Competent employees feel confident. Confidence creates pride and enthusiasm. Happy employees enjoy their work, and guests—and customers, and tenants—know it.They also don't quit!"
We at Mobile-Shop couldn't have stated it better ourselves. One of our greatest sources of pride is the feedback we receive about how much technicians love using the Mobile-Shop; how it makes them feel better about their work, their profession and the company they work for. One of our customers, a Vice President of Property Management who purchased them for her technicians, told us that they had called her to thank her for their new Mobile-Shops, stating that it was the best thing that the company had ever done for them. "When an engineer feels this good about something that we do for them," she states, "that in itself is the greatest level of satisfaction."
As Robert de Grasse notes in his article on Ergonomics (Mobile-Shop System Found to be Ergonomically Superior), when an employee perceives that his employer cares about his level of job satisfaction, "this demonstrates ergonomics at the highest level—where it changes the attitude of the person getting the job done."
Talk about a win-win. Your employees are happy with you because you've demonstrated that you care about helping them to better themselves and do their jobs more efficiently; and the greater efficiencies—and positive attitudes—translate into higher profits and increased guest/customer/tenant satisfaction.
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