A great customer experience (CX) starts with an engaged, empowered and inspired employee. Without them, it’s impossible to ensure customers experience your brand the way you intended. When employees are engaged, customers are much more likely to be happy with your products or services because they can deliver great things. And consistent customer engagement is the gateway to nurturing your customer relationships throughout their lives.

Here are a few tips leaders can use to better manage their teams, increase employee engagement, and deliver great experiences for their customers.

Related: Happy employees make for happy customers

1. Create a customer-centric culture

A customer-centric culture makes employees feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, leading to higher customer satisfaction. A customer-centric culture focuses on the needs and wants of customers. It’s about making sure your employees are involved in decisions that affect the company’s processes, procedures and interactions with customers. Ensuring you have this type of environment in place can help you better understand how to improve your customer service strategy for long-term success.

2. Avoid tunnel vision

There is no one else who can see the whole picture except you. You know your business inside out and have a clear idea of ​​what it needs to be successful.

However, it doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.

When it comes to customer experience, you actually need all hands on deck, including those of your employees!

When you rely too much on your perspective as a business owner or manager, you run the risk of tunnel vision: you only see things from your perspective and don’t consider other perspectives or options. That is bad for the customer experience, because you miss many opportunities to improve it.

When employees are engaged in their jobs and invested in the company’s success, they have valuable insight into how customers interact with products or services in real life and how to improve those interactions. They also have access to information about what customers want that you may not even know exists! When they share this knowledge with you and work together, you get better results than ever before.

3. Measure and reward the right things

A great customer experience starts with great employee engagement and management.

That’s why my team and I measure and reward the right things – not just sales, but also customer satisfaction.

We do this by having all our employees work together in a small, open office environment where they can ask questions and help each other. We don’t have managers or supervisors – everyone is on the same level, so there are no barriers to information sharing.

It’s not just about keeping up with the latest technology; it’s about making sure everyone in the company understands how their actions affect customer experiences.

Related: 7 excellent reasons to focus on employee engagement

4. Avoid silos

The best way to ensure a great customer experience is to avoid silos.

Silos are when departments or people don’t communicate with each other, potentially causing you to miss out on important information. If your team is isolated, they will have a hard time communicating with customers. Without communication there is no teamwork; without teamwork there is no CX.

To avoid silos in your company and keep your employees engaged with each other and their work, make sure everyone is working towards the same goal. You can create an employee engagement strategy that includes regular meetings where employees can discuss new ideas to improve your customer experience. You can also use gamification techniques such as badges or points as a reward for completing certain tasks within your company’s larger goals.

5. Empower your frontline workers

The frontline of your business is the first step in your customer experience. That’s why it’s so important to empower your frontline workers to create a great customer experience.

They are the ones who greet them, serve them and make sure they have what they need to be happy. They are often the only people you meet when you walk into a store or restaurant. And while they may not be able to influence every interaction with a customer, they can certainly have an impact on some of them.

To ensure your customers have the best possible experience, you need to make sure your employees are empowered and encouraged to do their best work. This doesn’t mean you have to constantly micromanage them – it just means you have to give them room to be creative and develop their skills as they get to know your company.

Related: Customer experience will determine the success of your business

6. Be open to collaboration and innovation

The best CX is built on a foundation of employee engagement, so it’s important to give your employees the freedom to collaborate and innovate.

When employees feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves, they’ll go above and beyond to help their customers. And when they do, you’ll see the results in happier customers, higher sales, and more loyal customers.

When everyone in your company is working towards the same goal, you can create a better customer experience. If a company lacks a culture of employee engagement and good management, it is almost inevitable that customers will not receive the high level of service and support they deserve. Customers will probably never know about internal problems, but will end up with a disappointing experience that could cost a company future business opportunities.