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A key aspect of being able to deliver great customer service and experiences is empowering employees to make decisions in the moment to make things great for customers.

For any employees who interact with customers and clients, empower them to make choices and be able to make a call in the moment when a unique situation, issue, or challenge comes up. Grant them the runway to use their discretion, whether that’s to refund something, or give a free meal, or whatever is appropriate for your business.

A great experience can build a customer for life, and the opposite is also very true.

When customers feel taken care of, especially when something goes wrong, it has a huge and immediate impact on how they feel about your brand. If handled correctly, it can often be an easy way to build a customer for life. How companies react when a customer is having a problem is a clear opportunity to prove to that customer that they are valued and important.

And the opposite is true, a terrible customer experience can lose a customer or client for life, sometimes based on something really minor if the customer doesn’t feel like it’s not handled well.

Don’t wait to have conversations with your team.

Be proactive about this. Have conversations ahead of time to talk with employees about different potential scenarios and things that can come up. Make sure they understand the scope of what they can do and how far they can go to make things right in terms of refunding something, etc. And beyond that, give them some runway to be able to use their discretion to make choices on their own.

This is easy to practice with unique, made up scenarios that you give to them to use as teachable moments and have conversations about what kind of responses and actions are appropriate.

Also, empower them to make choices knowing that you’ll always have their backs.

Worst case scenario, they make a bad choice or give away too much, which is simply an opportunity for them to have a learning moment. You can discuss the situation after the fact to understand the choices they made and why, and then talk things through and give guidance about how to handle it better next time.

If they make a mistake, don’t come down hard on them or make them feel terrible. Their decision is not going to sink your entire company and if you respond correctly then they’ll learn from it. Give them a scope of what they can do, test them with made up scenarios to evaluate and guide their decision making discretion and then let them make the calls.

No matter what, have their back.

Let your people know, “I've got your back, just make the best call that feels appropriate, use discretion.”

The focus and result of this is better customer experiences across the board. It can be incredibly frustrating as a customer to be dealing with someone who has no ability or authority to do anything without having to ask a manager or get permission.

Letting employees be able to make things right or make a judgement call makes customers happy as well as your employees; you're building accountability, giving them autonomy and extending them trust by empowering them inside their positions.

A great example of employees empowered to create great customer experience:

I was in San Diego at Salt & Straw ice cream (yum, omg) with a friend of mine and we were just chatting it up with the employee, trying different flavors, and having a really awesome interaction with the woman who worked there and she ended up giving us our ice cream for free.

This wasn’t an example of fixing a customer problem, but it was incredibly obvious that the culture there was one where employees are empowered to make choices and create great experiences for customers.

The impact of those kinds of interactions go a really long way. Yes, it was only ice cream, and probably under ten bucks total, but that was years ago and I'm talking about it right now. What I remember is not the ice cream, I couldn’t tell you what flavor I got, but the experience for me was excellent and my loyalty and affinity for Salt & Straw as a brand skyrocketed.

Another great example of this empowerment and mentality is Ritz-Carlton hotels and their “Gold Standards” of service. One of their 12 service values is “I own and immediately resolve guest problems.” They are dead serious about if any employee is presented with any issue a guest is having that they are empowered to take full ownership to solve it immediately.

I’ve heard countless stories of guests being blown away by how vigilant Ritz-Carlton is about this standard of service and empowerment, their commitment to it is legendary. Every single employee, regardless of their role or position is independently authorized to spend up to $2,000 per day to improve guest experience or resolve any issues.

It doesn't matter what kind of business or industry that you’re in, customer service and experience is key to building loyalty and retaining customers. Empower your employees within the context of their roles to make choices, and always have their backs.

It’s a really simple concept and intention, and it’s an absolute must.

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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop 

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