Recently, there was an outbreak of bullying by senior officials against subordinates in the Taiwan Ministry of Labor. Suddenly, similar incidents occurred in a series of incidents at all levels of government. However, these bullying only occurred in public institutions, not private enterprises? Civil servants have the right to work guaranteed by the government, so some people dare to stand up and fight. However, the power of life and death of employees in the private sector is completely controlled by their superiors or company bosses, and bullying incidents may be hundreds of times higher than in the public sector.
Just imagine, wouldn't it be very contradictory when a company boss shouts "Customers first? Customers come first" and at the same time (allows) workplace bullying incidents to occur? Because it is employees, not bosses, who actually contact consumers and perform services.
Scholar Mary Bitner proposed the "Golden Triangle Theory of Service Marketing" in 1995, advocating that the company, customers and employees influence each other. The company and its customers set the promise of customer satisfaction through external marketing; the company and its employees have the ability and willingness to fulfill their promises through internal marketing; the employees and customers interact with each other through interactive marketing Fulfill the promise of satisfaction. It means that company bosses shout "customer satisfaction" every day, but if employees are not willing to perform services, everything is empty talk.
The key to internal marketing lies in training employees' abilities and motivating employees' willingness. If employees encounter workplace bullying, how can they change their mood, respect customers and provide quality services? Therefore, if you want to satisfy consumers (external customers), you must first satisfy employees (internal customers).
Treat employees with respect and dignity, and employees will treat customers this way
Nordstrom department store in the United States, founded in 1901, is a model for the global service industry. In the early 1970s, the company's stock was listed and it proposed an inverted pyramid organization, advocating that company development starts with people (employees and customers) and culture. Compared with the traditional organizational management structure - the top level is the decision-maker, the middle level is the manager, and the bottom level is the grassroots staff, the inverted pyramid management structure is just the opposite. They found that the key to making a company stand out was its employees and customers, so they decentralized authority and responsibility so that when employees faced customers, they could respond appropriately on their own without having to report upwards.
In 1981 Jan Carlzon served as the president of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), which had been losing money for many years. He promoted customer satisfaction activities and turned the company into a profit in just one year. His deeds have been praised for many years, and he was even praised as a customer A satisfactory "benchmark" case. When Carlson promoted a "customer satisfaction culture" at SAS, he also started with internal changes within the company and proposed an inverted pyramid organizational management structure.
Walmart was founded in 1962 and became the world's largest chain brand 30 years later in 1992. One of the keys to success lies in employees (Walmart Way Principle 4), which is to "treat employees with respect and dignity, trust employees, and help them grow." Founder Sam Walton once said: Although our colleagues are all ordinary people, with encouragement and incentives, they can reach their maximum potential and achieve unlimited possibilities.
Only by treating each counterpart unit as an internal customer can we achieve a win-win situation for the company, employees and customers.
Many years ago, I led a delegation to visit the Japanese retail industry. I still remember in the briefing given by the general manager of the Mitsukoshi Department Store (みつこし) Tokyo area store that their requirements for front-line employees: do not look at the expressions of superiors, but look at consumption. or complexion. The general company employees behave exactly opposite to the above requirements. This is one of the main reasons why Japan's Mitsukoshi respects its employees and is favored by customers.
Toyota can become the world's automotive leader because of its business philosophy: "Every person and every unit has the right to reject any bad input, and also has the responsibility to provide better output to the next unit that takes over." The previous sentence refers to , if the HR department recruits new personnel who do not meet the requirements of the employer, they can refuse to accept them; for another example, if the raw materials purchased by the purchasing unit do not meet the specifications of the production department, they can be rejected; and the next sentence is, in order to avoid the above situation When this happens, everyone and every unit must stand on the other side's side and provide better service output to the next process. The unit that takes over the next process is the internal customer. By extension, superiors should issue correct policy instructions to subordinates, and subordinates should work hard to perform tasks and repay their superiors. Both are internal customers in a virtuous cycle, naturally showing excellent performance.
Recently, many companies have put forward the business philosophy of "sharing good". Although this term has many different meanings, the core one should be as proposed by The Nordstrom Way: creating a triple win for employees, customers and bosses. This is true for private enterprises. From the perspective of the nature of service organizations, why should the public sector of the government also pursue the common good of civil servants, the people and the government?
