Loyal Employees
Go The Extra Mile

“Always put the customer first.” This phrase or some variation of the principle is more than likely in your employee handbook — and rightly so. Your customers deserve to feel like they’re your priority because your business thrives on their satisfaction. Your staff probably spends their initial training and the majority of their employment learning the particulars of your customers’ needs because you know happy customers make loyal customers. However, if your employees meet the needs of your customers, who’s meeting the needs of your employees?

When we talk about “putting the customer first” it may be helpful to broaden our definition of “customer.” Although you compensate your employees, they’re more like customers than you think, and their needs go far beyond a paycheck. Just as customers are motivated monetarily and emotionally, so are your employees. Pay, benefits, recognition — these are all motivations for your employees, but are they enough to truly meet their “needs”?

Would you believe the average company loses somewhere between 20–50% of their employee base yearly, according to Bain & Company, an international management consulting firm, and it costs a staggering 150% of an employee’s pay to find, train and bring their replacement up to speed, according to Columbia University? It’s a high price to pay to lose such a valuable asset.

The success of your business depends not only on well-selected and well-trained employees, but also happy ones. You can teach your employees principles and procedures, but you can’t teach loyalty, passion or satisfaction. Loyal employees go the extra mile, passionate employees tell everyone about your store and satisfied employees invest in your brand and stick around for the long haul. Although it’s not all about money for your employees, happy employees make you more money in the end.

Allegiance, a platform that fosters customer loyalty and employee retention (a favorite of several Fortune 500 companies) explains the difference between dedicated employees and mere time-clock-punchers is their level of engagement and emotional investment in your business. Allegiance’s Dr. Gary Rhoads and Dr. David Whitlark, who the company refers to as “loyalty experts,” discovered four areas your employees need to feel engaged. They are: being helpful, feeling competent and improved, feeling accepted, and feeling respected.

Sources Of Employee Engagement

First, employees want to be helpful or feel like you’re utilizing their skill set. Maybe one employee has an extensive hunting background and you can capitalize on his knowledge, or another has a creative way with the in-store displays.

Second, feeling competent and improved makes employees feel prepared in their role and secure in the future of their job. Continually training employees on new products, roles, procedures, and skill-sets provides them with plenty of reasons to stick around.

Third, employees who feel accepted are more likely to help their fellow teammates succeed, as well as identify with your store’s overall mission and principles. Fourth and last, feeling respected is crucial to the success of your employees. The saying goes, “Employees don’t leave their job, they leave their manager.”

If you’re not sure about the level of your employee engagement, Allegiance’s loyalty experts suggest conducting a survey. You can measure the following by asking employees to report anonymously on things like: job satisfaction, productivity, quality of peers, likelihood to change jobs, likelihood to recommend company products or services, likelihood to recommend as a great place to work and satisfaction with compensation and benefits. This will provide you with feedback so you know where to make improvements.

Your employees will appreciate your broader understanding of customer satisfaction, when they realize you’re invested in them just as much as you are in your customers. Are you creating an atmosphere for success by engaging employees who, in turn, create happy customers?

We want to hear from you about your programs. It would be great to hear from your employees, also. Send reactions to editor@shootingindustry.com.