Published by:
Harvard Business Publishing
Length: 16 pages
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Abstract
This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0507J, originally published in July-August 2005. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. If sales and service organizations are to improve, they must learn to measure and manage the quality of the employee-customer encounter. Quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma are extremely useful in manufacturing contexts, but they're less useful when it comes to human interactions. To address this problem, the authors have developed a quality improvement approach they refer to as Human Sigma. It weaves together a consistent method for assessing the employee-customer encounter and a disciplined process for managing and improving it. There are several core principles for measuring and managing the employee-customer encounter: it's important not to think like an economist or an engineer when assessing interactions because emotions inform both sides' judgements and behavior. The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed locally. And to improve the quality of the employee-customer interaction, organizations must conduct both short-term, transactional interventions and long-term, transformational ones. Employee engagement and customer engagement are intimately connected - and, taken together, they have an outsized effect on financial performance. They, therefore, need to be managed holistically. That is, the responsibility for measuring and monitoring the health of employee-customer relationships must reside within a single organizational structure, with an executive champion who has the authority to initiate and manage change. Nevertheless, the local manager remains the single most important factor in local group performance.
Published by:
Harvard Business Publishing
Length: 16 pages
About
Abstract
This is an enhanced edition of HBR article R0507J, originally published in July-August 2005. HBR OnPoint articles include the full-text HBR article plus a summary of key ideas and company examples to help you quickly absorb and apply the concepts. If sales and service organizations are to improve, they must learn to measure and manage the quality of the employee-customer encounter. Quality improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma are extremely useful in manufacturing contexts, but they're less useful when it comes to human interactions. To address this problem, the authors have developed a quality improvement approach they refer to as Human Sigma. It weaves together a consistent method for assessing the employee-customer encounter and a disciplined process for managing and improving it. There are several core principles for measuring and managing the employee-customer encounter: it's important not to think like an economist or an engineer when assessing interactions because emotions inform both sides' judgements and behavior. The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed locally. And to improve the quality of the employee-customer interaction, organizations must conduct both short-term, transactional interventions and long-term, transformational ones. Employee engagement and customer engagement are intimately connected - and, taken together, they have an outsized effect on financial performance. They, therefore, need to be managed holistically. That is, the responsibility for measuring and monitoring the health of employee-customer relationships must reside within a single organizational structure, with an executive champion who has the authority to initiate and manage change. Nevertheless, the local manager remains the single most important factor in local group performance.
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Published by:
Harvard Business Publishing
Length: 16 pages