A GREAT Way to ‘Promote’ Customer Focus
August 8th, 2006I read a great article in Fortune recently, about how Enterprise, the auto rental company, has quietly become the biggest and most successful company in its industry.
Not Hertz. Enterprise.
It’s a family-run company, private, and absolutely focused on customer satisfaction. There was a lot that struck me about how they did this, but this was my favorite:
If the customer satisfaction score of your unit doesn’t at least meet the company average, you absolutely won’t get promoted.
That’s beautiful. Here’s a company saying, we know what we want. We want happy customers. We know that the only way to get that repeatedly is to reward managers who make customers happy. So, we’ll make customer satisfaction one of those metrics that is so important you can’t miss it.
People (managers too) do things for one of two reasons: to seek pleasure or to avoid pain.
If you want managers to get aligned to your vision, differentially reinforce the right behaviors in their review and promotion criteria.
Some won’t like it. And that’s the point.
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August 10th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Proof That Enhancing The Customer Service Experience Works!
Courtesy of Mark, at Manager-Tools, here’s a link to a great article in Fortune Magazine that discusses how Enterprise Rent-A-Car has become number one in the rental car field (in the US)….
August 26th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Happened upon this post. I for one can second this opinion about Enterprise and their excellent customer service. Very polite people on the phone, at the desk. Dressed well. Well groomed. Heads above the crap you get at Hertz.
An excellent example for us all.