Employee engagement is important in your small business. Simply hiring people with the certain talents needed by your organization is not going to cut it. At least not if you want your small business to proper and grow in the future. What I am getting at parallels how we discussed before that employees enjoy recognition and a sense of purpose for what they are doing. No matter how menial the task, every aspect that goes into a business’s product or service is crucial an employees need to know that. In the In the past we focus on managers telling employees that they are doing a good job or using other awarding or incentive programs to boost recognition. The next best place to turn is not internal but external. Indeed, let your employees know what your customers feel about the work they are doing. Hearing or reading testimonials from clients about how your product or service performed well, exceeded expectations, changed their lives, whatever, will definitely register with employees. This pride they will get from learning that what they are doing is making a difference will help them work harder than ever. Further, all the employees will see this and feel more connected to each other in the office creating an improved and engaged workplace for all. Of course you could argue that some people might just not care about customers think, but if that’s the case than this is an employee who likely doesn’t share companies culture and passion and should be let go. TLNT now continues, with more on utilizing customer testimonials, “Paul Wainman, who was president at William Arthur at the time, recognized that:

A) Getting employees more engaged with the company’s vision and business goals would play a central role in achieving their business goals and their ability to thrive in a tough economy, and,

B) For this to happen, employees needed to have a “line of sight” between their daily work and the company’s brand promise.

Sharing customer stories and testimonials also helps unite employees, fostering interdepartmental teamwork and excellent internal customer service. It helps overcome departmental silos and turf battles and cultivates by focusing everyone on the same goal: Working together to delight customers. Rather than just pass around customer emails or telling stories second hand, let your customers tell their story directly, whether on video, in a recorded telephone interview, or live. The difference in effect between firsthand and secondhand stories cannot be overstated. In his Harvard Business Review article How Your Customers Can Rally Your Troops, Dr. Grant describes another study that compared the effect of hearing directly from a scholarship beneficiary versus hearing a second hand story from a manager. Hearing the second hand story made no difference in employee performance, while hear directly from the beneficiary did.

Stories to help inspire your employees

Collect stories that bring to life the following:

1. The challenges your customers (patients or clients) face.
2. How your product or service solved those problems.
3. How your product or service made a difference in their lives and what that meant to them.
4. How employees providing great service or great service recovery not only positively affected the customer, but made them want to tell others about your company…”

Click on the link below to see the rest of the story.