Ultimate Customer Service Culture: It’s About Unity Not Employees First | #custserv

Customer Service Culture: Focus on Unity

What creates a highly successful customer service culture? For years now some leaders have claimed that ’employees first’ culture delivers the best customer service. However, this thinking has logic bumps that will force your customer service culture right off the road. The ultimate customer service culture is about unity not who’s first or second.



Customer Service Culture: Image is bulletin board w/ word culture.

Customer Service Culture: Leadership Steps to Create It. Image licensed via 123RF.com

Grateful for licensed copyright image via iqoncept / 123RF Stock Photo


The Ultimate Customer Service Culture: Unity of Heart & Mind

Let’s look at the bumpy road of thinking that an ’employees first’ culture will deliver the ultimate customer service.

  • Using a who’s first and who’s second mentality creates many leadership missteps. It’s a false binary. You don’t have to choose. Moreover, it detours the focus from business and customer care. It produces unnecessary decisions about whom you will support in disagreements — your employees or the customers. You can avoid this totally avoidable detour. Unite as an organization to deliver great service to the customers.

  • An ’employees first’ culture is based on the mistaken belief that if you treat people (employees) well, they will automatically treat customers well. This isn’t automatically true. There have been many companies with narcissistic cultures that treated employees very well and customers poorly.

  • The employees first culture idea grew as a reaction to many companies treating call center employees as call slaves. Of course this treatment was completely unacceptable and unproductive. Yet reactions rarely create successful strategies.

  • A culture of successful service puts customers at the heart of the all efforts. This customer-centric belief is the basis for vision, inspiration, and caring service. If you confuse who’s at the focus of customer service, you will lead your organization off the road of success. Likewise, if you don’t respect the employees doing the work, you will also drive your organization off that same road.



Employees Want:

  1. Mutual respect between all employees and leaders. A culture of respect in companies strengthens everyone’s ability to serve customers.
  2. Honoring their high calling to serve. Leaders must recognize and appreciate employees’ service in order to sustain it.
  3. Inclusion and belonging. Engage employees in the full cycle of service as it relates to the business. Customer service employees have great knowledge about customers’ expectations that can help improve customer experience. Affecting the business in these positive ways sustains employees’ motivation to serve customers especially in difficult moments. They then know they are key links in the chain.




From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

Related Post:
Customer Service Mindset: Key Link in the Chain Not Life in Chains

©2017 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.


Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.


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