How to inspire loyalty from service professionals
February 11, 2019
Very little is written about how customers can improve their own experience and inspire loyalty. In research handled by Jing Zhou, a professor at Rice University's graduate business school, evidence showed that customers should not only encourage service professionals to make recommendations, but to take those recommendations seriously, and complement the service person for their input. In the end, service improves as well as customer satisfaction.
We customers can influence the quality of service we receive by sharing control and treating everyone who serves us, from cashier to hair stylist, as an expert in their own job.
Rice Business Wisdom: What Happens When The Person Providing Your Service Gets Inspired? 2017-Apr-17, based on
When the hairdresser suggests a little purple highlight on the bangs, and you listen attentively and take her advice, you may actually get a better haircut. Though few people view a salon chair as the seat of power, researchers are learning that client decisions can make a big difference in employee performance. When customers give workers more power, the workers perform better. So do their organizations.
...A recent paper coauthored by Jing Zhou, a management professor at the business school, suggests that when customers listen to employees, respect them and allow them the freedom to do their jobs, the creativity of those providing the service leaps—and so does the quality of that service....
Zhou’s research shows that customers and service personnel can be co-creators. It’s a departure from the hoary idea that formal leaders in an organizational hierarchy are the standard-bearers of the quality of customer service. In fact, Zhou maintains, customer service ought to begin not with management, but with the customer herself.