EGO and Customer Satisfaction: Part 1
Encourage your team to cultivate pride in their expertise while staying open to diverse perspectives.
Jim Stein
Published Date: July 3, 2024
Does your staff ever unconsciously exhibit moral superiority because they believe they’re right about an issue? Hey, they might be right, but enhancing communication requires them to be open to views and thought processes that they believe to be flawed. “I’m not you” should be taught to staff—the customer needs to feel like they’re getting an attitude of openness and understanding to their frame of thinking and experiences.
I want to share some lessons I’ve learned from observing what customers are thankful for when choosing Diamond Certified® companies and what they wish for when things go wrong. I’ve come to realize that most of the time, the difference between good or bad performance and happy or upset customers comes down to EGO. Your company’s quality performance and your team’s ability to deal with a range of customer personalities will improve after you think about and talk to your team about EGO.
I’ll explain my thinking and then encourage you to figure out the best way of discussing the “EGO” issue with your team members so they properly hold the concept in their minds.
What is EGO? For this purpose, I’m confining the definition of EGO to two simple parts:
- Constructive (GOOD) EGO: Appropriate pride in oneself; self-esteem.
- Destructive (BAD) EGO: An exaggerated sense of self-importance; conceit.
GOOD Staff Member EGO
- Pride in quality work
- Pride in work ethic
- Pride in customer satisfaction
- Pride in professional development
BAD Staff Member EGO
- I’m an expert, so I don’t need to keep learning.
- I’m right and the customer is wrong, so I’m not giving an inch.
- Since I’m an expert, I’m a better judge of quality work than the customer.
We are human, so it makes sense that our team members have within them both GOOD EGO and BAD EGO. As their leader, how can you stoke the fire of GOOD EGO and teach the folly of BAD EGO? A strong GOOD EGO will drive them to take pride in delivering quality work. A strong BAD EGO will cause them to treat customers poorly when they don’t see eye-to-eye.
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