When Companies Put Employees and Customers First

"The Employee Loyalty Index (ELI) at FedEx Express complements i4cp's core focus of leveraging human capital as a driver for increased market performance. The ELI is a tool that gauges multiple indicators of employee loyalty - and other critical factors that drive this commitment- on an ongoing basis. The information is then used to develop proactive processes and forward-thinking initiatives. The index is not designed to simply measure loyalty for loyalties sake, but to act on the premise that loyal employees help to build customer loyalty, and, in turn, greater profits." (Retrieved 3-1-2010)

We strive to keep our employees happy, healthy and committed to providing our customers with the best possible service. Our employees are our number one asset to our company and operation.

“If you treat your employees as unique individuals, they’ll be loyal to you and they’ll perform— and your business will perform, too.” Pg 36

Similarly, Molinari, Abratt, and Dion (2008) assert that there is a direct and strong link between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty behavior. If the customers enjoy the product or service, they will not be bothered to become loyal to the company. In other words, high levels of satisfaction commonly occur when the customer is delighted or happy with either the products or services provided by a business supplier. As Caceres and Paparoidamis (2005) state, customer satisfaction levels are determined and influenced by many elements. For example, it is commonly admitted that the customers will naturally repeatedly return to the company when things are done right, or in other words, business service companies successfully meet the customer’s expectation (Gil-Saura, et. al., 2009). Furthermore, increases in satisfaction could result to increase customer loyalty. A business enterprise, which could address the elements moderating the level of satisfaction of customers, probably would reach the higher level of loyalty. In other words, customer satisfaction is likely to improve customer loyalty in general.

Loyal customers are excessively important to any business, and businesses spend great amount of their time, energy and money analyzing and captivate those customers. However, the usual definition of a loyal customer that we consider is a high spending customer, and that definition is imperfect. Marketing to customers — based on true loyalty — requires more: complicated measurement, better spend data, and considering that a regular customer is not the same as a loyal customer.

Southwest Airlines, a major airline company in the United States says there’s something they value more than its customers and that something, is their employees. Organizational structure is referred to the system of shared ideas, values, and beliefs which basically controls how employees behave in organizations. These shared ideas and values have a strong influence on the organization and its employees in the means of how they dress, act or even how they perform their jobs. Southwest Airlines is known for their organizational culture and this is also considered one of the key factors contributing to their success. However, it is very unusual to hear that a company will put their employee happiness above their customer satisfaction. Southwest Airlines lists the employees first, customers second and shareholders third. If the company treats the employees right, the employees will treat their customers right and this all results in increased profits which will make everyone happy including the shareholders. Southwest has created a culture that is fun, full of values and ideas which is to help employees to enjoy what they do and take pride in their jobs. The airline as well teaches and encourages the employees to put others first and show great customer

In “Learning from Customer Defections,” loyalty marketing expert Frederick Reichheld wrote, “It is uncomfortable to study failure too closely.” He puts it even more specifically in “The Loyalty Effect: the cost of investor disloyalty” where he asserts: “The foundation of customer loyalty - that great engine of long-term profit and cash flow – is customer value and the long-term investment that creates it.”

Research shows that “80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.” So, your team must focus on satisfying customers and ensuring they gain value.

In the end, loyal customers drive the company to better work conditions, better working environment that can lead to better internal relationships among employees and values sharing. Loyal customers can change the mind-set of a corporate culture and they could also change the culture

The concept of Customer Loyalty can be seen in the work of Deming and his TQM model but the modern more detailed definition was derived from the work of Storbacka, Strandvik, and Grönroos (1994) in the area of service quality models. Relationship Marketing places great emphasis on customer lifetime value. The conventional wisdom suggests that loyal customers are the most profitable but recent work by Heiner Evanschitsky and John Glanfield, both now at Aston Business School suggests that this may not always be the case. To what extent do you believe customer loyalty should influence marketing strategy?

In the current competitive environment, customers have been provided with a wide range of choices to satisfy their needs and demands at the global level. It means that customers’ bargaining power has increased dramatically in the present business environment. It not only adds pressure on enterprises to develop new customers, but also increases the difficulty for enterprises to retain existing customers. Therefore, the development of customer loyalty is often the challenges for enterprises although its importance has been generally accepted. This research attempts to add implications for enterprises to develop and maintain customer loyalty.

According to the article, the service-profit chain establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity. The links in the chain are as follows: Profit and growth are stimulated primarily by customer loyalty. Loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of services provided to customers. Value is created by satisfied, loyal, and productive employees. Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers (J. Heskett, T. Jones, G. Loveman, E. Sasser, & L. Schlesinger, 1994). They have found that the value of a satisfied customer is huge because they can become a loyal customer, and will also affect their peers to become loyal customers as well. Over time, a loyal customer can bring in thousands of dollars for a company.

Business school has taught me that keeping customers is considerably less expenses than finding new ones. Therefore, I want to create a large amount of customer loyalty at Master Marketing. My final objective is to create a strong reputation in the San Antonio area as a quality and efficient marketing firm. Building a reputation as a quality firm is necessary to gaining the optimal amount of clients.

Schefter, 2000). Therefore, enterprises strive to increase their market share by maximizing customer retention (Tsoukatos & Rand,

There had been literatures and arguments that express the importance of improving employee satisfaction as it increases service quality and, in turn, improve customer loyalty and profitability. In a study about the relationship between and among employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and financial performance, the proponents cited the work of Rucci, Kirn, & Quinn (1998) in which discussed and analysed the case of Sears and used the Service Profit Chain. The report revealed that by improving employee satisfaction by 5 points customer satisfaction and sales increased by 1.3 points and 0.5% respectively. One of the literatures presented in the study explained that the reason why employee satisfaction has a direct impact on customer satisfaction (and in