If you’re getting a growing number of complaints from unhappy customers, it can be challenging to uncover the root of the problem and improve customer satisfaction.
It’s tempting to call out a person who is underperforming or a process that’s failing. However, it’s rarely that simple. If you’re not sure where to start, consider this: customer satisfaction is closely tied to employee satisfaction. Improving workplace attitude can go a long way toward improving customer satisfaction.
How workplace attitude directly impacts customer satisfaction
In a service business like HVAC and Refrigeration, customer satisfaction is your lifeblood. It drives your reputation, referrals, repeat business, and your long-term success. However, the experiences your customers have (positive and negative) are often driven by the people they interact with directly. Read: your technicians, dispatchers, accounting staff, and others who deal directly with customers.
Whether your customers have good or bad experiences depends a great deal on the satisfaction of your customer-facing employees. If a technician has a sour attitude, he may cut corners on a job and leave a customer unhappy. A receptionist or dispatcher who’s less than happy may be rude or just plain unhelpful.
Contrast that with how a happy employee is likely to conduct themselves around customers, and go out of their way to make the customer feel valued and confident in the service they received.
Also, consider the fact that workplace attitude is often contagious: positive and negative vibes tend to spread. So you really need to pay attention to the attitudes of ALL your employees.
To improve customer satisfaction, put the same effort into employee satisfaction that you do into customer experience. Here are four ideas to help you get started.
4 ways to improve workplace attitude & customer satisfaction
1. Hire people with a customer service mindset
Start off on the right foot and hire people who demonstrate a positive attitude and are internally motivated to solve customer problems and treat them with respect. When hiring someone for a service position, this quality is often a better indicator of success than education or previous experience.
2. Gather feedback (and respond)
Employees who are empowered to share both criticisms and ideas tend to be more satisfied in their jobs because they feel respected. It’s in your best interest to actively seek out feedback from all employees if you want to improve customer satisfaction.
One way to do this is to provide a way for people to share criticisms anonymously. People are often uncomfortable sharing criticisms, at least until they develop enough trust that they can do so without fear of repercussions.
It’s also important to designate a person that employees can speak to if they have a workplace problem or even a personal problem that’s impacting their work. Poor attitudes often begin when employees feel like they need to work out everything on their own.
Providing this type of workplace support can be challenging for smaller businesses that don’t have a dedicated HR staff. In that case, managers and supervisors should be trained to regularly connect with employees one-on-one to check in with them. These conversations uncover when an employee is struggling and needs help, BEFORE the problem escalates into a poor attitude that will hurt your reputation with customers.
Gathering feedback from employees does even more than improve workplace attitude. You’ll also benefit from your employees’ ideas for process improvements.
Be sure to acknowledge, reward, and give credit for employees’ ideas. Employees will also need to see that you’re acting on the best ideas and key criticisms to encourage them to speak up.
3. Invest in training & career development
Employees who aren’t properly trained can easily develop poor workplace attitudes. If they are constantly put into situations that they don’t know how to handle, they feel like they are being set up to fail.
In the HVACR industry, the need for technical training and mentoring is well understood. However, employees need more than that. They need to learn how to interact with and communicate with customers and coworkers in a variety of situations.
Employees also want your support in helping them progress in their careers. To improve workplace attitudes, make sure that you understand each employee’s career ambitions and support them in moving forward along their career path.
When you give employees the information and tools they need to do their work well, and a path to reach their goals, they’ll reward you by providing great service to your customers.
4. Say thank you
Employees want to know that their hard work is noticed and appreciated. Make an active effort to do that. When you get a “thank you” from a customer praising an employee’s work, share that not only with the employee but with the entire team.
Then, take it a step further and encourage employees to recognize and share the accomplishments of others on the team. This helps to build a positive culture where everyone takes pride in their work and puts their best foot forward in everything they do.
When that happens, you’ll see customer satisfaction growing, too.
More advice for HVAC and Refrigeration business owners and managers
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HVACR Career Connect NY was created to promote the exceptional quality-of-life benefits of a career in HVAC and Refrigeration service, and also to provide a clear path for getting started in the profession. In doing so, we serve as a resource for employers in the New York City metro area to find and hire smart and capable new technicians. We also serve as an educational resource to support business growth and to help service technicians succeed in their chosen profession.
Learn about technical careers in the HVAC & Refrigeration industry, how to get hired and tips to build your career.