Isn’t Empowering Your Employees Risky?

Empowerment might be the most difficult process to implement in customer service, because it means you have to fully trust in the judgment of employees. Many executives consider empowering employees to be too risky, the same as satisfaction guarantees. They fear it because it is too easy to abuse and too difficult to manage. This is a shame, because employee empowerment is also the key to world-class service.

The companies that “get it” (like the ones discussed in this book) constantly reflect this idea of empowerment. It makes no difference whether you have one or 1,000 employees. Empowerment means making each of them feel that he or she is important to your team, and giving them roles in which they have some freedom to operate, to make decisions on their own that are consistent with advancing your corporate values. It means giving your employees the power to do their jobs. However, it also involves trusting each of your employees, which is something that many employers are not ready to do.

Statements of trust don’t get much stronger than the one in the Nordstrom employee handbook: “Use your best judgment at all times.” Ask yourself this question: Would that be enough instruction for your employees? Would you leave for a month with that being all you instructed your employees to do?

It might be appropriate to mention here what empowerment is not. It is not giving away the store to make a customer happy. It is using good judgment, supported by the company, to do whatever is reasonable to make a customer happy, understanding that occasionally this is going to lose the company money. The companies that “get it” understand that this is money they will get back over the long term from loyal customers.