The Data Is In: Happy Customers and Happy Employees Are Mutually Reinforcing

In December 2021, we were looking ahead to 2022, and we decided that our big idea for the new year would be a universal truth that current Covid-19 circumstances have made especially resonant: Only your customers can make your employees truly happy.

We started our #bigideas2022 write-up with the story of an associate at the Apple Store in Boston who shared with us that when she receives a top review from a customer, “It makes me feel like I’m living the right life.” Getting a perfect 10 is like a standing ovation for customer service, and nothing has remained so rewarding for frontline employees over the past two years, during which they have dealt with more than their fair share of extreme customer behavior. Stated simply, happy customers make employees happy. They are the best motivation possible.

The connection between happy workers and happy customers became clear again recently when Glassdoor published its 2022 list of the best places to work. Eleven of the 100 companies on the Glassdoor list are also tracked by NPS Prism, and of those, all but one have strong customer Net Promoter Scores. (NPS Prism benchmarks companies in certain industries based on their Net Promoter Scores, a measure of how likely a customer is to recommend a company to a friend or relative.)

Take grocery stores, for example. Four grocers made it onto the Glassdoor top 100 based on their current and former employee ratings: Trader Joe’s is at No. 32, H-E-B at 33, Wegmans at 80, and Costco at 93. All four have likewise built exceptionally strong relationships with customers. According to NPS Prism, H-E-B has the highest customer NPS in the industry. Costco is No. 2, Wegmans is No. 3, and Trader Joe’s is No. 5. (Costco also has the best NPS among warehouse clubs.)

Read the full write-up of our findings in “Love, Love Me Do: New Data Proves the Value of Customer Love.”

Recommended reading

Sometimes a picture is truly worth a thousand words. We’ve been writing about the amazing stock performance of customer love leaders. Here’s the visual.

Customer love highlight of the week

Shortly after visiting a pharmacy for a Covid-19 vaccination booster, my son received an SMS text message asking him for feedback. There was just one question: How likely are you to recommend us on a scale from zero to 10? And that was followed up by an invitation to explain the reasons behind his scoring by recording a brief video. This kind of communication is natural and easy, and it carries much more emotional impact for a store employee who might receive it. Personalized and technologically adroit, this process for gathering feedback shows me that this company is thinking about improving the lives of both its customers and its employees.

Do you have an example of customer love you’d like to share? Let us know on social media using the hashtag #customerlove.

This is part of a series of posts, written with my Bain colleagues Maureen Burns and Darci Darnell, exploring the pioneering firms that are implementing Net Promoter System principles to make digital frontline experiences more human and delightful. Our new book, Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers, is now on sale.

I hope you’re enjoying reading this newsletter as much as I am putting it together. As a big believer in the word-of-mouth recommendation, I hope you’ll consider spreading the word about Customer Obsession by sharing the newsletter’s link with your LinkedIn network.

Thank you,

Fred