I had the honor of meeting Safelite CEO Tom Feeney and hearing him give the opening keynote at the CXPA Member Insight Exchange back in May (video of Tom describing his talk).
The title of Tom’s talk was Putting People First. Click on this image to look at his slides or read Annette Franz’s thorough recap of his talk.
I’d like to share my Top 9 takeaways from Tom’s talk:
1. Employees first, customers second, shareholders third
Walt Disney once said, “You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world… but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” (Hat tip Mary Tomlinson)
Tom put his employees first when starting the transformation. Good call. It’s not a guarantee, but you can’t have happy enthused customers without happy engaged employees.
2. Establish a baseline, then make it personal and transparent
How do you keep score and measure progress? Safelite adopted NPS as one of their key measures. They then took the extra step to assign each technician their own NPS number. Each week employees receive their individual NPS score.
3. Over recognize, over celebrate
Tom believes you can’t recognize too soon or too often. Safelite even goes one step further to pay the taxes on any employee awards that are given.
4. Spread the best to the rest
Safelite puts together BOOT camps whereby top performers share their experiences and approaches.
5. Leadership needs to cast a positive shadow
It all starts with leadership. Safelite views leadership training to be just as important as field training. Smart move as 75% of employees who voluntarily leave an organization don’t quit their job, they quit their boss.
6. It’s a progression: LEADERSHIP, FOCUS, TALENT and CARING
Safelite made the following promise: strong leadership, focus on their people, getting the best talent, and demonstrating that they care. Caring is key. The belief that senior management cares and acts in the best interest of employees is the most important driver of employee engagement.
7. Listen to customers
There is power in data. Safelite uses data analytics to mine customer feedback for actionable insights.
8. Deploy resources wisely
Safelite strives to focus on customer segments, geographic areas and markets in order to maximize return.
9. Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
Safelite is committed to doing the little extras. Their new goal is “To Create Service So Great, It’s Memorable.” Need extra proof, click here to read one of my favorite stories from What’s Your Purple Goldfish. Here’s another example: Mobile customers receive an email confirmation with a photo and bio of the technician to give peace of mind about the person coming to their home or place of business.
The Bottom Line: Has it worked? A resounding YES. Safelite boasts “best in class” employee engagement scores, they’ve raised their overall NPS by 14 points, and they boosted profitability by 180% over the last five years. I look forward to seeing the results from the next five.
Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra thrown in for good measure) – I mentioned the CXPA earlier in this post. Keep your eyes and ears out on October 1st. It is CX day. Click on the image to see all of the great things planned.
