Recently, I have been repetitively reinforcing the importance of creating exceptional employee and customer experiences. I’ve talked about the economic benefits that the results produce. I’ve also talked about the correlations between leveraging enabled and engaged employees and the impact that it has on net promoter scores and customer loyalty. And thus, bottom line financial results.

Often times, when people think about enhancing employee or customer experiences they mistakenly think that experience enhancement is going to cost them more money.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consistently and repeatedly in every industry across the globe I have witnessed that employee and customer experience improvement always coincides with and process improvements and cost reductions.

I have previously written that it is impossible for external experiences to be stronger or better than internal experiences.

That doesn’t mean it takes more time, energy or more financial resources.

When engaged employees consistently do the right thing, the right way, at the right time, for the right reasons, fantastic results follow.

These results include positive impact in ...

How easy is it for your customers who need help and answers to get them from you?

Click on image to enlarge

This article originally appeared: What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Enterprise Mobility, Citrix Online

Photo courtesy of: Legoagogo via Flickr

Being on the Starship Enterprise was like being in the workplace of the future. In fact the Enterprise operated with the same challenges that enterprises face today. Everyone had lots of devices, needed access to lots of different apps and desktops from these devices, and the ability to share data and do this with complete security and control. On top of that, everyone wanted the ability to work at any time, from any device and from anywhere. The Enterprise was definitely the workplace of the future.

Let’s take a step back and actually put this into context. On your average Star Trek work day the following occurred:

1. The entire Enterprise crew used communicators (remember those Tricorders), various devices, monitors and screens of all shapes and sizes to access the apps and data required to get their jobs done. In other words, they needed a client that could be installed on all these devices, connect to a centralized backend system, deliver all these different apps and customize it to the form factor they were ...

Recently we were in San Francisco interviewing a new candidate for our computer engineering and support team. We had the opportunity to extend our trip to visit some of the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley. We visited five different wineries and had the chance to meet the owners and winemakers at each of the vineyards.

There was one common theme between all of these individuals.

Extreme passion for their work!

Even while in the surreal environment of Napa Valley, I found myself wondering; why can’t organizations create engagement in their workforce similar to the passion that a winemaker brings to his or her work?

I can tell you not one of these winemakers talked about how much money they were being paid, or how much they were making. While certainly they are all running businesses, they speak first about the love for what they are doing. Not about the financial returns that their work produces.

If you think about it, these owners and winemakers get a lot of feedback, attention and recognition when they produce a quality product.

I think everyone has a need to be positively noticed.

To back up my common sense, I’ll cite a recent survey where 78% of ...

Think about your organization and think about your organization’s purpose and brand promise.

Then, think about the employees in your organization and if their behaviors and actions are aligned with your brand and brand promise.

As I have been writing and talking about continuously, I feel engaged employees who successfully represent the brand provides a significant and unique competitive advantage.

I believe that creating brand ambassadors versus disengaged employees is the most important element of creating customer loyalty and net promoter scores.

Companies that foster brand ambassadors versus companies that mismanage disengaged employees create radically different results:

It is imminently logical that your external brand and the stories about it can never be better or stronger than your internal employee brand and stories.

After thinking about your brand and your organization’s employee actions and alignment, what do you have? Ambassadors or mismanaged disengaged employees?

If you don’t know the answer or are unsure I will give you a hint; try shopping your organization.

That will give you a clear answer.