I won’t go on and on about the idyllic time I spent on honeymoon (it was amazing!)…I certainly didn’t spend much time thinking about work…

…but some things just make a real impression on you, don’t they?

We stayed at two different hotels. One was a tiny, boutique place with only about 30 guests at any time and a small close knit staff. One was a bigger, lovely hotel with loads of staff run in teams depending on the section of the hotel they were covering.

The thing that stood out was the service quality from every single member of staff at both hotels. And while the hotels weren’t in any way connected they shared the exact same mantra- when we thanked them for a lovely meal or for a great cocktail the constant refrain from both sets of staff was “If you are happy, we are happy”.

We made friends with some great people who worked at the hotels and had some really good conversations with them. Mostly about football, I must admit. I asked one of them about the “If you are happy, we are happy” mantra. He said it was simple. If customers are happy then things are easier for all the staff. An unhappy customer experience takes up time and causes stress for both parties. The unhappy person is unlikely to recommend the hotel subsequently and may in fact give bad feedback on review sites.

Sometimes we can forget that service quality and a happy customer is such a valuable thing, not just from a retention and revenue perspective.

It makes for a more harmonious working relationship with the customers, and also sets up the potential for the client to recommend our services to others. It’s not just about things being “ok”. It’s about making the customers truly happy. Going that extra mile brings reward, but it’s fair to say that while making your customers happy is just the right thing to do, it certainly benefits your own staff in more ways than simply client retention.

Empowering your staff to provide excellent service also enables them to create a happier working day for themselves, with fewer issues and complaints. It really is a win/win.

At Cashroom we survey our clients every month to create an NPS rating that we can track. From this we can look to learn. We won’t always get things right. However, we want our clients to tell us what we could do better. We can then seek to make them happy.

Providing good service is not a new or startling concept, but thinking ‘why’ you should do it can in fact lead to a happier workforce, as well as a happy client.