At 2:30 in the morning, the night clerk at the hotel is a great help if you’ve locked yourself out of your room.
But if you want to complain about the hours of the gym, the hotel’s environmental footprint or even their late check-in policy, you’re almost certainly wasting their time. And yours.
Every organization with more than a few people in it has night clerks. Most of the people who work at the phone company, for example, and even the person clearing tables at the local pizza place.
It’s the night clerks that have the most customer interaction–in fact, they’re almost certainly the highest leveraged, most insightful marketing cohort in your organization.
They have information, and if we give them agency, they could transform the customer experience.
Alas, our systems rarely help. Many night clerks are underpaid and underappreciated, and systems around them push them not to care.
When your organization gets stuck, don’t blame them. Instead, find a way to help them become the contribution they’re capable of being.
Some useful questions you might not be asking:
How much does the information we’re not collecting cost us?
What is the customer service cost and brand dilution of depriving our people the freedom to take action?
If we built a culture of mutual respect with our night clerks–using training, compensation and engagement–what would our new customer experience and reputation be worth?