Question

How seriously should an organization looking to be totally customer-focused regard its informal leaders?

Answer 1

Q: How seriously should an organization looking to be totally customer-focused regard its informal leaders?

A: An organization which is looking to be totally customer-focused should regard its informal leaders quite seriously. Informal leaders refer to employees who are leading based on their intiatives and experience rather than on position and authority. Informal leaders are those who are well versed with company policy, procedure, have great self-confidence and are in a position to directly interact and influence customers to make a purchase and are very important for any organization. Customer service staff can be informal leaders providing vital customers feedback to the management based on customers needs, demands, desires, expectations and issues which can push up innovation, and creativity and in turn increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and profitability. Thus, employees having customer focused domain expertise should be treated seriously and given due importance and weightage as informal leaders. Informal leaders add to employee productivity and provide an internal growth and loyalty mechanism to organizations. So, it has a dual benefit of a customer focused approach which is employee driven.