Employee appreciation = customer appreciation

Have you ever thought the way that you treat your employees will result in the way they treat your customers? This is something that I have been thinking about and I am convinced that treating an employee well will carry through when it comes to customer satisfaction scores. The biggest question is how can this be quantified? Why would this have any correlation?

I think the correlation is two fold and starts with long term employees engage long term customers. Today people change jobs, locations, and careers faster than ever. For the younger generation the thought of doing the same job for the next 10 years is just not an option. Competition for talent is tougher than ever before and this is because very few people are willing to make the tough sacrifices to become successful. However the number one reason people leave is because they do not feel appreciated. If your employee does not feel appreciate how are they going to treat the customer?

It would be interesting to poll the top 500 corporations see is attrition rate is correlated to customer service score. I would predict the lower the attrition rate the higher the score. I think the real point is our employees are our customers and if we do not take care of our customers someone else will.