Myth #5: Managers Should Put the Customer First
Why It’s a Myth: When managers preach and practice this longstanding axiom, they overlook their employees, who are responsible for creating and nurturing the customer relationship. Customers quickly learn they can bypass the rep and get what they want by appealing to the manager, resulting in lousy morale, high turnover, and customer dissatisfaction.
Why It’s Believed: Endless books and seminars on being “customer focused” have made it difficult to differentiate between employees who actually do work with customers (like salesfolk) and employees who support the people who work with customers (like sales managers.)
The Real Truth: Manager must put their employees first. Managers should communicate regularly and comprehensively with employees, and work through them when communicating with the customer. Managers should never undercut their employee’s authority to deal with customer issues.
