A Dark Side to Nonprofit Employee Engagement

I'm almost finished with a really fantastic book "Passionate and Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to do them Right" by Lior Arussy. In my quest for customer experience knowledge, this book is one of the most practical I've found. It is available for free digital loan for users of the New York Public Library system.  Chapter 8 is titled: "Do we employ functional robots or passionate evangelists?" The idea is that recruiting, retaining, and delighting passionate employees translates into delivering the types of experiences companies desire for their customers.  But what if there is a dark side to tapping into that passion?

In my nonprofit career I have had the privilege of working with many talented people who are very committed to their organization's cause. The social sector has a clear advantage over our for-profit counterparts. By the very definition we are mission focused. This is not to say that there aren't businesses with a clear mission or societal benefit; the best ones clearly have it. This is also not to say that there aren't nonprofit or government employees who are drones collecting a paycheck, completely disassociated from the mission (sadly there are).

The bigger risk for businesses: unengaged employees who could care less about their company's mission because it's unclear or the company has shown little interest in cultivating a passion for their work. They don't see themselves as making a difference in anyone else's lives. Their jobs are a means to an end and interchangeable with any number of different opportunities.

The bigger risk for nonprofits: over-reliance and abuse of their employees' passion for the mission. All too often cash-strapped organizations successful in attracting talented people willing to exchange salary for heart don't recognize the sacrifices they're asking their employees to make.  Just as companies that fail to understand the journeys their customers take, failure to recognize employees as an important customer will doom any customer-facing experience initiatives.  This isn't a new concept. Nonprofit professionals are always asked to "do more with less" and are all-too-familiar with the term burnout. This article in the Nonprofit Quarterly was written in 2002 but could have easily been written yesterday:

The vast majority of nonprofit workers come to work in the morning because they love their jobs, but many go home at the end of the day exhausted by the workload and unsure that they have the tools, let alone the stamina, to come back the next morning.

From the book:

The inability to design and execute a well-crafted employee experience will damage the organization's ability to differentiate and build a compelling value proposition.Without employee experiences, there is no customer experience. To unleash the best in your people, you must treat them like customers. You must give them the same surprisingly amazing treatment that makes them want to excel and give you the best they have to give. Show them your commitment, and they will reciprocate.

Inc agrees that happier employees help companies' bottom lines (profit). Wouldn't it hold true that a nonprofit's bottom line (mission) would benefit?

Golden Rule - schmolden rule!

I know so many people are fond of quoting the Golden Rule when thinking about customer experience or service - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - but I cringe every time I see or hear it.  The arrogance! Laziness!! Downright gauche!!! Let's just unpack that a little. I don't even want to get into "unto" right now, so I'll focus on the meaning. Instead of taking the time to find out what the customer wants/needs or how they want to be treated, one is supposed to just assume they'll be hunky dory with whatever it is that floats your boat. Hold on sailor, what makes you so hot to trot? 

The discipline of customer experience teaches us to listen to what our customers need/want and, hopefully, exceed their expectations. How can we accomplish this when we are stuck thinking about what we want out of the situation?

For the totally uninitiated (and unempathetic) or in situations where it's not possible to discern what the customer wants, what I think the Golden Rule is trying - but fails - to say is that little human decency goes a long way.

Bryan K. Williams has coined the term "Double Platinum Rule" to make up for the shortcomings of its less precious cousin:

Grounding your service strategy in the three Universal Service Rules works well, because it heightens your empathy (Golden Rule), encourages a keen focus on your customer’s expectations (Platinum Rule), and challenges you to consistently think of ways to exceed those expectations (Double Platinum Rule).

For the social sector, the Double Platinum Rule makes even more sense.  So often our customers are people who have incredible and complex needs that if we only addressed the one initial thing that drove them to request our services, we would be shortchanging them, tarnishing our efforts to make a difference in this world.

How might you introduce this thinking at your organization?

The nonprofit customer journey map

Most organizations simply don't think about, let alone document, the complete thread of a customer's experience with their organizations.  They're structured to support the functional units within, not in ways that maximize the experience for their varied customers - and they are varied. Donors, partner organizations, vendors, employees, volunteers, community members, and least we forget the ultimate "end user" customer sometimes called client, participant, or stakeholder - they all have unique needs, wants, and desires that must be met in increasingly complex ways, all with (usually) very limited resources.

The idea of documenting all the stuff that happens before, during, and after engagement with an organization is so fundamentally important and awesome, that by just going through this simple exercise should be a huge eye opener. Nonprofits and government (imagine a world where going to the DMV is a delightful experience!) have a tremendous opportunity to become more customer-centric, and a better understanding of their customers' journeys is a great starting point.

Hello, world!

Welcome to the CXforGood blog! I spent a month blogging internally about customer experience management at my job.  After the encouragement of one delightful friend/colleague, I have decided to bring the blog public. So many of the resources I have found on this topic are focused on for-profit enterprise.  As a lifelong nonprofit professional, I think there are ways in which this discipline can/should be applied differently.

My goals for this blog are:

1. Increase my own understanding of customer experience management (CEM/CX)
2. Find (and share!) best practices of CX in the nonprofit, government, and social enterprise sectors
3. Highlight the different ways CX can/should be applied in these sectors where financial gain to stockholders is not the primary motivator of activity
4. Develop a community of CX practitioners and enthusiasts whose enterprise is being put to use for the greater good
5. Be a little goofy, because I am

I hope you’ll enjoy this experience with me engage on this journey.

Very Best,
Brad