A Manager’s Role in Customer Engagement

Customer service training guidebooks traditionally focus on molding the worker, not the manager. Similarly, many firms deliver customer engagement training only to new entry-level employees. Sales managers, it is often assumed, already have customer service skills, since they must have acquired them in order to be promoted. And yet managers impact customer engagement in unique ways. By understanding managers’ roles, executives can better train and equip them for delivering unparalleled service.

One immediately apparent managerial role is addressing unhappy customers. Someone has to respond when a customer asks to speak with a higher up. Accordingly, firms may train managers in soothing frustrated customers. Specific concessions or treats may be extended to keep a customer who is considering abandoning the brand. However, if managers are only trained to address the situation and not the overall issue than customer attrition is inevitable.

Today, the most effective managers do more than simply carry out executives’ customer service orders. This represents a shift in business operations. To use a military metaphor, previously, managers were often seen as enlisted men, not officers. It wasn’t a part of their job description to strategize; they were simply expected to carry out the plans that superior officers had designed, even if they knew from personal experience that the plans wouldn’t work. Today, many firms share the burden of strategy by educating their entire work force in customer engagement. In this new paradigm, managers do more than just respond to complaints.

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