GameStop’s Vice-Versa: Happy Customers Equal Happy Agents

Those pushing to reinvigorate their call center cultures cling to the notion that "happy agents equal happy customers." If agents feel valued by their organization and enjoy coming to work each day, their happiness, so goes the theory, will trickle down to customers and produce more valuable support interactions.

Easy enough to follow, the "chain of happiness" paints an incomplete picture of the connection between agent satisfaction and customer satisfaction. It portrays employee culture as the unilateral ticket to favorable customer relationships, ignoring that the link is actually a two-way street.

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Employee-centricity undoubtedly positions agents to best deliver for customers, but organizations cannot forget that a commitment to customer-centricity is one of the most crucial means of creating that positive workplace culture. Employees do not simply want to feel valued for their efforts; they want to believe in what the business does and see the positive of their work on the customer experience.

GameStop’s recent employee satisfaction woes vividly illustrate the impact of the customer experience on workplace happiness.

Flawed study design or not, 24/7 Wall Street’s analysis of GlassDoor’s most poorly-reviewed workplacesstumbled upon an enlightening gem from a former GameStop employee. Instead of going the more predictable route of complaining about disrespectful management treatment or low pay, the employee focused on how the gaming retailer’s short-sighted approach to the customer undermines the workplace experience.

According to the review, "Priority is placed on sales instead of games and customers, pushing people to pre-order games can place them in a situation where they spend good money on a bad game with no possibility of a refund, business’ models place customers at a disadvantage."

All customer service agents should possess the ability to empathize with customers, and that quality is even more pronounced in the hobby business, in which employees likely share in their customers’ passions. Many GameStop representatives are gamers themselves, and they therefore understand what it takes to create an excellent customer experience.

When they not only witness a customer experience culture that would make their blood boil but are forced to advocate for that experience, they are going to suffer from dissatisfaction. They are not going to enjoy representing the brand. They are not going to be happy.

The push to recreate Google’s legendary workplace often misguides customer management and greater business leaders. They focus only on the "culture" element of employee engagement and mistakenly believe from gourmet office lunches and excess personal time and corporate gyms will come a world-class customer experience. They falsely believe that efforts to transform a company into a "great place to work" are entirely internal.

As it turns out, one of the most crucial factors in creating that happiness is an honest, significant commitment to customer-centricity. No matter how much agents enjoy working in a particular office environment, their ability to truly delight customers requires a confidence that the brand truly wants it to do so. Pizza parties and office beer taps are not the same as empowering agents to do right by the customer in each and every interaction.

If you are drawing cultural inspiration from the "customer experience elite" and focusing only on what goes on within their office walls, you are completely missing what makes those organizations so special. Companies like Zappos and Disney are successful not because they know how to make work fun but because they know how to make work about the customer.