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Over time, it can feel like two ships passing if the right person is not placed in the right position in an organization.

According to some experts, hiring the wrong person costs two and a half times the salary the position pays.  If an employer hires “the wrong person” for a position that pays $100,000 per year, it would cost them  $250,000 and most probably impact the profit margin !!!  The cost to this expensive mistake is directly attributed to money invested in time it takes to travel,  interview and train the employee among other expenses.

So…your colleague decided to heat up last evening’s dinner in the microwave for lunch today.  The problem?  He had baked potato, broccoli AND salmon.  Now, the office has a pungent odor, clients are commenting about the “peculiar” smell and YOU have to explain how they should look beyond the distraction and focus on the meeting with you.

Yikes!  How is it that some employees have either forgotten all about office etiquette or carelessly consider only their interests?

Let’s get specific.  Put yourself on the receiving end of this colleague, Joe, and tell me how you would feel:

According to Gartner, customer experience will be the main battleground for competing companies over the next two years.  When you have laser beam focus on ensuring your clients enjoy the best quality, ambience, accommodation, convenience and service, your competition has little power to persuade them to leave you.

The Ritz Carlton employs a phenomenal method for providing ongoing red carpet service to all of its guests. Their credo states that they are a place where genuine care and comfort of their guests is their highest mission.

“When did we become so casual in our attitude about the poor delivery of exceptional customer service?  Who gave you permission to stop giving our clients red carpet customer experiences?”

Those were the opening statements (questions) that an executive asked his direct reports in a recent meeting.  I cannot begin to tell you the high level of nervousness and seat twitching that permeated the room.

Apparently, a client contacted the executive and sharply criticized his organization and staff for a horrible customer experience.  That communication was followed by several other clients who shared a similar passion about less than stellar service.

Almost all companies host semi-annual or annual business planning conferences to bring together senior-level managers from units and divisions from across the company and develop goals and strategies to improve business and increase profit margins. Yet few companies undertake a similar process to discuss how to engage with customers — the lifeblood of all companies.

The CEO of a particular Fortune 500 company’s direct involvement in customer engagement sparked a company-wide dialogue about how dramatically customer behavior had improved employee morale, production AND the profit margin…in that order.