Lands’ End, our business neighbor in nearby Dodgeville, Wisconsin, recently sent out an email blast about their “Cup of Customer” tradition.  The “Cup of Customer” is a message sent out to Lands’ End employees first thing in the morning, and is defined as “a pick me up” from a satisfied customer.  The cute image above was given as an example.

Many businesses focus on what has gone wrong and can be improved, rather than on what the business is already doing well. But as the message from Lands’ End to its customers says, “Your notes motivate us to keep getting better. Because when you’re happy, it means the world to us.”

Lands’ End motto, which is also mentioned in last week’s email, is “Take care of the employees, take care of the customer and the rest will take care of itself.”  This is attributed to their late founder Gary Comer, who reportedly also said “Think one customer at a time and take care of each one the best way you can.”

The first lesson here is that taking care of customers, and making them happy, is essential to your business’s success — but the second is that one of the best ways to make your employees happy is to have happy customers.  By sharing the satisfaction of its customers, Lands’ End helps reinforce its staff’s feeling of pride in their workplace.

Celebrating successful customer service is a great way to spotlight the good work of individual staff members, or your staff as a whole. Whether you do this in an email (like Lands’ End), an employee newsletter, or a note on your staff bulletin board, it’s important to remember that praising the current performance of your staff members is one of the best motivations for future achievement.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder