OOBE

Keeping our best employees for the long run, and keeping them happy, is a key ingredient of almost every successful commercial venture. That isn’t just an anecdotal observation, in fact empirical research has proven that this hypothesis is indeed a fact.

The Harvard Business Review first published an article in 1994 titled, “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work”. This article was recently republished in 2008 because, as the HBR Editor states, “… it offers as much today as it did then and is a perennial best seller.” In other words, what was thought to be true in 1994 has been proven to be true over the last 15 years.

The conclusion of the research behind the service-profit chain was, and is, that customer loyalty is the primary common element that exists among all companies that have demonstrated long-term, sustained growth and profitability. But the service-profit chain model went on to explain that “Customer loyalty is a direct result of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is largely influenced by the value of the services provided to customers. Value is created by loyal and productive employees. Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from high-quality support services and policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers.”

Check out the original article from The Harvard Business Review.

Look for part 2 tomorrow. UPDATE: Go there now