Should a company value its employees more than its customers?

The question whether employees are more valuable to a company than its customers, or the other way round, seems to be another question that is similar to the agelong question: “Which came first: The chicken or the egg?”

Over the years, I’ve been a big fan of the UK TV series “The Office”, and I have to say that the leading actor, Ricky Gervais, was amusing, to say the least, in impersonating an office manager.

I remember when the following question was asked during a staff training session during an episode of the series: “Who’s the most valuable resource of your company?”, and Ricky Gervais was quick to answer: “Staff”, although the external trainer insisted that the correct answer was: “The company’s customers”.

It’s funny, isn’t it?

It is supposed to be funny and make people laugh, because it’s a comedy, after all.

On the other hand, according to contemporary marketing, which is strongly customer-oriented, very few “sensible” marketing managers would put employees first and customers second.

It can be safely said that only the manager of “The Office” could give such an answer. 

Or not?

In fact, there is a famous business owner and serial entrepreneur who also argued that employees come first in a business, rather than customers.

The hugely successful and recognizable entrepreneur who said that is Richard Branson.

Generally speaking, in the real world, where “big fish eat little fish” in business, there is no room for emotions, and employees can easily and often be considered as a dispensable resource, not being very different from the rest of the company’s “consumables”.

In a hard business world, in one way or another, “customer is king”, and this motto serves as a very good excuse for top managers and owners to justify their staff dismissal decisions, based, for example, on poor customer service provided by one or more members of the company’s staff.

So, what about all of those management theories that put staff and other company stakeholders (such as suppliers, creditors, etc) in the spotlight, where all of the company’s activities and actions should be supposedly directed to? 

All of these theories seem to fail in practice, when the statement “consumer is king” actually permeates the entire spectrum of a company’s operations.

However, even this is not always the case in practice. Or, to be more precise, this statement may hide a lot of hypocrisy by those in senior management positions. 

I say that because “customer is not king” when a company fails to keep its promises to him or her. This means that the damage done to a company is double, because once it has lost a truly valuable resource in the face of its skilled and experienced employees, then it follows on to also lose customer trust, as a result. One leads to the other, in a form of rational reasoning.

Business managers, and anyone in a managerial position who holds the power to make decisions on such issues, should realize that a company’s customers and a company’s staff are not mutually exclusive to each other. In fact, they work together and complement each other, and are also key factors that determine a company’s success.

Both employees and customers are human, with flaws, biases, and preferences, and business managers should take this fact seriously into account, when treating these two categories of a company’s stakeholders.

On top of that, it should also be highlighted that business managers are human themselves, which should be taken into consideration, as well.

Therefore, the ability and skill to apply the principles of human psychology, in order to make it possible for these categories of individuals to work together smoothly in teams within the context of organizations are essential, and can determine business success.

Sources and further reading:

Who is more important to a company: Its customers or its employees?

Why employees are more important than clients

10 reasons why good customer service is your important metric

Why companies that put the customer first are more successful