4 day-to-day challenges Location Managers face

Posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

This Empathica whitepaper, entitled “Location Engagement Doesn’t Come from Reading Reports” explores the impact that locations and location managers can have in delivering great customer experiences. The following article is an excerpt – the second section of the whitepaper that discusses the four major challenges location managers experience in their multi-faceted roles.

Location Engagement whitepaper – Section 2 “What are the Challenges for Location Managers?”

Location managers are in many cases the most important element of driving frontline excellence at any multi-unit enterprise. Given their multi-faceted roles, they face a wide range of challenges within their daily routines.

Most face many, if not all, of the following issues:

• Time constraints
  One of the scarcest resources for most location level managers is time. While the insights that are gleaned through traditional customer feedback reporting can be tremendously valuable, the value is often not realized until an appropriate amount of analysis and reporting is done. In many instances this is time that location managers simply do not have with the demands of their daily tasks. If they do spend the time on reading reports and performing analysis, then other critical tasks may be neglected.
• A lack of analytical expertise
  Even if location managers have the time to dedicate to reporting and analyzing customer feedback data, they may not have the expertise required to effectively use and interpret complex reporting tools. In these cases the complexity of the tools themselves can be a barrier to success. Locations may make poor choices and spend effort improving factors that do not change the overall customer experience.
• Limited experience with the brand
  Over time, great managers will intuitively understand what needs to be done, and what needs to be prioritized to deliver great experiences. Managers with less experience with the brand will not have this ability and are confronted with a huge number of competing priorities with limited knowledge of what they should focus on to maximize the customer experience. Insights and best practices gleaned from those great managers at top performing locations can be a tremendous asset in helping to deliver excellent experiences consistently across locations. More importantly these blueprints for success provide a guide as to where to start and what definitive goals to strive for.
• Lack of a platform to engage and energize their team
  One of the biggest challenges for location managers is ensuring their teams are continually engaged with impactful and rewarding work. Managers need to be able to determine what tasks will have the most impact while still being aligned to the skills available on their teams. With the right plans in place, managers also require tools to help foster open communication across their local teams to identify areas of concern and recognize employees who have delivered exceptional work is being done.

To learn how to engage location managers to consistently deliver great customer experiences, download the Empathica whitepaper “Location Engagement Doesn’t Come from Reading Reports.”

Download Whitepaper

This entry was posted in Featured Resource Why Implement a Customer Experience Management Program and assigned these Tags: brand promise, CEM, CEM program, customer experience, customer experience insights, customer experience management, customer feedback, employee engagement, location managers. Bookmark the permalink