Solving problems when and where they occur is not only better and faster, it's cheaper. If a customer contact centre representative or a front desk executive can solve the problem, it saves time and money both for the organization as well as for the customer. Written complaints are similar. If the person who first reads the letter can solve the problem, it costs less and results in a faster response and fewer follow-up letters and phone calls trying to find out what happened.

Here are some examples of empowerment, whereby you can authorize the front-line employees to:

• Waive or reduce of charges or penalties.
• Give discount coupons.
• Give gift certificates.
• Approve the expense online (say approving charge on the credit card).
• Correct the data supplied by the customer, instead of send the papers to and fro.
• Refund cash to the customer for goods returned.
• Taking a decision on if a problem comes under warranty or not and committing the repair work.

This empowerment comes along with a smart over-seeing and review mechanism:

• Policies on the authorization and approval matrix for front-line employees: You cannot have limitless empowerment to the front-line employees (or for that matter any organizational level).
• Business Rules and guidelines on using or applying the empowerment: Organization should clearly define the guidelines under-which the decisions can be taken.
• A post-facto review of the decisions taken by front-line staff can evolve the empowerment mechanism. You can decide on where you can tighten or liberalize the controls.

It is a question of management mind-set

With all the controls and review mechanisms, finally it is a question of management mind-set in terms of how much they trust the frontline staff judgment. These are some of the assumption you can make, to build that mind-set:

• People act responsibly, when they are trusted: People like to be trusted, and they are keen to justify the trust posed in them. If in doubt, they will check with their seniors.
• People are competent, given the right support mechanism: If you have laid down the guidelines and business rules, people will generally adhere to them. The knowledge and decision rules used by more senior levels to make a decision can be mostly documented, for the frontline staff to follow.
• The benefit of empowerment far exceeds the risk: Some wrong decisions by the empowered frontline staff can be easily compensated by the time and effort saving for the customer as well as the organization. If an organization can evaluate, even the senior levels do make mistakes.
• Empowerment is not a onetime short-lived experiment: Organizations which withdraw the empowerment on the first few instances of wrong decisions by frontline staff will have a short-term perspective. Any empowerment will take time to evolve and stabilize.
• Don’t go too granular in empowerment: When you empower an individual, he should feel truly empowered. A small magnitude empowerment, does not work as it may help serve a minor proportion of your customers. The frontline staff may also feel short-changed. If you have to empower, do it well.

Supporting the Frontline Employees

Along with empowerment, comes the support mechanism to enable frontline staff to apply that empowerment.

• A centralized FAQ section, frequently asked questions with appropriate responses, standard response letters or actual scripts to reinforce training and prompt the employee.
• A centrally, online available business rules, guidelines and procedures.
• Online support from experts- In case the frontline staff face technical issues, he or she should be able to contact by mail or by telephone, a panel of experts to take advice and recommendations.
• User-friendly screens equipped with standardized formats to assist the customer service process.
• Training on managing situations and decision-points.

Side Benefits of Empowering Front

• Building overall leadership competencies in frontline staff: With empowerment, comes a greater decision making and sense of ownership. This develops leadership maturity within the frontline staff.
• Reduce the management overhead: the next level management can focus on more important and value-add activities.
• Feedback from frontline staff: With greater empowerment, the frontline staff becomes more sensitive to the customer needs and issues. This generates valuable feedback and insights.