Leaders, love your customers enough to put your employees first!

When I moved back to Romania 2 years ago and opened my consultancy, I was filled with excitement.

After five years in Dubai’s top hospitality, where service isn’t a nice-to-have but the only way to stay in business, I came home with one thought:

“This is it: my chance to make a real difference!”

And my research confirmed my optimism: service quality gaps were obvious across multiple customer-facing industries.

Surely, the market was ready for a shift and I had my sleeves rolled up!

Or so I thought.

🫨 What I didn’t account for was the mindset shock.

Of course there are some standout businesses here! Brilliant owners. Ambitious standards.

But in many small & medium-sized companies THAT THE ORDINARY US INTERACT WITH DAILY, the story rolls differently. And a bit too familiar.

I’ve heard this too often “It’s not a priority right now."

And no, it wasn’t about replacing the wallpaper. It was about investing in people & culture.

You’d think that in a market where competition is tough, teams are overworked, retention is a growing headache, businesses would jump at the chance to fix the "soft stuff": culture, service behaviors, mindset. 

And I learned that many business owners want better service! They just don’t want to look too closely at what’s really standing in the way.

Instead, they hope for a workshop to fix:

❗Middle managers who’ve been in the same role for 9 years and lost all curiosity

❗Supervisors resisting feedback like it’s a virus

❗CEOs expecting 5* behaviors from people but refuseing to model it

❗The wrong hiring or lack of onboarding

And when I point these things out?

There’s discomfort.

Sometimes silence. 

Occasionally… resistance disguised as “bad timing."

“Can you just train them?”

Sure. But if training alone worked, I wouldn’t be here.

🔻We expect employees to deliver exceptional service in a mediocre culture.

🔻We hope customer experience will improve while ignoring what happens behind the scenes.

🔻We label people as “unmotivated” when in reality, they’ve been under-supported, under-led, and left in unclear roles for years.

It's a myth that service transformation is expensive. 

But it is inconvenient! To:

🔺ask yourself hard questions as a leader

🔺challenge old habits

🔺accept culture doesn’t break overnight, it breaks silently with every tolerated behavior, every skipped conversation, every employee who stops trying & nobody asks why

Put your employees first!

But there is potential here:

I’ve seen leaders do the work and their teams transform

I’ve seen employees light up when someone finally listens

🚦The real work?

it’s not just training. But rethinking leadership. Rebuilding systems. Most of all, being brave enough to look in the mirror first.

🛎Do you think we are ready to look beyond what the customer sees and fix what the team experiences? 

Because that’s where the real difference starts. And that’s the part I’d love to help you with.

❤️ Let's talk!