Select Page
Customer Retention, Team Development — The Hidden Challenge for HR

Customer Retention, Team Development — The Hidden Challenge for HR

by | 23 Jun 2025 | business strategy, customer experience, Human resources, Training & Development

Why do so many companies struggle to build genuine customer loyalty, even with solid products and experienced salespeople?
Because they overlook a critical factor: the quality of human interaction at every level of the organisation. Client relationships are not just about calls and meetings — they’re rooted in company culture, the way people are trained, how skills are managed, and the role HR plays as a strategic driver.

Why do customers leave?

This is the question that haunts leadership teams. They revise sales scripts, switch CRM systems, redesign offerings. Yet despite all the effort, customers still churn. In a world ruled by immediacy, loyalty has become a kind of holy grail — and a source of constant anxiety.

But loyalty doesn’t hinge solely on the product or the salesperson. It’s built through small gestures, thoughtful experiences, consistency. And that requires far more than just a sales department. It involves the entire organisation.

So the real question becomes: Is your company truly listening to its clients — or is it hoping that one team will do that work alone?

Customer relationships are not just the sales team’s job

In Swiss companies — especially SMEs and decentralised structures — sales teams are often under pressure: to acquire, convince, close. But selling today is no longer a one-off transaction. It’s a continuous process where every touchpoint matters.

A field technician, a back-office assistant replying to an invoice request, a trainer delivering a service — each one, in their own way, shapes the customer experience. And, ultimately, customer loyalty.

Customer relationship training should not be reserved for sales roles. It’s a cross-functional issue. One that HR can and must lead.

Human skills first

Sales skills in the 21st century are no longer just about persuasion. They’re grounded in human abilities: empathy, listening, assertiveness, relationship-building, anticipating needs.

These capabilities are often found in unexpected profiles — project managers, quality leads, customer support reps, internal consultants. But they must be identified, valued, and developed. That calls for serious investment in skills mapping, learning strategies, and leadership culture.

Internal engagement drives external loyalty

One often overlooked truth: customer loyalty starts with employee loyalty. A company that cannot retain and engage its own people is unlikely to build lasting relationships with its clients. High turnover, psychological fatigue, and lack of recognition all erode the customer experience.

On the other hand, companies that focus on collective intelligence, continuous learning, and employee empowerment naturally deliver better client interactions — not by force, but through alignment. Through consistency.

Towards a relationship-driven culture

The best training programmes in customer acquisition and retention don’t just teach how to sell. They help embed a relationship-driven culture across the organisation. One that crosses silos, encourages listening, and turns client feedback into a driver of innovation.

For HR, this means moving beyond targeted workshops to leading genuine transformation: mapping relationship skills, redesigning learning journeys, developing hybrid roles, and building bridges across departments.

HR at a strategic crossroads

The question is no longer whether HR should support commercial performance. The real question is: can we still separate the two?
In a service economy, where trust is scarce and relationships define value, customer acquisition and retention are deeply human challenges. And therefore, fundamentally, HR responsibilities.

The most successful companies of tomorrow won’t be the ones that simply sell better — but the ones that train their teams to embody the company’s promise, every day.

Management and Leadership: at a crossroads

Management and Leadership: at a crossroads

by | 19 May 2025 | Business transformation, Human resources, Leadership & Governance, Management & Organization, Management innovation

Why Current Models Are Showing Their Limits

As companies emerge—albeit unevenly—from years of turbulence—pandemic, inflation, supply chain disruptions, and digital transitions—a deeper challenge is taking shape: that of management.
Traditional categories—leader, manager, executive—seem increasingly ill-suited to today’s challenges. Behind the proliferation of discourse on “agility,” “well-being at work,” or “inspirational leadership,” a fundamental question is emerging: what if it’s the structures of power themselves, more than individuals, that need rethinking?

 

Leadership or Collective Coordination?

The 20th century produced a managerial imaginary centered on the figure of the leader: charismatic, visionary, a driver of transformation. This model remains prominent in professional literature, HR seminars, and MBA programs.

But in a world now marked by permanent uncertainty and systemic complexity, this paradigm is showing its limits.

Researchers like Henry Mintzberg and Frédéric Laloux advocate for a different approach: distributed leadership, where organizational performance depends less on one individual and more on the collective’s ability to self-organize, make decisions, and learn.
This implies a cultural shift—from management based on control to a logic of trust and subsidiarity.

 

Managerial Malaise: A systemic symptom

Studies keep pointing to the same issues: increased burnout among executives, silent resignations, and a crisis of meaning among middle managers.

They are expected to be strategists, coaches, team cohesion guarantors, and performance drivers—all at once. This role overload reflects less a lack of competence than a structural imbalance.

Management becomes a space of tension, where short-term economic objectives clash with human, ethical, and environmental expectations.

 

Rethinking Managerial Functions: an organizational urgency

Many organizations are trying to adapt their practices: holacracy, “teal” models, co-development, team coaching, collective intelligence… These attempts reveal one thing: the need to explore new configurations of power, authority, and decision-making.

But this is not just a technical adjustment. It’s deep work, involving cultural choices, political trade-offs, and often a change in posture from the leadership itself.

 

What Now?

The transformation of management will not come through a new miracle method or a proliferation of “soft skills” trainings. It requires a reflective, collective, and iterative effort on what it means today to “lead,” “coordinate,” and “mobilize.”
It’s time to ask the real questions:

  • What constitutes legitimate power in an organization?
  • What space is there for voice, disagreement, and initiative?
  • How can responsibility be redefined without being diluted?

 

Want to go deeper?

Some institutions—research centers, practitioner collectives, training organizations—support this kind of reflection without imposing a specific model. For instance, Swissnova offers spaces for discussion and experimentation around new forms of management. Their approach is less prescriptive and more participative, favoring questions over ready-made answers.

This article is part of a series of reflections on the evolution of contemporary management. Its goal is not to promote a single model, but to open avenues for thought, based on the tensions observed in current practices.