Without empowerment, an organization will never be a service leader. Empowerment is the most critical skill an employee can master and a company can drive in order to lure?and keep?customers.

Advertising will get a customer through the door to your business once, but it is service that will keep them coming back. Advertising is aimed at the masses; customer service is aimed at the individual. Service recovery creates word-of-mouth advertising that is 100 times cheaper and more powerful than traditional advertising.

Recognition is another important element of empowerment. Employees who make empowered decisions should be recognized and rewarded. Celebrate them. Feature them in the company publication. Give them a prime parking spot near the front door for a week. Throw a pizza party. By doing so, you are sending a message to the rest of the workforce that empowerment is important.

I've discovered four dirty little secrets of empowerment. And those little secrets are preventing 99.9 percent of companies around the world from providing the superior service customers want. As a result, they are driving many of those customers away.

You can't tie employees' hands with cumbersome policies and procedures and expect them to provide exceptional service. It's also important to let employees know that it is OK to make a mistake in the process of working to win customer satisfaction.

What we're talking about is improving customer service. Virtually any company can benefit from this.