How empowered are your employees? As a corporate executive, it’s an important question to ask today – for many reasons. Amid historically low unemployment rates and rising wages, companies need to do everything in their power to retain their best employees.

One way to ensure employee satisfaction is to give them meaningful work in which they own the trajectory. Of course, guidelines need to be set, but when employees have the capability to see projects through from start to finish and make quick decisions that benefit customers, they’ll not only feel more empowered, but they’ll also be helping to create a company that customers like doing business with.

Many managers forget about their customer base when they micromanage everything their employees do. When strategies for sales, marketing, development, customer service and technology are made without the customer’s user experience in mind, everything falls apart. I saw this in action recently when I went to Barnes & Noble to purchase a specific book for my wife’s birthday. When I couldn’t find the book, I asked a cashier for help. He quickly located it for me, but caught me off guard with what he said: “You know, that book is going on sale soon. Half price.”

Well, that stopped me in my tracks. It was a $35 book and half price sounded good. “Do you know when exactly that’s going to happen?” I asked him, “because I need the book for a present in two days.” He checked his computer and said, “August 22,” which was three days from that very moment. I needed it the day before and said that out loud to the guy.

Now, let’s press pause on this story for a moment. The guy in the book store in that instance knew three things: I wanted to purchase the book I was holding; I needed it within a two-day window; and I was intrigued by the upcoming half-price sale.

“Many managers forget about their customer base when they micromanage everything their employees do.”— Andy Cohen

An empowered employee, knowing that the book was about to go on sale anyway, would have offered it to me for half off. Of course, there are always ramifications to that decision (lost revenue being one, but other marketing factors related to the exact timing of the 50%-off sale are others), but Barnes & Noble in that moment wasn’t thinking about its most important assets: employees and customers. If he had made the offer to apply the sale price a few days earlier than planned, both he and I would have been incredibly satisfied with our experience with the company.

Instead? I quickly looked at the Amazon app on my phone – while standing in the store – and found the book available for $23. A couple of taps later, the book was on order from Amazon and I walked out of the store empty-handed.

The tally for Barnes & Noble: One unempowered employee, a customer who bought nothing after being ready to pull out a credit card and zero revenue. It all adds up to a big mistake that could’ve been avoided if an employee knew he could make a simple decision that would’ve won over a wavering customer.

What simple decisions can you also put into your employees’ hands? The results for both customers and staffers would be worth the effort.