Defining the link between Employee Engagement and Employee Ambassadorship

Our recent ‘Employee Ambassadorship Webinar‘ which took place on Tuesday October, 8th 2013, was a great success and extremely well-attended! During the event we received a number of really excellent questions from participants. We were limited on time, therefore we have answered some of the questions attendees asked during the session and here are the responses provided post webinar.

How do you get the Executive team and managers to embrace this philosophy when the team keeps asking but no changes are made?
Nothing breeds success like success. Getting the executive team to invest in small pilot, and test and control, projects, whether with employee research, training, communication, process modification, reward and recognition, etc. will demonstrate the value of an ambassadorship approach. Then, broader programs can be built on the success of the initial pilot programs.

Should C-suite enable a culture of employee empowerment to allow employee and customer to work together?
Some organizations actively bring customers into the center of the enterprise. If there is good management and teamwork, with value built-in for all participants, collaboration, on an array of possible customer-focused issues, can be very successful. C-suite would be well-advised not only to enable this kind of culture, but should encourage and actively promote it.

Is there an employee survey that you recommend?
Beyond Philosophy has extensive experience, in multiple industries, with both employee engagement and employee ambassadorship research.

I would like to understand more about the link between customer attitude/behavior and customer experience.
There have been a number of professional and academic studies, in multiple industries, linking employee attitudes and behaviors with the value customers perceive in their experiences. Through targeted research, and resultant training, communication, process, and reward and recognition programs, ambassadorship formalizes
the direction employee engagement has been trending toward for years: optimizing employee commitment to the organization and its goals, to the company’s unique value proposition, and to the customer. So, while the ambassadorship research framework does include questions on job satisfaction and belief in the organization, the core is really about specific employee behaviors and a set of beliefs based on experience as a staff member.

Is focus on ambassadorship creating the same results as focusing on customer experience?
This is a chicken-and-egg question, i.e. does focusing on the employee generate as much benefit for the organization as enhancing the customer experience; and there is ongoing debate about which should be the priority. Entire books, in fact, have been written on this subject (such as The Customer Comes Second by Hal Rosenbluth and Diane Peters). There is general agreement that both should receive high priority and emphasis if an enterprise is going to be successful. What ambassadorship does mandate, however, is that having employees focus on the customer will definitely drive more positive experiences and stronger loyalty behavior.

Employee Engagement Online Training Certification Course 2014
If you are interested in the subject of Employee Engagement and want to learn more, why not enrol on our Employee Engagement Certification course? Click here to find out more.