You Will Never Have Happy Customers without Happy Employees

Satisfaction is a cycle. It may have your customer at the center, but it has your employees at every point in the journey. More engaged and fulfilled employees support more productive, efficient, and happier customer journeys. And in turn, happy customers are more relaxed, nicer, more loyal, and more likely to make your employees happier in their roles.

This seemingly obvious point is easier said than done, but the companies that can do it generate twice the revenues as companies with disengaged employees. By arming your employees with useful customer information, streamlining the process of connecting the right employee to each customer, and giving regular feedback, you can drive significant change for your organization – much of which could impact your bottom line for the better. John Dalton, VP at Forrester sums it up well:

Engaged employees deliver better experiences, boost profits, and are less likely to jump ship. But to appoint employees as customer advocates for and participants in the customer experience, organizations must weave customer centricity into their entire ecosystem.

Happiness Goes Hand in Hand
Study after study confirms a strong correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. The process for improving employee engagement has a lot of crossover into the customer journey. Providing employees with insight related to their role in the customer journey is one of the most fundamental things you can do to improve their engagement. Putting the right resources in place is incredibly simple compared with the dividends they produce.

For example, online appointment booking and self-check-in kiosks not only help employees to manage customer volume, these resources supply them with information about each customer; who they are, why the visit, what service they request, etc. The control and insight these resources provide empower your employees to do their job more effectively. They can see more customers, and do so in a way that is more relational. In turn, the customer experience is more efficient and personalized, leading to a higher level of delight and loyalty.

With online and mobile appointment management, service providers can capture vital customer information early. Information that can be used by employees to prepare for an upcoming meeting. (Image by Qmatic)

Similarly, connecting employees to the customers who need their specific service or knowledge at that point in time generates efficiencies, a level of satisfaction for the customer, and a sense of fulfillment for the employee who has been able to successfully perform their role. The employee becomes a customer advocate.

Mobile technology has literally revolutionized your ability to enable this kind of customer journey satisfaction cycle. Communication is more instant, and customers can connect with the most knowledgeable and appropriate employees, wherever they may be. The journey becomes more seamless and integrated through a device likely already in the hands of the customers and employees.

The third piece of the puzzle in the process of improving the connection between of employee and customer delight is feedback. By shortening the feedback loop, employees get more immediate, specific, and useful information about how they have performed their task and how they could improve.

More than one study has shown that highly engaged, high performing employees are more than twice as likely to receive feedback at least once a week, compared to their low performing counterparts. Gathering direct feedback from customers and delivering those insights to your employees on a consistent basis, tells your customers and employees that you care about their experience.

90% of leaders think an employee engagement strategy impacts the bottom line, yet only 25% actually take steps to define that strategy.

Employees and customers are engaged in a relationship. The steps and resources you engage to improve each side will strengthen the customer journey, brand, and bottom line. That is what impact looks like – empower employees to perform well, so they can act on your behalf to delight those you serve.

Sources
• Employee Engagement Is More Important Than the Customer, Entrepreneur Magazine, October 2015
• Why employee engagement could soon be critical to improving customer journeys, My Customer, October 2014
• Ten statistics reveal why employee engagement is more important than ever, 9 Inch Marketing

Image courtesy; Qmatic