In simple words, customer experience is how your customers perceive your brand, whereas employee experience is how your employees perceive your organization.
Now, all this time, it has always been about customers and how to achieve the heights of customer experience. Because customer experience is all that matters to propel your brand towards success and more success. So how does your employee happiness quotient matter here? Or does it matter at all?
Studies suggest that organizations with highly motivated and engaged employees can outpace their competition by almost 147 percent[1]. So, that underlines the significance of employee motivation management in your customer experience management program.
The value of employee experience (EX): EX is the new customer experience (CX)
Come to think of it, the fact that happy employees produce happy customers is a no-brainer. When your employees are happy they will exude all-round positivity which will reflect in their demeanor as well as customer interactions, leading to happy customers.
As such, studies suggest that nearly 80 percent of top executives[2] believe EX is critical for success in CX initiatives; the best companies to work for also experience 4 percent more stock returns[3] in the USA. According to James McQuivey of Forrester Research, “Your employees are the most important asset you have to help you serve today’s customers while adapting to tomorrow’s customer-satisfying processes and technologies”.
Today, employees expect more from their workplace and career. As McQuivey says, “Employees have better information, more options and many avenues for communication—leading them to have higher expectations of their employer than before”. Every organization wants its employees to engage and stay invested in the brand. As such, according to Forrester, almost 48 percent of top US organizations[4] have dedicated employee motivation management programmes today. This percentage is likely to increase to 65 percent[5] as more and more organizations experience soaring employee quit rates.
Employee productivity might not be the best judge of employee experience. And you might wonder if your customers actually notice or even realize if your employees like your brand or not. However, employee perception is keenly felt by customers, especially your long-term customers. Customers interacting with unhappy employees can easily sense their dissatisfaction through verbal and non-verbal language. And one poor experience has got enough potential to turn away your customers who might not even care to share feedback then. So, ideally, you are getting to know about only a tiny fraction of employee behavior problems that your customers experience.
So how do you ensure a positive employee experience?
To gain success with your employee motivation management endeavors, you need to:
- Offer a sense of safety and security – How safe do your employees feel working with you? What are your policies if they fall sick? How do you ensure their safety while dealing with your customers? There are countless ways to ensure that they feel cared for and secure, working with you. Here, employee engagement software can be of great help in gathering qualitative and quantitative employee feedback.
- Offer resources they need for work and to grow professionally – Promotions within your sub-hierarchy, training for up-skilling and cross-skilling, and allowing shadow resources, facilitate better learning and exposure among employees. You should provide the necessary support to employees who want to gain exposure outside their regular line of work. This will encourage them to look into your company and what it has to offer, instead of job-hunting outside.
- Make work more meaningful – Recognition programs and volunteering initiatives are some identity benefits that can boost employees’ self-esteem and sense of belonging to your organization. These are among the top drivers of employee engagement.
- Encourage socializing among teams – Encourage your team members to socialize and know each other, help them resolve their problems, and try to analyze the emotional impact of your decisions. A positive disposition while dealing with employees, helps reduce burnout, and emotional issues at the workplace and supports a thriving culture of emotional support.
The primary step to ensure a positive employee experience is by engaging your team members, which is best done using an employee engagement software. With it, you can make improved data-driven decisions about employee perceptions across your organization and boost their levels of emotional investment in your company. That, in turn, will create more happy customers.
