Why the Biggest Untapped Opportunity for Brand Success and Customer Experience Starts Inside

There’s untapped potential for corporate brands to accelerate growth, engage employees and enhance the customer experience. To shed some light on this opportunity, reputation and brand expert, Kerry O’Callaghan (Founder of Corporate Brand Consulting, ex VP Corporate Reputation, and Brand at GSK) and I got together to explore this further. Here’s a summary of this eye-opening conversation.

We all know that customers are integral to business growth. They part way with their money in exchange for your services or products, and the lights stay on. Simple.

But where does the employee experience (EX) fit into all of this? And why is it important?

We’ve all seen well-known companies hitting the headlines for not being as rosy on the inside as they would make out on the outside. And there’s a real lesson to learn from this: “company culture” is living, breathing and very much active!

In reality, purpose, culture and values, as well as the journey that a company is on, are leading the current conversation.

A brand can paint the perfect picture, yet it’s the employee experience that sustains it.

Employee activism is a real thing and it’s powerful. If your corporate brand isn’t working well on the inside, you can be sure that the outside will know about it through the power of social media and “citizen journalism”.

For many, this narrative may seem scary, but there is an opportunity. By embracing such activism and giving employee experiences the same attention as customer experiences, corporate brands can drive real value across the organisation.

Whilst companies are resetting and transforming themselves post-pandemic, should organisations focus on better internal alignment and building stronger bridges between their HR, marketing and operations divisions?

Now is the time to delve into this, connecting both the customer and employee experience and working together better.

After all, this is what your customers are looking for too. They want something to believe in, something to be part of, and know that they’re doing something meaningful in society. And they’ll choose the companies and brands that they align with accordingly.

Happy Employees = Happy Customers

We’ve all heard of the term “happy employees = happy customers”. Yet, this isn’t just a concept. For many, it’s a tried and tested recipe for success.

In fact, according to a Salesforce study , companies that have both high employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) see almost double the revenue growth as those that don’t.

Add to this the results of a Citrix “Work 2035” report , which found that 74% of executives anticipate ROI from better EX.

In reality, this is where the magic happens and where you can tap into a grossly missed opportunity on the market. To replicate this success, you need to get back to basics and start listening and joining the dots internally.

Don’t rush into concocting elaborative schemes for improving EX or campaigns to enhance the CX before listening and getting to grips with what motivates your employees first.

Creating listening frameworks encompassing everything from 1-1 feedback to engagement committees and employee focus groups will enable everyone’s voice to be heard.

Pair this up with regular “You Said, We Did” schemes, and you’ll let your employees know that you’re serious about action.

Co-creating an internal space where employees can stay connected, get involved, share their stories and keep up to date with the latest news is a smart move for generating better engagement, especially when many brands are operating hybrid or remote working models.?

In fact, this?strategy worked very well for Just Eat , as the online food delivery service received a positivity rating of 79% and over 46k monthly hits on its intranet after setting up a clear communications channel strategy.

Not only is this good for engagement, but these open methods can be a powerful source of information too.

For example, listening to customer service reps share their most common complaints with the product team may enable new designs that will boost customer satisfaction. This method can also reduce contact centre call volumes (and therefore costs).

And that’s just the start. From just one straightforward initiative, there are multiple wins.

The lesson? Your employees are powerful influencers. So, make sure you let them use their voices from the start by opening up discussions between your marketing, ops and HR teams.

Now, just consider all the other possibilities across an organisation. This is the perfect starting point. With that said, the next step is a much greater leap. But a necessary one if you want to tap into this untapped opportunity to grow the corporate brand and deliver high performance.

Connecting the Customer and Employee Experience

Not only is internal alignment crucial, but another key lesson from companies that have recently got it wrong is that you can’t stand for different things inside/outside of the company. Customer and employee strategies must align.

To perpetuate this message, organisations need the support of the c-suite. A conversation must be had on how to align corporate brand activity, internally and externally.

“Your customer experience will only be great if your employee experience is greater.”

Carol Wain

Your purpose and values act as the integrator and can drive the discussion and decision-making in the business. In fact, Deloitte advises that purpose-driven companies not only receive higher market share and grow three times faster than their competitors, but their customers and employees are more satisfied too. ?

It’ll highlight what the business stands for and why it matters in society beyond delivering shareholder return and becomes the north star that aligns all company decision-making and activity.

Along with a unique set of values (created with your people) that are relatable to every task an employee accomplishes and liveable every day, colleagues will understand “why” they do something and “how”.

With these values, companies can map both customer and employee journeys to intertwine their experiences, ensuring the corporate and employee brands are not just connected but mutually beneficial, creating a virtuous circle.

If everyone is united behind the same purpose, organisations can be loud and proud about who they are and what they represent internally and externally – as well as honest in this respect too.

The Dawn of the “Total Experience”

“In today’s world of social media, there’s no hiding from your customers. What’s on the inside will always show up on the outside.” Kerry O’Callaghan

A single focus on EX and CX no longer cuts the mustard. Every business is increasingly being viewed through one single lens. Things will have to change: your corporate brand needs to take note and start connecting EX, CX and UX.

In doing so, you can change course to an approach that was coined by Gartner as the Total Experience (TX) — which they have interestingly also predicted to be one of the biggest technology trends of this year . This will involve setting a single, consistent standard for how the company acts, no matter the department.

Another way to approach this is to consider the corporate brand and the employer brand. The corporate brand is a company’s promise to the world, while the employer brand is your promise to colleagues.

The corporate brand sets out the purpose, the WHY and provides emotional engagement to unify. Whereas the employer brand communicates the employment deal (promise and expectation) between the company and the individual, ensuring that their people can be the best version of themselves and their best ambassadors.

To put this into practice, the corporate brand needs to:

• Be authentic and transparent – Don’t be afraid to be open, honest and visible. There’s nothing to hide.
• Hold a consistent corporate voice – This relates to the many initiatives/campaigns that may be launched, which should gain organisation-wide internal engagement and investment first.
• Embrace internal influencers as ambassadors - Employees will ideally be proud and have the opportunity to learn and train as trusted ambassadors of the brand.

Whereas the employer brand must be:

• Aspirational – A living expression of your culture, delivering meaning for your people and led strongly by purpose.
• People-centric – Human-focused, relevant to your people and the moments that matter to them, their career journey and the relationship the employee has with the employer.?
• Truthful and honest – If you say this outside, you must be it.
• Communicated and delivered consistently – Delivering your brand internally means the best people experience from hire to retire. This needs to be seen, felt, heard, experienced.

So, what do you need to do to make the most of this untapped opportunity? By opening up dialogue between internal functions as well as working together, and co-creating values and experiences, rather than working on these in isolation. Ask yourself:

• How often does the board align corporate and employer brand conversations and strategy?
• Can every employee articulate the company purpose and understand their role in helping to deliver it?
• How often do we celebrate the people behind the company (our employees) to our customers?
• How often is marketing involving employees and making them aware of what’s going on externally?
• How often does marketing promote external products, campaigns, and initiatives to colleagues, or even involve them first?
• How often does HR or Engagement teams advise marketing of engagement levels and the challenges that might be affecting employees, which in turn has a knock-on impact on CX?

Statistics show just how vital these internal conversations are, not just from a culture and brand identity perspective, but a commercial one too.

By getting your corporate and employer brand identities right and starting from the inside first, businesses can unite their brand, internally and externally, and set off on a course for success.

Do you agree? You can continue the conversation by following Gemma McGrattan and Kerry O’Callaghan on LinkedIn.?