You Need to Keep Employees Happy to Keep Customers at the Door.

Without gaining new customers and keeping the existing ones, a business is placed into hot water. This is business 101. Increasing prices and fees to compensate for lost customers is a strategy often short lived. We function in an economy when customers hold far more power than ever before. The customer is not just king, they can be judge, jury and executioner too. In a fierce race for customers what gives a business the edge?

Product and service reviews are done with few easy clicks of a button or via a telephonic questionnaire. Customer ratings are reviewed and competitive service offerings scrutinised. The internet and social media have added a new dimension to attracting and informing customers. When so much information is available, what sets one business apart from a competitor? What makes an impact on business ratings is how the customer is made to feel on their entire journey with the business. The customer experience matters, from product browsing to customer service experience, employee interaction and purchase.

What is Customer Experience?

Customer Experience (CX), as per Wikipedia definition, is the product of an interaction between an organisation and customer over the duration of their relationship. This interaction is made up of three parts: the customer journey, the brand touch points the customer interacts with, and the environments the customer experiences (including the digital environment) during their experience. 

Intense attention is given and resources used on evaluating the customer experience. Re-focusing and changing trajectory where necessary. Customer Experience Management is a role developed in companies to ensure the Cx is optimal at all times.

Data from The Temkin Group indicates that how employees feel has a great impact on how customers will feel:

• Customer experience leaders have 1.5 times as many engaged employees as do customer experience laggards.
• Compared with disengaged employees, highly engaged employees are more than four times as likely to recommend the company’s products and services and do something good for the company that is not expected of them, 2.5 times as likely to stay at work late if something needs to be done after the normal workday ends, and seven times as likely to recommend that a friend or relative apply for a job at their company.
• 63% of highly engaged employees always try their hardest at work, compared with 42% of disengaged employees.

The Employee Experience. 

The Employee Experience (EX) not very unlike the customer experience is how the employee experiences their time in the organisation. From the first job interview to performance reviews, workplace culture and coffee mugs. Many elements affect how engaged employees will be in their job, and this, in turn, impacts the customer experience.

Employee Experience (Ex) and Customer Experience (Cx) are intertwined. If employees are actively engaged, fully comfortable and motivated in their roles this will go a long way towards improving Cx and providing a Cx-product and service included. An experience that customers are most likely to recommend. 

Simply put, when employees feel good, valued, and connected with the business, and enjoy the company of colleagues-these positive feelings become infectious. In many cases, the person on the receiving end of an employees emotions and opinions are the customers. If employees are disgruntled, the customer is the last person the business owner wants hearing about it.

Looking at the Cx and Ex Relationship a Little Differently.

Customers when satisfied or more often when dissatisfied are quick to share their thoughts, opinions and review of a product or service. Employees can have an impact on this experience as they are at the coal face of customer interaction. Employers desire a top-drawer experience for customers as it is a return on the businesses investment.

Employees are customers too.

Employees are the internal customers of the business. Their experience and interaction with the organisation are as important as the customer's experience if not more. Gallup reports in “The State of the American Workplace” that engaged employees are more likely to improve customer relationships, with a resulting 20% increase in sales.

Happy employees are more likely to recommend their employer and share their opinions on the workplace in the same fashion as a customer shares their experience. Consumers also allow how employees are treated to influence their decisions on brand loyalty.

The Bottom Line.

The bottom line, and not only the financial one is that a business owner or leader needs to approach customers from two angles- both internal and external customers make the business a success.