How Employee Engagement Can Improve the Customer Experience

First, measure overall employee engagement

But rewarding employees is only part of keeping employees engaged. Even if you hand out gift cards every quarter, that may not be enough to motivate employees. It’s a good idea to use employee engagement surveys to find out what employees think of their jobs and your organization in general. But in order to get useful responses, you need to ask the right questions. Here are some employee survey examples to get started:

Give your employees a survey to get an overall sense of their engagement and employee satisfaction

Ask employees to share their perceptions of a co-worker or manager’s behavior with a 360-degree employee evaluation survey

Ensure employees that their responses are anonymous so they feel they can give you honest feedback

Survey employees regularly to set internal and external employee engagement benchmarks so you can measure progress and set goals

Next, measure the underlying work conditions

Once you collect general employee feedback, you need to figure out why employees feel (or don’t feel) motivated and engaged. Ask your employees to weigh in on specific workplace issues with human resources surveys that address issues like:

Career development

Relationships with management

Employee benefits

Work environment

Work-life balance

And, if you do happen to lose an employee or two, make sure they fill out an employee exit survey so you can collect invaluable feedback on what may be causing employees to look elsewhere for employment.

Finally, reward employees for their good work

So what do you do if you find employees aren’t motivated? Show employees you appreciate their hard work–and reward them for their efforts–by incentivizing excellent work. You can achieve this by identifying all-star employees and awarding them publicly with a desirable prize, such as a bonus or a gift card. Whether you establish regular quarterly goals or reward one-off achievements, keep your employees motivated and engaged so they’re proud of (and invested in) your organization. In turn, they’ll treat your customers with the care they deserve.

Engaged employees serve customers better

Even though employee engagement is complex and has many factors, get a head start on keeping employees happy by asking them how they feel. Because when you collect employee feedback that will direct improvements internally, your organization will shine on the outside. Improved employee satisfaction and customer service? It’s a win-win.