You may work hard to keep your customers happy by collecting feedback at many customer touchpoints – and making improvements accordingly. But managing customer satisfaction externally is only part of the equation. What about the employees who serve your customers? How do your organisation’s internal dynamics affect the overall customer experience?
Numerous studies have shown that a dissatisfied employee is unlikely to provide good customer service or pass vital customer feedback up the chain. If employees aren’t engaged with their jobs, they are probably not representing your organisation very well. And this can poison your customer relationships – and the overall customer experience.
In fact, employee disengagement is a bigger problem than most employers realise. One Gallup study found that 70% of American workers are either not engaged or actively disengaged with their jobs. Disengagement is a complex issue and can stem from many sources, such as an unclear career path, poor professional relationships or an unpleasant work environment.
It’s up to you to address these problems and provide employees with the morale and motivation they need to offer customers the best experience. Here’s how.
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 organisation 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 colleague or manager’s behaviour with a 360-degree employee evaluation survey
Assure 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’ve collected general employee feedback, you need to work out why employees feel (or don’t feel) motivated and engaged. Ask your employees to give their opinions about specific workplace issues with human resources surveys that address issues such as:
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 that employees aren’t motivated? Show employees you appreciate their hard work – and reward them for their efforts – by incentivising 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 that they’re proud of (and invested in) your organisation. 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 organisation will shine on the outside. Improved employee satisfaction and customer service? It’s a win-win.
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Visit Page3 quick tips to improve survey response rates
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