The Power of Employee Experience
With love in the air throughout February, we’re directing our focus to something close to all our hearts; Employee Experience!
Earlier this month, we invited our wonderful community members to contribute their insights and personal experiences to our collaborative article on the crucial topic of EX, asking the following: “To what extent do you believe employee experience contributes to customer experience?”
Our community never fails to impress us with their valuable insights and practical tips, offering some brilliant perspectives collated in this article.
There’s Proof
Annie Mamigonians, Consultant at AnnieMam, has researched the topic of employee experience in great detail through her MSc. She conducted her thesis on employee engagement through improved communications and empowered problem-solving, linking to customer satisfaction.
“Increased employee engagement and experience drive increased customer experience and satisfaction,” she explains.
Annie suggests that effective internal communication frameworks significantly improve employee engagement, citing potential productivity increases of up to 25%. She adds, “Ultimately, increased employee engagement through open and timely communications creates a culture of employee and manager openness and information sharing.”
Leonie Williams, Co-Founder and Director at Customer Service Solutions Group, has further research to back up the claim that “high employee engagement is crucial.”
She states, “Research shows a positive correlation between engagement and higher customer satisfaction (CSAT). A 1% rise in employee engagement (EE) translates to a 0.5% rise in CSAT (ICS).
“Engaged employees are not only more productive but also contribute more discretionary effort. When supported by a well-aligned overall purpose, appropriate technology, systems, and processes, employee engagement becomes a powerful driver, accelerating the progress of customer experience initiatives.”
Is the Customer Always Right?
“Employee experience contributes immensely, if not completely 100%, towards genuine and sustainable customer experience excellence,” says Carolyne Gathuru, Strategy Consultant, Corporate Trainer and Public Speaking Coach at LifeSkills Consulting.
“During CX training sessions for various corporate groups, we run a pop quiz [...] One of the questions asked is, ‘The internal customer is more important than the external customer, true or false?’ 99% of the time, the participating team will quickly press the buzzer and chime out ‘False!’ Then, the whole room (both teams) will, on cue, have very perplexed and confused expressions when the verdict arrives that ‘False’ is an incorrect answer.”
“Employee experience contributes immensely, if not completely 100%, towards genuine and sustainable customer experience excellence.”
Caroline explains that during the debrief post the CX quickfire, it often emerges that many organisations are still “worshipping” external customers and believe that “the customer is always right”. During the discussion, it became clear that this assertion does not consider the voice of both internal and external customers.
“We really do need to keep on emphasizing the power of employee journey mapping and excellence infusion for customer experience excellence delivery,” she concludes.
Shifting Mindset
“Whenever I'm running a workshop or consulting with a client for CX, I always start with, ‘You can't expect someone who's having a bad experience to give a good experience’,” explains Lara Khouri, Co-Founder at The CEO Maker.
“I once had the responsibility of transitioning a department of around 24 people across the Middle East and Africa within a charity from being fully funded to operating a full cost recovery model. The staff were confused, scared, and angry because they felt that they were being asked to do something they didn't want to do and didn't know how to do.”
“You can't expect someone who's having a bad experience to give a good experience.”
Asking the COO if anyone had worked with the staff to shift their mindset, Lara realised they hadn’t. “I spent months working one-on-one and in small groups to help the staff get comfortable with the idea of proactively consulting; I coached, mentored, and ran workshops; and I joined almost all their meetings [...] to help them shift their mindset from one of fear to one of understanding,” she says.
Lara explains that if she had not taken that action, the team members' confusion and fear would have severely impacted the overall customer experience. She highlights the impact of this transformation on overall customer experience, citing a 25% overachievement of income targets in the first year.
Keep Employees Happy
Customer Experience and Service Design Consultant Tijana Tasich, says, “I'm a huge believer in the impact that positive employee experiences have on customer experiences and business success. Mind you, that's not the only factor influencing a company's success, but it greatly contributes.”
Tijana emphasises the connection between the experiences of employees and customers. “Happy employees, who feel valued and heard, tend to be more productive and eager to exceed expectations, leading to a better service or product.”
Clare White, Founder and Managing Director at ConnectedCX, agrees. “Employee experience and customer experience are symbiotic. Without happy employees, you will not have happy customers (and vice versa).”
She highlights that when your employees are not happy and empowered, it affects the consistency of customer experience, leading to issues around quality and proactivity. “The result [is] increased customer complaints, firefighting, and even lower employee morale. It’s a vicious circle that is hard to stop.”
Listen to Those Closest to the Customers
“I think it's essential that employees are not only engaged with what you are doing to improve the customer experience, but they actively feel like they have the ability to input,” says Senior Customer Experience Leader Katie Costello, giving an example from her time at Waitrose: “During any 'Discovery' phase for proposition development [...] we would always ideate key hypotheses to test that we believe could be an opportunity platform for a potential solution to an identified customer problem.”
“A must-have in our ideation session would be employees that were closest to the customer to really help us bring the identified problem to life and to provide rich content, ideas and passion for opportunities we could explore to make a positive improvement for the customer.
“We commonly saw how connected CX and EX improvements were. For larger store trial projects, we would always include, in our trial business case, resources from the store teams as they always proved to be invaluable parts of the development team,” she explains.
The Bigger Picture
Amanda Riches, Senior Director, Head of CX & EX Consulting, EMEA at Medallia, underscores the importance of taking a holistic approach to EX and CX in order to stay competitive. “[Our clients] are creating an environment where employees feel empowered to share their voices in real-time and are mobilised to drive improvement and innovation.
“The accountability for driving change is moving from HR teams to everyone in the business. In addition to [...] engagement surveys, organisations are now listening at many points throughout the employee lifecycle,” she says.
“The part that I really love is when clients also ensure ‘always on’ channels to give feedback to help remove barriers that get in the way of them serving their customers, and when they energise their employees to give feedback on a targeted customer issue/pain point or crowdsource ideas and solutions to improve experiences. This not only improves customer experiences but also improves the lives of those at the frontline and makes them feel more empowered,” Amanda concludes.
“The accountability for driving change is moving from HR teams to everyone in the business.”
Anne Dawson, Senior Manager of Employee Development and Training at CallMiner, shares some key strategies implemented by her organisation:
“Streamlining Internal Processes: Collaborating with frontline employees, [we] identified and addressed internal inefficiencies to streamline processes and enhance efficiency.
Empathy Training: Recognising the pivotal role of empathy in customer interactions, CallMiner conducted company-wide empathy training workshops. These sessions, including a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and personality differences workshops, fostered a culture of understanding and collaboration among employees.
Upskill Training: Technical employees were provided with upskill training to enhance their abilities, while direct communication channels with internal departments were established to expedite issue resolution and customer feedback handling.”
Anne explains that these efforts yielded great results. “Employees felt valued and empowered, leading to a significant improvement in morale. This positive shift [...] directly translated into a notable increase in the NPS score by 28 points the following year!”
A Strategic Investment
Customer Experience Consultant at Simmons CX, Hannah Cornaby, says, “Happy employees translate to happy customers. Satisfied staff, empowered with knowledge and resources, naturally deliver better service, building lasting relationships and loyalty. Conversely, frustrated employees project negativity, hindering customer satisfaction and hindering valuable feedback.”
“Satisfied staff, empowered with knowledge and resources, naturally deliver better service, building lasting relationships and loyalty.”
According to Hannah, customers are more likely to share their concerns with engaged employees, leading to early intervention and proactive issue resolution. “Investing in employee experience isn't just a feel-good measure, it's a strategic investment in building lasting customer relationships and a thriving business. Simply put, invest in your employees, invest in your customers' experience – it's a win-win.”
Serena Riley, Head of Customer Experience at ConverSight, reflects on an example from her own experiences. “In one of my roles, we faced challenges with an adjacent team's employee accountability, communication, morale and retention, which inevitably affected our customer service quality.
“The members of this team often pointed blame at other teams, made excuses for why they could not deliver and did not collaborate well with other customer-facing teams. By adjusting the leadership within the team and focusing on empathy, transparency, and communication, we not only improved the team's morale but also significantly enhanced our customer satisfaction ratings.”
Serena’s diagram used to explain Experience Management, taking into account the employee, customer and business needs.
A Measurable Difference
Giving an example of how communications play a huge role, Gavin James, the CX Strategy Consultant and Director of Creative Services at Beyond the Arc, says, “At a top 5 bank, the B2B Payroll Services business was struggling with customer retention. When my agency looked closely at how they function and communicate [...], it was overwhelmingly product and process-focused and not connected to the needs and concerns of their customers. The real heavy lift was getting leadership and employees on board.”
One of the key strategies used to improve performance was demonstrating what their current work looked like compared to what it could look like if they were to think more like a customer. “We included interactive exercises so they could practice it themselves. The stark contrast really opened their eyes.”
“The real heavy lift was getting leadership and employees on board.”
An example of how bad employee experience leads to poor customer experience comes from the resolution team, which, as explained by Gavin, “dealt with complaints and service cancellations. Their job was hard and depressing.”
“Giving the team new ways to think about engagement and new, more reassuring and empathetic language to use helped them see customers as people, not numbers, and feel more upbeat and hopeful about doing their job,” she says.
Empowerment
Empowerment is key, as highlighted by the Managing Director at SuiteCX by QuestionPro, Valerie Peck. She emphasises that without it, exceptional employee experiences are unlikely. In smaller, more cohesive environments, trust is implicit. However, as organisations expand, doubts about staff capabilities may arise.
“One thing I have seen in 30 years of being in the business is that almost no one shows up to cheat their company or to give a bad experience to their customers. The ones that do can be washed out of the system fast. But if you pay fairly or a bit more than that – you treat your employees right – give them tools and information to enable them, then empower them – suddenly there is a shift from the bottom up.”
Finally, Valerie shares a valuable piece of advice: “Recognise them all for who they are for your company.”
Join the Conversation
At Women in CX, we encourage knowledge exchange, relationship building and healthy debate. There are plenty of opportunities to get involved, share your views and have your voice amplified.
