Temkin group points out that organizations must be customer centric internally before they can improve the experiences they deliver externally. In other words, the roots of customer experience delivery can be traced to the efforts of employees who, directly or indirectly, serve customers. Whilst customer-oriented teams are better adept at providing excellent services and resolving customer problems, highly satisfied employees within such teams have higher chances of meeting the needs of customers.

In a popular tweet by Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, the correlation between employee experience and customer experience is made explicit – “If you look after your staff well, they will look after your customers. Simple.” Not only does this imply a call to action for better staff treatment, engagement and support, it also begs for a reconsideration of a trope that has, for a long while, placed the employee many steps below the customer – “the customer is always right.”

“If you look after your staff well, they will look after your customers. Simple.” – Richard Branson

By placing employee experience on the same pedestal as customer experience, and ensuring that efforts to keep employees happy are as ingrained as the efforts to keep customers happy, businesses can benefit from the positive ripple effect of employee satisfaction. These outcomes range from a four-fold increase in profitability to a doubled outperformance of competitors according to Blake Morgan, a customer experience futurist and author of “The Customer Of The Future: 10 Guiding Principles For Winning Tomorrow’s Business.” This explains why Shelly Kramer has linked the battle for customers to the battle for talent, implying that as brands look to engage customers and keep them coming, so also should their efforts to engage employees and keep them happy be maximized.

In the two ways delineated below, we can trace the ways employees can be empowered and treated so that their happiness can translate to the happiness of the customers they serve.

Empowering employees to deliver to customers

The systems through which employees attend to customers must be user-friendly and optimal. With the increasing digitization and automation of services, there is a need for technological innovation in the tools and resources through which employees and customers interact. Currently, CRM software such as Salesforce and Zoho are key players in customer data aggregation and support. However, they are mostly integrated to sales and marketing tools, making them less focused on customer experience. Thus, there is a vacuum where employee-facing customer experience systems and platforms should be. Opportunities for digital solutions that streamline the processes of customer-employee interaction and centralize customer information are ripe. Hence, our cloud-based support ticketing and customer service software, RightCare, is designed to organize the processes of customer support by assigning channels (social media, email, live chat, SMS and more) to employees, and automating their correspondences with customers through ticketing, estimation of handling time and fixed feedback polls.

Winning customers like talent

According to Servicesfutures, employee engagement is the intermediary between the design and delivery of excellent customer service. With the right leadership, fuelled by a positive work culture, and amplified by a strong organizational vision, employees are more likely to put in their best efforts in their work, which easily translates to better service delivery and customer satisfaction. To win and retain employees, organizations have to show that they value their employees. They also have to enable their employees make decisions from a position of authority, given adequate training, coaching, and support.

In the same vein, to win customers, businesses need to show customers that they value their loyalty. Some brands give physical incentives and offer rewards. Yet, there is much room for brands to improve the personalization of their messaging, raise their emotional appeal of their products and services, resolve their complaints and queries, smoothen their journeys towards receiving the services or obtaining the products they are paying for, and understand their interests and needs through surveys.

All these form the foundation upon which RightCom XP – our data and experience management platform is laid, as a suite of software solutions that streamline processes of customer experience delivery, optimizing employee efficiency and easing customer journeys. Request our product demo here.