Employee Satisfaction - Inside out
What it means to your bottom line to have engaged and happy employees
They’re often called “the front line,” because they are. There is nothing more important in your business than the team you’ve built. If you’re fortunate, you have assembled a formidable team willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill your mission and make your customers happy.
To that end, then, is there really anything more important than listening to them? If they’re engaged, their feedback is an invaluable source of information for internal and external improvements—a direct conduit to what your customers want.
After all, you placed them in various roles throughout the organization to form a cohesive link from the inside (back room, warehouse, kitchen, etc.) to the outside (front desk, hostess stand, telephone, etc.). These are the connections—employer to employee and employee to customer —that have to be well understood and embraced to be successful.
All of us can relate to a poor customer service experience; we’ve all had them and shared our dissatisfaction with five or ten friends. Businesses need to be cognizant that this can be the direct result of an employee or staff member that is disgruntled or dissatisfied.
The reasons employees may project a poor attitude, which becomes a direct reflection of the business, are many;
They're having a bad day personally. (Are you asking or listening?)
They proactively provided feedback, and have been ignored.
They have provided requested feedback, and have not been taken seriously
Their role is not clearly defined, so they’re stressed about their performance.
They are not empowered to make decisions, to make customers happy.
The organizational culture is not focused on the employee or even the customer.
And the list goes on.
Which brings us full circle: Are your customers satisfied with the experience they just received? If not, is it due your employees’ morale or other reasons not readily apparent to you, but glaringly apparent to your customers?
It’s clear that, as part of a customer experience (CX) program, a business must measure its customers’ satisfaction. But a business will amplify the value of the customers’ feedback by simultaneously measuring their employees’ satisfaction, as well. In both cases, the feedback needs to be acquired and analyzed together in real time to avoid losing key employees and customers.