Having a happy and engaged workforce willing to put in the hard yards over the long term will help build and raise your customer satisfaction levels. It’s no surprise that CX industry leaders motivate employees to do their best to live up to the customer and brand promise through their interactions with customers.
Having a disengaged team can impact business revenue negatively. Nowhere is this clearer than in Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, which found employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged are costing the world $8.8 trillion in lost productivity every year.
If your goal is business growth, increasing employee engagement is vital, which is why business leaders need to up their game—significantly. A disengaged and unmotivated employee will not have the sufficient drive needed to do an excellent job that goes above and beyond. The fact that engaged, happy employees actually boost the bottom line for companies is proven.
According to Gallup, organisations that scored in the top quartile on employee engagement see 23 per cent higher profitability and 18 per cent higher productivity in sales. In fact, the study confirmed the strong connection between employee engagement and 11 performance outcomes in addition to increased profitability and productivity. These included increased customer loyalty, employee well-being and employee participation in the organisation, and reduced absenteeism and safety incidents, shrinkage (theft), and quality/defects.
Engaged employees tend to stay at their company for longer, which saves the company money in the long term. Low staff turnover means that productivity remains high and fewer financial outlays are required to replace a staff member when they leave. Interestingly, companies on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For have half the voluntary turnover of their industry peers. As an example, in the hospitality sector, an industry notorious for job-hopping, voluntary turnover is 28 per cent for the top 100 versus 69 per cent industry-wide.
A great customer service team, who feel valued and listened to by their company, can make your customers feel the same way: valued and listened to. As author Maya Angelou once said: "People won’t remember what you do or what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel."
If your employees feel valued and buy into your brand essence and vision, this shines through in their dealings with customers every day. This in turns leads to creating customers who are satisfied with your services and likely to do business with you again. By retaining these customers you boost your long-term ROI. What’s more, empowering your employees to do the right thing will make the organisation naturally more streamlined and efficient.
An online survey is a great way of measuring your employee engagement, and for setting KPIs and measuring against customer satisfaction levels. However, it is important to regularly check in with employees to understand what drives them.
Learn more about employee engagement strategies in our free eBook below!