How does Employee Experience Affect Customer Experience?

“Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders – in that order.” This quote by the famous author, optimist, and businessman Simon Sinek conveys the profound relationship between Employee Experience and Customer Experience. If Customers are the most prominent stakeholders of a business, employees are the greatest assets to your business. If you keep your employees happy, eventually, they will serve your customers well and make them happy.

Customer Experience and satisfaction are the foundation of any business without which no business can stand and grow. And employees are the people directly involved in providing great experiences to your customers. Satisfied Employees get more engaged in the work and strive to achieve your company’s goals. Researchers suggest that organizations that excel in Customer Experience have 1.5 times more engaged employees, and companies with high employee engagement report 20% higher sales.

This article will explore the terms Employee Experience and Customer Experience, how Employee Experience matters and relates to CX, and some practical strategies to improve it. Let’s start with exploring Employee Experience.

What is Employee Experience?

Employee Experience is the sum of all the interactions and elements that employees go through in a company and based on which employees build their perceptions about the company and their job.

Employee Experience includes all the experiences starting from hiring, training, onboarding to working in the company and going through the work culture, environment, policies, practices, compensation, recognition, and even the exit experience when the employee leaves the company. All these experiences can be both positive and negative, and there can be some experiences which are very positive and some very poor.

What is Customer Experience?

Customer Experience is the sum of all the interactions and events that customers go through while dealing with a business throughout their customer journeys.

Customer Experience includes the experience with products, services, and every process in the customer journey from researching the products, purchasing, onboarding, and billing to using the product or services, facing issues, issue resolution, meetings, interactions, repurchasing, or switching to a different brand.

It is a known fact that business growth is directly proportional to Customer Experience, and the experiences which your customers go through are provided by you and your employees. Customer Experiences can also be both positive as well as negative.

To provide excellent and memorable experiences, your employees must be in a good state of mind and satisfied with the experiences they are themselves going through in your company. Let’s learn why Employee Experience matters so much for the growth of your business.

Why does Employee Experience Matter?

Employees are not only a part of your organization, they are the heart and soul of your organization. Unsatisfied employees mean your business itself is broken with unhappy people who will be unable to perform for you. How then can you expect growth in your business? And, the way to know whether your employees are happy working with you or not is to gauge Employee Experience.

Measuring Employee Experience and taking actions to make it positive is essential for any business to grow. Let’s explore some benefits of a positive Employee Experience to know more about why it matters so much.

Benefits of a Positive Employee Experience

1. Better Employee Engagement
2. Better Employee Retention
3. High Morale Leads to Better Productivity
4. Saves Expenses of the Company
5. Generates More Revenue
6. Employees Become More Loyal
7. Reduces Burnout and Employee Churn

Let’s learn more about these benefits of a positive Employee Experience.

1. Better Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement is the extent to which the employees of an organization feel enthusiastic and passionate about their work to achieve common organizational goals. Research suggests that businesses with a highly engaged workforce are 21% more profitable than others. And employee engagement is directly proportional to a positive employee experience.

When the employees are satisfied with their experiences at the workplace, they remain happy and motivated to work. This increases Employee Engagement which ultimately increases their productivity and benefits your business.

2. Better Employee Retention

Employee Experience directly affects employee retention and churn, and most companies have realized this fact. Researchers found that around 77% of the companies now focus on Employee Experience to increase retention. When the employees feel great about their experiences at work, they are more likely to stay with the company. On the other hand, unsatisfied employees keep looking for opportunities to switch jobs!

3. High Morale Leads to Better Productivity

A positive Employee Experience boost employees’ morale. Employees with high morale get more engaged in their jobs, strive to achieve common organizational goals, and thus prove to be more productive at work, which helps your business. Whereas, if the employees do not have a good experience in their jobs, their morales go down, and their productivity also diminishes, which is harmful and destructive for the business.

4. Saves Expenditure of the Company

Dissatisfied employees exiting from the firm causes a high cost to the companies. Research suggests that the average employee exit costs 33% of their annual salary. But if you work on measuring and improving employee experiences to make their experiences positive, it will enhance employee satisfaction, which will motivate employees to work for the company for a long time. This saves a lot of costs involved in recruitment, hiring of new staff, negative impact on the morale of your teams and your end-customers feeling the chaos of turnover.

5. Generates More Revenue

Positive Customer Experience leads to high satisfaction among the employees. It not only reduces the cost of hiring new employees, but also brings in more revenue for the business. Satisfied employees praise their company and brand among their personal and professional circles, which attracts more customers, ultimately resulting in higher revenue for the business. An organization profits from Turning Employees Into Advocates and Customer Magnets.

6. Employees Become More Loyal

Positive experiences yield a high level of satisfaction and loyalty among the employees. When you are able to meet employee expectations and keep them happy at work, they become your brand advocates. They talk about your employee-friendly policies and share their positive experiences with their friends and known ones. This increases your goodwill in the market, contributing to your growth to an extent.

7. Reduces Burnout and Employee Churn

Job burnout is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion of employees due to job-related stress, leading to reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity. In a survey conducted by Flex Jobs, 76% of the employees agree that their work stress affects their mental health. But when you focus on providing a positive Employee Experience to your employees, their job stress decreases to a large extent and reduce the problem of job burnout.

Let’s explore some practical strategies and tips to Improve Employee Experience.

Strategies for Improving Employee Experience

1. Promote Open Communication in the Company
2. Implement Proper Educating and Training Processes
3. Make Onboardings Smooth and Welcoming
4. Collect and Work on Employee Feedback Regularly
5. Encourage Smooth and Clear Processes
6. Empower Employees with Adequate Power and Authority
7. Arrange Fun Activities from Time-to-Time
8. Ensure Proper Benefits and Compensation
9. Provide Opportunities for Learning and Growth

Let’s learn how these ways can help you improve employee experience, ultimately leading to a better Customer Experience.

1. Promote Open Communication in the Company

Effective open communication in a company is necessary to build a healthy organizational culture. Build a culture where employees can share their concerns with their superiors and leaders, and the leaders listen to those concerns and do their best to resolve them.

Timely team meetings and one-on-one meetings should be promoted so that employees can freely share what they feel (anonymously if more effective). This helps to build trust between the employees and their leaders, and they feel more comfortable in their jobs, which improves their overall experience.

2. Implement Proper Educating and Training Processes

A proper training process is necessary to make the employees learn about their work and responsibilities and perform better at their jobs.

Before an employee is trained on their skill or task however, they must first be educated on the company values, vision and mission to assure alignment and gain buy-in to the company culture.

Improper training leads to confusion among employees about what to do, how to do their jobs, and for what purpose. This affects their experience badly, and even world-class employees become unable to perform their work.

3. Make Onboardings Smooth and Welcoming

The first impression is the last impression – this quote also applies when we talk about the employees’ onboarding experience because it is the first part of an employee’s journey. Research suggests that an effective Onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82%.

It is vital therefore, to ensure new employees feel welcomed in the company and don’t have to go through confusing processes and long hours of paperwork. Instead, HR executives must take care and guide them to go through onboarding and at the same time make their onboarding welcoming to make them feel great about the company, like they are joining a work-family.

4. Collect and Work on Employee Feedback Regularly

Employee Feedback is essential to ensure a positive Employee Experience. Collect Employee Feedback often to know how your employees feel about the experience you provide them at the workplace. Employee Feedback is a great way to know employee insights and work on them to improve their experience.

To collect Employee Feedback, you should use effective Employee Feedback Software to create and send powerful feedback surveys to your employees and gauge Employee Experience. When you get feedback from your employees, you must take appropriate actions wherever required to improve their experience and make your organization an awesome place to work. Data alone will not make any differences in the company growth.

5. Encourage Smooth and Clear Processes

Smooth and crystal clear processes are necessary for employees to carry out their work. Employees must know what to do, how to do, when to do, and by whom the work is to be done. There must be what we call, “Expectations Management” clearly defined in order to have accountability of your people. A clear understanding of the job and its responsibilities help employees to perform better and stay motivated.

If you have built smooth and clear processes, your employees can work even more than they usually do. But if your operations are confusing, undefined or not evident in day-to-day practices, it will take them more time to complete any given task.

6. Empower Employees with Adequate Power and Authority

Adequate power and authority to make decisions are necessary for the employees, especially those facing and dealing with your customers. For instance, a customer requests your staff for a minimal discount, which will make them happy and satisfied. But your staff has not been given the authority to give that discount, so they have to “pass it up “for approval from their supervisor.

Nobody will want to wait for and go through such long processes merely for a small discount, and eventually, your customer will end up frustrated, feeling they’ve wasted time and ultimately have a dissatisfied experience. This will also create a negative experience for your employees as they will feel unable to serve the customers just because of a lack of small authority. They will feel helpless instead of empowered. So always empower your employees to have some authority to take actions independently if you want to provide a satisfying experience to your employees and customers.

7. Arrange Fun Activities from Time-to-Time

Taking a break from work is necessary for the sound mental health of the employees. So it is a good idea to arrange some fun activities from time-to-time. You can set weekly, monthly or quarterly activities like Fun Friday sessions, monthly birthday celebrations, quarterly get-togethers, and festival celebrations. These activities induce excitement and engagement in the employees and create memorable office experiences which form relationships and creates connectedness. This is a big part of what creates the important “Connection Culture”.

8. Ensure Proper Benefits and Compensation

Although Employee Experiences are affected by several factors other than earning, you cannot forget that the purpose of their job is to earn money and make a good living. Research suggests that around 35% of the employees switch to other companies because of not getting a good raise in their salaries.

The feeling of getting underpaid is one of the most significant factors that create resentment among employees towards their work. So along with other factors, also focus on ensuring that none of your employees is underpaid.

9. Provide Opportunities for Learning and Growth

Learning and growth are also essential factors that affect Employee Experience. Researchers found that around 70% of the employees will accept an opportunity for switching their jobs for an organization that invests in employee development and learning.

Moreover, employees who are getting satisfying salaries would also consider switching jobs in the long run if they do not have enough opportunities to move up the ladder in the company. It is therefore a good idea to create new roles or to offer promotions for the employees performing well to remain in your company for long run.

Conclusion

Ensuring good Employee Experience is highly beneficial for organizations, and you can derive its benefits by adopting simple and practical strategies to improve Employee Experience. You can use Employee Satisfaction Surveys to measure and track Employee Experiences. When you provide excellent experiences to employees and take actions to improve them wherever required, your employees will be more engaged in their work and serve your customers better, thus providing them great Customer Experiences.

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