A study by Harvard Business Review found that for every one-star improvement in a company’s Glassdoor score, there was a corresponding 1.3-point improvement in its customer satisfaction score.
The value of creating a positive work environment where employees thrive is not even in question anymore. The only point of discussion is the various ways it impacts the growth and development of the company.
Customer satisfaction has emerged as one of the most palpable results of creating happy employees. Let’s take a deeper look at the link between happy employees and happy customers to know how you can improve customer satisfaction via your employees.
The link between Happy Employees and Happy Customers
The happier an employee is at work, the more motivated they will be to perform to the best of their abilities. This involves performing their designated tasks with dedication and care along with feeling a sense of belonging and accomplishment with their work.
When such an employee encounters a customer, they will try to help them to the best of their abilities. They will strike up positive conversations with them, try to help them find the products they’re looking for, or resolve the issue they may be facing.
When a customer receives such stellar service, they’ll be satisfied and happy with your company’s effort and are more likely to return to you or even recommend you to their friends and family.
This, in a nutshell, is the cycle of happy employees creating happy customers. The real question that companies face is how to create and run this mechanism. For that, you need to pay attention to the following aspects and work on them:
1. Understanding the connection between employees and customers
The connection between employees and customers isn’t just limited to employees serving customers. It spans the very working of your company and its presence in the market. You should be looking at the grand scope of things to be able to improve it fundamentally.
A survey revealed that companies with happier employees earned a whopping 147% more per share than their competitors. The employees of these companies were observed to be more creative, motivated and provide better customer assistance.
You don’t just want employees that are happy with their work to provide good customer service, you want genuinely, truly motivated and satisfied employees so that they help your company grow, including serving the customers well.
2. Check-in with your employees and customers
The first step in achieving overall brilliance in your company is to check in with your employees and customers to understand their current state. This will help you understand what they need and take further steps.
Begin by conducting reviews for employees where they openly tell you what they think about their work and workplace, what they need, and what they ultimately want to achieve with this job role. It may take time but it will be well worth the effort.
For your customers, you can conduct surveys and or Q&As via emails or social media. Ask them what they think about their experiences with you and how you can improve them. Here are some excellent examples of just checking in emails that will help you strike up conversations with your clients.
3. What makes employees happy?
As happy employees are the key to happy customers as well as the overall growth of your company, you need to figure out what makes them happy and how you can help them achieve that with your resources.
While many aspects contribute to the overall job satisfaction of an employee, depending on the nature and scope of their job, the three most prominent ones are discussed below:
a. Feeling valued
Research suggests that feeling valued at their job is the number one source of happiness for employees. Ones who do not receive that recognition and appreciation are often unmotivated and downright unhappy at their jobs.
You need to make sure that your employees feel seen and appreciated for what they do. More importantly, they should see that the work they do matters for the company. This way, when they serve customers, they would do it with enthusiasm as they know their work matters.
For example, if you take four out of five people’s ideas on a project, make sure to include the one person who was left behind last time on the next project. It’ll boost their confidence and let them know they’re an integral part of your setup.
Here are a few ways you can make your employees feel valued:
- The easiest way to make employees feel valued is by celebrating milestones and birthdays.
- You can start an employee recognition program to reward employees systematically.
- Set up benchmarks of efficient performance such as hitting targets or receiving a good score from customers and celebrate those achievements.
- Take employees out for group activities and leisure.
- Conduct one-on-one conversations with them and let them know you appreciate their work.
b. Enjoying what they do
Another important factor in elevating employee satisfaction is simply enjoying what they do at work. Now, this is constituted by both what they do in the job role and the surrounding factors such as the support they receive in their day-to-day operations.
This means that an employee might be perfectly happy with the work they do at their job, but say, their surroundings are too noisy that they don’t let the employee concentrate. Or vice versa, where the job role just doesn’t fit their skill set, causing dissatisfaction with their work.
Well-adjusted employees that understand their job role will be quick on their feet, knowing what to do at all times when it comes to dealing with customers. This will lead to them resolving customer conflicts more efficiently.
Here are a few ways you can ensure your employees enjoy what they do:
- Be proactive in hiring and matching skills well to assign the most suitable job roles to your employees.
- Conduct reviews with employees to know how they feel about the role they perform.
- Check the performance of employees from time to time to see how productive they are in what they do.
- Experiment around by switching roles for employees to see what works better.
c. Growing in their role
Lastly, you need to make sure that employees don’t feel stagnant in the roles they are performing. If they feel as though they cannot grow in the job they are doing, it’ll make them feel demotivated and reflect in their customer interactions.
Promoting employees at the right time is crucial in keeping them invested in their jobs. Even if you cannot promote them, involving them with company matters also helps keep their horizons open. They will feel included and important and want to perform better.
3. What makes customers happy?
Once you have happy employees running your office, you are sure to see that impact on customer satisfaction. However, you need to understand what specifically makes customers happy to be able to implement that in your employees’ interactions with them.
Given below are some important factors that add to customer satisfaction when they interact with your brand:
a. Overall experience
Whether they purchase a product or service from you or are contacting you to resolve an issue, customers expect a positive and satisfying experience from your representatives.
b. Personalization
Customers want to be treated with individuality as it makes for a friendly experience as well as increases their trust in you.
c. Provide extra value
Customers appreciate it when brands go over and above what they’re supposed to deliver and provide extra value. It gives them more value for money and increases their likelihood to come to you again.
d. Reward loyalty
Rewarding your loyal customers makes them seen and appreciated. Initiatives such as discounts, free products, and early access help you reward loyal customers for their association with you.
4. Bridging the gap
The last area of focus is bridging the gap between happy employees and happy customers. Empower your employees to be able to deliver top-notch customer services with resources such as software solutions and employee training.
Invite feedback from customers to know what areas can be improved upon. Don’t just focus on the employees that directly interact with customers, but everyone in the backend as they enable customer representatives to perform their jobs smoothly.
The goal is to create well-oiled machinery out of your workplace. People should understand their roles and perform them smoothly and efficiently so that the end product — customer interaction — is of top-notch quality all by itself.
Understand what your employees and customers need to empower them and grow your company
Happy employees create happy customers. The link between employees and customers lies in the happiness and satisfaction they both receive from your company. Your employees should feel valued at work to give that forward to the customers.
To ensure that, you need to make sure employees understand their role in the company, they are happy with the work they do, and most importantly, they feel valued at work. This will result in positive interactions and stellar services for your customers and earn their loyalty.
Let us know in the comments what you think are the best ways to ensure happy employees and customers in a company.
Main pic: Source
Atreyee Chowdhury is a freelance content writer with more than 10+ years of professional experience. She’s passionate about helping SMBs and enterprises achieve their content marketing goals with her carefully crafted and compelling content. She loves to read, travel, and experiment with different cuisines in her free time. You can follow her on LinkedIn.
