Any business owner knows that problems don’t begin with the customer – they begin through employees and management. Unfortunately, such employee dissatisfaction can often have a negative impact upon customers, potentially forever.
It’s simple: engage your employees with leadership and in turn, your employees will engage your customers. Customer experience begins with the first contact point that consumers have with your brand – and this is often your employees. Below I have listed three vital ways to ensure that your employees, and in turn, your customers are engaged.
Regularly give feedback.
Making an effort to let your staff know if they are doing well or if there is room for improvement, will help them have a focus and goal that they can work towards. Feedback will also let your staff know that you care about them and that you appreciate their efforts. Consequently, employees will feel job satisfaction and therefore will be more inclined to work harder.
Be flexible.
Give your employees the opportunity to work flexibly so that they can adjust their location or work hours when needed. Doing so, will ensure that employees are happy and more productive in the knowledge that you trust them. Consequently, work ethic should increase, resulting in an overall business growth and profit.
Listen to your staff and take note.
Your employees are your front-line for customer interaction and therefore are likely to pick up on things that you won’t. Ask your staff for their opinions and ideas when facing a problem and make sure that you listen and discuss what they have to say. Doing so will have a positive impact on your staff as they will know that you value them and their opinions, consequently this will have a positive impact on staff and customer engagement as employees will appreciate you listening to them and customers will appreciate improvements to the business.
How do you ensure that your staff are engaged?
Further Reading:
S. Bahreini (2015). ‘Employee engagement is more important than the customer’: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247797