The Link Between Employee Engagement and Customer Satisfaction

Customers are the heart of every business and employees are the driving force. These two are inextricably linked and only those organisations that strike a balance between employee engagement and customer satisfaction stand tall in the business sphere.

Explore: Employee Engagement

Keep in mind that employee engagement transcends having a team of satisfied employees, it’s about having an organisation that is teeming with employees who are emotionally attached and passion-driven about their work.

Employees that exhibit these traits are front-liners when it comes to gaining mastery over challenges that stymies organisational growth and they showcase the highest levels of enthusiasm to gain customer loyalty and satisfaction.

And the height of it all? Organisations that invest in structural employee engagement systems outpace those that do not with a stunning 26% year-after-year increase in revenue generation. That’s how much you stand to gain and more!

So if the whole point of starting your business is to make a profit, and employees are a prerequisite to getting your customers to keep coming back, follow this piece to unravel the mystery that exists between employee engagement and customer satisfaction and how it translates to the success of your business. Let’s get started!

How Technologies Impact Employee Engagement

Every now and often, HRM departments continue to adopt employee engagement platforms as an integral part of their business strategies to keep tabs on the behavioural attitudes and motivations of employees with respect to their work.

To get a clearer understanding, a prominent engagement system like the retail employee scheduling software allows managers to;

Track work hours easily,
Swiftly create employee schedules,
Save labour costs and
Effectively manage employee requests.

The long-term impact of these is that employees get the impression that you take their constraints and time seriously, and as such, they become motivated to stay committed to their work.

On a broader note, employee engagement platforms provide you with insights that allow you to identify issues at their early stages and become proactive in addressing them before they become a fully-fledged nuisance for your business.

So, it’s fair to say that these hi-tech systems are a prerequisite for building a high-performance workforce within an organisation.

How employee engagement relates to customer satisfaction

Greater work efficiency

We all know that awkward feeling that comes with doing something you don’t have a flair for. The lack of motivation and willingness to work affects your productivity and you’ll be more focused on waiting out the seemingly unending time spent on the task.

Supplementary reading: Maintaining Employee Engagement in Times of Crisis

But on the contrary, employees who are actively engaged and passionate about their tasks are more likely to work harder and particular about meeting customer needs. In fact, employee engagement boosts customer loyalty rates by 233% greater in organisations that make it a priority.

For instance, graphic designers who are less engaged with their work are less likely to release content occasionally, and as such customers may lose touch with your brand. Worse still, your designers may miss out on unique elements that depict your brand’s essence when crafting new design content.

On the other hand, actively engaged graphic designers tend to be more passionate and consistent with newer content, and they factor in every element that communicates your brand’s intent to meet customer expectations.

Therefore, companies should invest more into their employees' ongoing skill development and offer them both local and international training and career progression opportunities. They should consider implementing a corporate travel policy, that will serve as a structured and standardized document that outlines the guidelines and regulations governing employee travel on behalf of a company. The primary goal of a corporate travel policy is to ensure consistency and clarity, promoting responsible and cost-effective travel practices among employees. The following corporate travel policy template can help companies establish guidelines, streamline processes, and ensure consistency in managing their employees' business travel, fostering responsible and cost-effective practices.

Reduced absenteeism

Organisations with low employee engagement are usually faced with the challenges of absenteeism since the employees are less passionate about their duties and their presence in the organisation seems like it’s rather forced.

When employees are absent from their workplaces without giving a prior notice, organisations are left hanging by a thread as there are fewer employees available to render services to fulfill customer needs.

In the long run, the remaining employees become overburdened with the tasks and their productivity gradually declines. The quality of their customer services gets poorer with time and customer satisfaction gets jeopardised in the process.

On the other hand, actively engaged employees are less likely to be absent since they derive pleasure in what they do. This translates to higher quality customer services which positively impacts customer satisfaction and ultimately breeds customer loyalty.

Positive brand perception

Positive brand reputation is one of the major factors that accelerates the growth of any business and you can’t risk having a work culture that leaves your employees unsatisfied.

The news of employee dissatisfaction swam like a plague of locusts and that can obliterate your reputation. As a result, customers will naturally question the services of businesses with stained reputation and ultimately seek alternatives.

While lack of employee engagement doesn’t necessarily translate to a bad work culture, your business could be in for a tough ride if employee engagement surveys present an unfavorable result as that is a surefire way to having negative brand perception.

Auxiliary reading: Employee Engagement Excellence

So, It’s fair to ask, why should your clientele invest in your products if your employees are not concerned about it?

Think of a scenario where your employees are brimming with satisfaction, they will go the extra mile to deliver high quality products and services that enhance your overall brand reputation and bolster customer satisfaction.

High-quality customer service

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are largely dependent on the quality of your customer service and since employees are the bridge that exist between organisations and their clientele, lack of employee engagement enfeebles your customer satisfaction.

It takes a great deal of commitment to keep up with customer emailing, calling, and texting, and only those employees who are highly motivated and inspired to do their job deliver the best customer service experience even if it means learning new communication modus operandi.

Actively engaged employees are frontliners when it comes to prioritising customer needs and are more likely to go above and beyond to provide the full support to enhance customer satisfaction.

Increased employee and customer retention

Organisations that focus less on employee engagement are more likely to have greater turnovers when compared to those that don’t. While some organisations worry less about employee turnovers due to the huge resume piles they get in their inboxes, they risk losing one or more customers in the process.

It’s simple! Each time an employee resigns, a new hire must be onboarded. The implication of that is that your HRM has to focus on training the new hires to adapt to the work scope and that takes a great deal of time.

Worse still, having a workforce that is teeming with inexperienced employees reduces the overall quality of customer service which may affect customer satisfaction.

This may interest you: How Trusted Leaders Retain Key Employees

For example, say you have a marketing agent that has skillfully created a great rapport with various head honchos in the business sphere and that employee decides to leave due to low work engagement. There’s a greater tendency that your business will suffer a punctured customer base due to the number of clients who are used to that employee.

In essence, it’s critical that you maintain high levels of employee engagement to increase employee retention rates and build a long lasting community of loyal customers.

How to build employee engagement to get customer satisfaction

Now that we’ve demystified the link that exists between employee engagement and customer satisfaction, let’s chip in a few ways to build employee engagement.

Employer-employee relationship

Your work culture goes a long way in determining the kind of rapport that exist between you and your direct reports. While developmental changes are a norm in the corporate world, it’s essential that you maintain a cordial relationship with your subjects.

Make sure not to miss this: The Best Way To Give Tough Feedback

With that in place, you get to foster an atmosphere that breeds positivity in all directions by

Enhancing collaboration in the workplace,
Improving problem-solving skills and
Encouraging employee creativity and innovation

Eventually, this increases employee satisfaction and engagement.

Employee work experience

Can there be growth without challenges? It’s an outright NO!

Picture a scenario where you have to carry out a task on a daily or weekly basis and you’ve not been met with any setbacks that may cause you to learn or devise newer approaches to carry out such activity. Imagine how boring and repetitious it’ll be along the way!

Your employees could be in the same boat if you fail to provide a sustainable atmosphere where employee experience is top priority. To ensure your employees have a good work experience, you must

Have a good working environment
Ensure psychological safety
Embrace a diverse work culture

Employee engagement surveys

It’s not enough to work with assumptions when gauging employee satisfaction and engagement, especially since it’s important to have constant updates about how employees feel about your organisation.

Here, employee engagement surveys could avail you a wealth of information garnered from employee feedback. You can leverage the insights you’ve gained to identify areas begging for improvements.

Read this: 4 Ways: Find Out Whether Your Employees Are Genuinely Happy

With the survey at hand, you can become proactive to

Address pressing issues
Make employees feel appreciated
Boost their morale and confidence

It takes two to tango

By now, you must have realised the thin line that exists between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Both concepts are interwoven and go pari passu such that they contain the secret ingredients that determine the success of any business.

As a manager or business owner, you must factor your employees into all your operational strategies such that their level of satisfaction and engagement outweigh your profit margins.

With that in place, you can sit back and watch your employees transcend your customer experience and satisfaction to a whole new level while your revenues continue to soar higher.

Be sure to check out the media below: