Customer service
The employee experience at the service
of the customer experience
13/04/2022Web Master
The employee experience at the service
Table of contents
Customer experience is a key element of brand strategy, as it is one of the major challenges in building customer loyalty. But the customer experience cannot be separated from the employee experience. Indeed, many studies show that customer satisfaction is closely linked to employee engagement. In this article, we will explore the links between customer experience and employee experience as well as some ways to improve employee engagement.
1. Employee experience and customer experience: two sides of the same coin
Customer experience has become one of the keys to the strategy of brands and companies. An exceptional customer experience is one of the best ways to improve customer satisfaction and build loyalty. A loyal customer is likely to become your best ambassador.
The customer experience is intimately linked to the employee experience. Giving your employees great experiences on a daily basis contributes to improving their ability to serve your customers well. An employee who is satisfied and happy in his work will more easily develop a sense of belonging and will be more attentive to your customers. They will also be more committed to the success of the missions and projects in which they are involved.
This relationship between employee experience and customer experience has been conceptualized by the Service Academy under the name of “Symmetry of Attentions”. As Jean-Jacques Gressier, leader of the Service Academy team, explains so well, “the Symmetry of Attentions” poses as a fundamental principle that the quality of the relationship between a company and its customers is symmetrical to the quality of the relationship of this company with all of its employees.
Focusing on the employee experience requires a certain level of demand from companies, but is a structuring method to achieve relational excellence with its customers. According to a Temkin Group study, the customer experience is largely better in companies where employee engagement is higher than 60%. In customer relationship services, for example, your employees are the first point of contact for your customers. The relationship with your customers will therefore be directly impacted by the attention your consultants pay to your customers and their ability to satisfy their requests and solve their problems.
2. The economic impact of the employee experience
The positive impact of a good employee experience on your customers’ experience will naturally have positive economic impacts on your business. According to Aon Hewitt’s Trends in Global Employee Engagement study, employee engagement has a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. When employee engagement grows by 5 points, the following year’s revenue increases by 3 points.
Here are some examples of how the employee experience can have an economic impact on your business:
More loyal customers
Counselors who have positive experiences are more productive and engaged. This translates into better customer service which strengthens your customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is an important issue as it is known to increase overall brand sales at a lower cost than acquiring new customers.
Reduced costs
Employees who are satisfied with their experiences as collaborators tend to stay with a company longer, which reduces the costs associated with internal disorganization caused by a departure, recruitment, onboarding and training of new employees.
Employees as ambassadors of your brand
A good employee experience will make it easier for your consultants, and all employees in general, to become ambassadors for your brand. Not only will they be more likely to promote your solutions or products to prospects and customers, but they will also be more likely to recommend the company to future employees, which will help you recruit greater talent.
3.How to improve the employee experience in customer services
Take care of the onboarding of new employees
According to a study by Easyrecrue, 20% of employees who join a company consider leaving on the first day because of a poor reception in terms of human, administrative or material resources. The onboarding stage is essential to the employee experience. Rethink your onboarding in a structured, personalized and long-term way. Make sure you offer clear and coherent means of communication, facilitate the development of skills on the company’s offers and operations, present information in a progressive way to facilitate their assimilation, clearly express the expectations relative to the new employee’s missions and convey the company’s values and culture.
Adopt solutions that make your employees’ daily lives easier
The daily life of employees working in customer services involves managing various requests and the obligation to be constantly attentive to customer demands. Provide your employees with tools that allow them to focus on tasks where they can add real value and with the same level of technology and digitalization as in their personal lives.
Choose digital tools that automate tasks where the customer advisor will have little added value, such as self-care tools, tools to manage administrative tasks efficiently and simply, or tools to better respond to customer expectations, such as video assistance.
Strengthen the corporate culture
Corporate culture is the set of values that define your company. It is the keystone of the employee experience. Clearly define your corporate values and encourage your employees to adopt these values. Rituals are an important way to reinforce your corporate culture and convey common values. Take care of these moments of sharing and exchange that allow you to involve each employee in the achievement of the company’s objectives and to give meaning to the work and commitment of each person.
4. How does video assistance improve the experience of your employees?
Video assistance for customer service is a solution that allows your customer advisors to see the customer’s environment, guide them, advise them, make a diagnosis or solve a problem remotely. The implementation of a video-assistance solution in customer relations departments can bring interesting benefits to the experience of your employees and especially to your customer advisors.
Reduction of employee effort
In a typical customer service call, the customer often formulates a request or describes a problem they are facing in their own words. This requires the advisor to make a cognitive effort to try to interpret and understand the customer’s explanations. With video assistance, the customer advisor no longer needs to interpret what the customer says, he simply sees his environment and/or his problem and can more easily understand his request.
Valuation of the expertise of your employees
The main role of a customer advisor is to provide answers, support and reassure the customer. his job has become more and more complex over time as customers are more and more informed and autonomous and when they call for customer service, they expect a real expertise from the customer advisor to get a real service. Offering video-assistance within your customer service department is to provide your advisors with a tool that allows them to provide faster and easier support to customers. In the case of problems encountered by the customer in particular, video-assistance allows the customer advisor to guide the customer remotely to solve the problem or, if necessary, to make the right diagnosis to prepare a repair or an intervention by a technician.
Easily deal with customer stress
A call to customer service is often accompanied by a dose of stress. Customers call most often when they have a problem and expect to be reassured that their request will be handled efficiently and quickly. The customer’s stress can be complex to manage and the customer advisor must be a very good listener and empathetic. Video-assistance can be a very good ally to help the customer advisor to face this type of situation. It allows to humanize the exchange and to reassure the customer who will be able to benefit from a video call at any time to show his problem and from a fast answer as for its resolution.
Final thoughts
The employee experience must be at the core of your strategy in order to improve the performance and commitment of your teams. If you want to integrate video-assistance into your strategy to improve the employee experience, we can help you. Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss the implementation of video assistance in your customer service department.
