Culture speaks of the values and practices shared by the members of a particular group. So when this is applied to business, the group is actually your company – and by extension your customers.
Businesses just like communities are made up of people with their own values and goals but they are unified by shared values and a mission – this is where customer experience comes in.
Instilling a Company Culture that values customers and delivers worthwhile experiences to them must not exclude employees and their experience.
Company Culture isn’t just about what happens in the break room or how many team building exercises employees take part in. It describes the way you do business, the way you treat each other and the work environment you spend most of every day in.
There is absolutely no denying that Employee Experience affects Customer Experience, so when you think Customer Experience:
Don’t
Don’t be the company that spends months developing a Customer Experience Programme that gets explained to your employees in one mass email memo.
Don’t feed into the misconception that employee engagement is created through free lunches and Casual Fridays. Just because Google does it, doesn’t mean it’s going to turn your business around overnight.
Most importantly, don’t wait for the Exit Survey. The majority of companies only ask the right questions when their employees are on their way out, and by then it’s obviously too late.
Do
Start nurturing brand advocates within your organisation before attempting to build customer loyalty. If employees are passionate about the brand, their enthusiasm and dedication speaks louder than any advert or promotion.
Remember that no matter how strong your management team is, they can’t be everywhere at once. So instead of policing customer facing staff, one should take the time and effort to understand their environment and their feelings toward the brand.
This is a big one: Use employee feedback. Employee Experience Surveys aren’t just there to make employees feel valued and important. They are there because what your employees have to say IS valuable and important.
The goal should be to build the kind of organisation that empowers instead of an organisation that takes power away.
How?
Give every employee their say. Invite them to anonymously disclose their opinions and their experience within your brand.
Employee Experience Surveys are easy and quick to implement and they provide very valuable insight into the internal health of the organisation – through a cultural experience lens.
The feedback can be used to define the culture and allow for educated transformation to occur. It gives employees a platform to speak, a platform for management to listen and act on.
Going further, the effect of any changes or improvements within an organisation can be measured against the Employee Experience by repeating the same survey 6-12 months later.
It is possible to find out exactly what’s happening in the company, and how it is affecting the brand and its connection to the customer.
And Speaking Of Connection…
The follow on effect of how you treat employees can be seen in their attitude toward customers. So create a culture of treating staff as you would like your customers to be treated.
Listen to your employees and they will listen to your customers.
Allow your employees to be human and your customers won’t simply be treated as numbers.
Motivate employees beyond monetary incentives and their goals won’t only be focused only on sales and profit.
Exceed the expectations of your employees and they will want to exceed the expectations of customers.
Most importantly, engage your employees and provide them with a worthwhile experience and they will become a cornerstone in the experience you deliver to your customers.
Food for thought
If you’ve had any involvement in growing employee engagement levels and employee experience, what have the results been?
…On the other side of the coin, as an employee, what engages you?
To find out more about our Company Culture solution, click here.