The Customer Experience Starts With Employees: Why A Strong, Happy Workforce Culture Matters More Than Ever When Boosting Your Sales

We all know that satisfied customers are the key to business performance in sales and services. If people are willing to recommend your services to others, then you are almost bound to succeed.

But how do you get there? The key is to make your team the best possible ambassadors for your brand by focusing on their experience at work.

A positive workplace culture can go a long way when it comes to employee retention, getting down turnover rates, and retaining loyal customers who are coming back time and time again for more positive interactions with your happy employees.

Why to boost employee satisfaction levels

If your customer journey map includes the efforts of your sales representatives or frontline teams interacting with clients, then it's crucial to ensure your staff are happy so they are in the best position to make an emotional connection with customers that inspire them to choose your brand time and again.

If you're looking to improve customer lifetime value, investing in having happier employees is the best route to customer satisfaction. As Fred Reichheld has noted, the key is to "take care of employees so they can enrich customers' lives."

The key to customer retention is, of course, reducing employee turnover—experienced members of staff are more likely to perform, and particularly in the service industry, those bonds formed with customers are the key drivers of continued custom.

So how do you foster a positive company culture that results in engaged employees ready to create a customer-centric culture?

Make your employees happy!

Here are a few ideas for what you can do to facilitate business growth in a way that aligns with your company values and puts your employee morale front and center.

1. Clarify your customer experience strategy

Organizational success is largely contingent on training and planning. If you are looking to provide the best in customer relationship management, spending time designing how you will deliver a personalized experience from your customer service team will allow your employees to go into each interaction feeling prepared and relaxed.

Anticipate potential customer behaviours, and roleplay with your staff so they are ready when the time comes to face the public!

2. Obtain customer feedback

Customer interactions are the bedrock of sales, so it makes sense to gain their valuable insights on the performance of your team. On the one hand, you may receive a few negatives. 

Bad customer experiences can provide areas for reflection and growth if you frame them correctly. You will need to convert the comments to actionable insights so they are as productive as possible without negatively impacting employee happiness.

Your team will undoubtedly enjoy hearing about the positive experiences they have provided your customers.

Rave reviews will create positive feedback loops—the more you hear from happy customers, the more satisfied employees will feel with their own performance, which will therefore motivate them to continue providing stellar customer service. 

3. Circulate employee surveys

It seems obvious, but what is the best way to gauge what your staff wants from your workplace culture? Why, it's to ask them!

Gaining honest feedback from your team is a sure-fire way to eliminate bad experiences on your staff and learn what you can do to improve job satisfaction levels across the board.

You can go beyond mere numerical ratings of workplace satisfaction, opening your survey to suggestions as to what they might find most beneficial.

 Some workplaces and employees will thrive on a social atmosphere to boost employee relationships, while others will value the potential for flexible work arrangements that allow them to maintain that all-important work-life balance.

If it is a company goal to provide professional development, asking your team about their training needs and aims is a good way to ensure employee engagement with whatever you are providing.

4. Make the most of digital channels

While in-person interactions are undoubtedly vital to so many businesses, ensuring communication channels are open in a variety of places can take the pressure off your staff and provide seamless experiences that consumers have come to expect.

It might be that you want to make the most of artificial intelligence by creating a chatbot to answer simple queries about customer issues and divert them from taking up the time of your team. 

Or perhaps providing multiple customer touchpoints via social media and email can allow your staff on the frontline to focus on what they do best: providing exceptional customer experiences for the enthusiastic public before them.

Ultimately, if you view technology as a tool that can enhance your practice and embrace it accordingly, it can contribute to a positive work culture that even the technophobes among your staff won't be able to argue with!

5. Open door policy

Employees tend to value senior leaders whom they feel they can trust with their everyday problems. By instigating a method of communication that your staff can use to speak to you, you will come across as approachable and potentially head off any mounting issues at the pass before they have the chance to develop.

So whether this means keeping office hours or promising a dedicated time frame for email replies, your presence can contribute to a positive culture that makes your staff feel valued and that the employee experience is something you are personally invested in.

Try Edge

Edge's platform is designed to make your employees feel recognized for their hard work. Our software collates Google Reviews from the public, creating a leaderboard that can be utilized in automated sales contests to further incentivize your staff to aim to exceed customer expectations.

With real-time updates, your staff will be excited to track both their own progress and the successes of others on their team. This will facilitate those workplace bonds that create a sense of company community.

Book a free demo of our platform today to see what Edge can do to enhance your workplace culture.

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