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Why Employee Engagement is Key to a Winning Customer Experience

Employee Engagement Key To A Winning Customer Experience-

As a retailer, you likely understand how your online store influences your customers’ experience in an omnichannel environment. With the rising popularity of online shopping and Buy Online Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) orders, mobile and digital purchase channels are undoubtedly important.

However, according to research, 85% of consumers still prefer to shop in-store, and they spend about six times more than when they shop online.

This may seem counterintuitive, but ultimately consumers value the service they receive from store associates.

In this article, we’ll review the ways in which employee engagement can boost your customers’ experience and benefit your brand in more ways than one.

How Employee Engagement is Linked to Customer Experience

How Employee Engagement is Linked to Customer Experience

There’s a growing amount of research that connects engaged employees to better customer experience (CX).

In fact, according to a 2016 study, companies that excel at customer experience have employees that are 1.5 times more engaged.

Many CX experts and successful businesses agree that treating employees well is a great first step towards improving your customers’ experience. However, there are more advanced ways to ensure employee engagement is at the forefront of your customer service strategy.

Let’s look at three ways you can create employee engagement for more positive and successful customer experience within your brick-and-mortar store.

3 Ways to Reap the Benefits of Employee Engagement

Every business team is unique and operates differently. However, you can create a personalized strategy to positively influence how your employees interact with customers, and therefore, how your customers interact with your brand.

1.    Create a Culture of Appreciation 

Mobile solutions help managers communicate with team members or employees on a more frequent and personalized basis. This offers opportunities to acknowledge hard work or accomplishments, no matter how busy the store may be.

Team leaders can also use group messaging to post words of encouragement or appreciation to the full staff. This creates a team-like mentality while spotlighting specific team members’ contributions and encouraging others to strive for similar success.

2.    Connect HR with Employee Engagement and CX

Your HR manager is in charge of developing a strong culture, which means that their interactions with Employee Engagement (EE) are key for CX support.

Here are some ideas for designing your HR strategy:

  • Carve out a strong mission, set of values, vision, and tone for your team’s purpose
  • Acknowledge employees when they show value leadership (this creates validation among peers)
  • Diagnose and tend to dips in engagement when they happen (this continually improves your engagement levels)

Employee engagement can be personal. It’s a deep-rooted practice that involves highlighting what your staff believes in, what their passions are and how they show up every day. Having someone on the team who focuses on this specific area is important as it involves care, dedication, and skill.

3. Encourage Effective Team Communication

While showing top-down appreciation is important to help staff feel positive about themselves and their place on the team, team communication and “idea sharing” is also beneficial.

Opening up knowledge-sharing discussions through mobile communication tools can help employees:

  • Feel more connected to the team
  • Boost confidence (which leads to natural engagement)
  • Provide management with important ideas

By introducing these discussions on your mobile communication solution, you’ll provide a space where team members can share whenever suits them best.

Team members also tend to feel more comfortable reaching out via mobile rather than in person or through their personal phone number or social media account.

What’s your Game Plan?

Your employees are a vital piece of your customer experience puzzle as their mindset and demeanor help keep customers happy and loyal.

When it comes to understanding your customers’ needs, your frontline team is invaluable. They are interacting with your customers on a daily basis and therefore likely have ideas on how to improve your processes and products. All they need is encouragement and a chance to share.

The truth is this:

Companies and businesses that do not prioritize employee engagement will struggle to maintain winning customer experience.

With mobile employee engagement software solutions on the rise, companies are becoming more equipped than ever to show their appreciation whenever they can. They help managers celebrate and encourage their teams (like the group messaging feature on Shyft) while rounding-up team-wide likes on staff appreciation posts.

The outcome is a stronger, more empowered workforce that isn’t only capable, but eager to assist your customers as best as possible.

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