Imagine all your employees happier, it can happen!

Happier employees increase revenue 5.7 times

Employee Leadership

In studies cited below you will see the path to dramatically increase revenue by 5.7 times with improved customer experiences through happier employees.

 

Main Idea: Treat your employees like your customers.

 

Is your business customer focused? Are customers at the centre of your business?

What about your employees?  Are they your most valuable assets for your business?

Don’t these two thoughts seem to be paradoxical?

First let’s dig into this paradox.

 

The Paradox

For a long time, there has been a continued push to have “Customer Centred” businesses.  You want to focus your business on customers to make them happy and to spread the word as well as spend more money with your business.

At the same time, you have to be employee focused to retain and recruit good employees. Remember your people are your most valuable assets.

But to really have happy customers, you need happy employees. So, shouldn’t you focus on your employees first?

Some companies are working on employee happiness but there is a long way to go.

The delivery giant, UPS is working on a “promise of being people-led”¹. They currently report having 57% of their workforce which would “recommend UPS as a place to work”¹. With approximately 534,000 employees, this leaves many unhappy employees.

Further, another business, ServiceNow had 69% of their employees which would recommend working there. Putting ServiceNow in the “top 5% of employers globally”².

So, the bar seems low to be a leading business with your employees. Can you imagine what your business would look like with 99% of your employees recommending your business as the place to work?

 

The Dream

What would 99% of your employees being happy look like to the customers you are serving?

You do know what this would look like. Your business would stand above the rest and your customers would be raving fans telling the world how great your business is.

The Solution

How do you get there?

As ServiceNow discovered, employees “want the company to work better for them.” You already know what this means as you are providing this to your customers today.

 

• You create positive experiences for your customers. You need to create positive experiences for your employees.
• You listen to your customers and adjust. You need to listen to your employees and adjust.
• You build loyalty with your customers to your brand. You need to build loyalty with your employees to your brand.
• You measure your customer engagement. You need to measure your employee engagement.

 

I have worked with many businesses on these type of employee focused initiatives and witnessed many great successes. It usually only takes some minor tweaks to see huge beneficial outcomes.

 

First Step

You may feel you have 99% happy employees, but if you haven’t asked them, you really don’t know.

He is the catch to get a reliable response, you should have someone else ask them.  Work with a 3^rd party to survey all your employees and present the results to you.

The 3^rd party should also provide you with a position statement on WHY you are asking the employees to spend time with the survey. It will be something to reassure your employees you are doing this to service them better.  It goes without saying, but this survey also must be confidential to them, and you must reassure the employees of this.

Now here is a critical piece.  YOU MUST DO SOMETHING with the survey results data.

Employees must see firsthand that something is being done with the input they provided.  Strangely some businesses, when seeing something they don’t expect or like, choose to do nothing. BIG MISTAKE!

 

Your Dream comes true

You could have that 99% happy workforce for your business.  Just work to improve your employees’ happiness and your customers will thank you!

Happy employees + Happy Customers = increased revenue

 

Need More Motivation

Still not convinced of the benefits on a happy workforce and providing for them?

In a comprehensive study, “using a sample of 293 employers representing 342 unique customer brands”³, performed by Glassdoor, it was discovered:

“In our sample, there is a clear overall link between satisfied employees and happy customers.”³

Don’t just look to employee satisfaction as a retention and recruitment tool, use it as a customer engagement and bottom-line profit tool!

“Superior customer experience bring[s] in 5.7 times more revenue.”⁵

Worth repeating a whopping 5.7 time more revenue.

 

The Conclusion

Your business can increase revenue by improving customer satisfaction through focused efforts on your employee happiness. There are many paths to employee engagement and happiness, some of which have been presented in this article. There are many more paths and it only takes some small, guided changes to have a large impact on your business’ bottom line.

If you want to start the discussion about happier employees, please reach out to me, Pat Doyle, for a chat. I look forward to hearing your challenges and to guild you and your business along the path to happy employees!

 

Next POST

Please share this article. Be on the lookout for our next article where we will continue to discuss ways to create happiness in your business. Happiness for your customers and for your business creates positive results.

 

The Sources:

1. https://hbr.org/2021/09/the-ceo-of-ups-on-taking-the-reins-amid-surging-pandemic-demand
2. https://hbr.org/2021/09/future-proofing-your-organization
3. GD-Customer-Employee-Satisfaction-Report-2019-Final-2-2.pdf (glassdoor.com)
4. https://hbr.org/2019/08/the-key-to-happy-customers-happy-employees
5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2020/09/07/how-to-prove-the-roi-of-customer-experience