The Connection Between Employee Engagement and Customer Satisfaction

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When managed correctly, employee engagement can be one of the most powerful tools in any company's arsenal, big or small. There is a massive difference between a team that is inspired and motivated to overcome any challenges to create a successful product versus one that doesn’t really care much about the outcome of their work. This is how you measure employee engagement and its drastic impact on the way your company operates. Healthy workplace engagement also has its fair share of effects on clientele. In fact, there are many proven connections between employee engagement and customer satisfaction that can make a huge difference in the success of your company.

1. Greater Efficiency

Ever try working on a task that you don’t have much interest in? You’d probably be more eager to run out the task timer than efficiently do your work. Now imagine you really love what you do and are actively engaged with your job. This will have a positive effect on your work as you are able to produce results more effectively by working on something you actually care about.

According to research, employee engagement leads to “22% higher profitability and 21% higher productivity”. This directly impacts the quality of a company’s product or service, which in turn results in client satisfaction.

For example, software engineers who are not engaged with their work will release updates less efficiently, leading to frustrated customers who have to deal with long-running bugs. On the other hand, software companies with high workplace engagement are more motivated to efficiently release software updates that iron out as many bugs as possible, leading to customers who are satisfied with the company’s services. This is why it’s so important to prioritise employee engagement and if you want to learn more about creating employee engagement, read more here.

2. Positive Brand Perception

Creating a healthy workplace culture, where employees are satisfied with their work and love doing it can be a great way to build positive brand perception and a great reputation among clients. News of employee dissatisfaction spreads like wildfire and many customers refuse the services of companies whose employees are not satisfied with their jobs.

Sure, a lack of employee engagement doesn’t necessarily entail a toxic work environment, but if employee engagement surveys present negative results, that can be a red flag for consumers and can lead to negative brand perception. After all: if the employees don’t care about the product they are working on, why should a client invest in it? But when your employees are satisfied with their work and make it their responsibility to deliver the absolute best products and services, this can boost your brand perception and strengthen your reputation with clients.

3. Higher-Quality Customer Service

Customer service is the backbone of any successful company since without it, you’d be losing clients left and right. But the quality of customer service is just as important. With low employee engagement, there is less motivation to provide customers with quality and adequate support, which then deteriorates client satisfaction.

An effective customer success team is one that is determined to do everything in its power to help clients with any problems. Customers emailing, calling, or texting employees in a customer success team expect results. This cannot happen when the customer service team is dissatisfied with their work and doesn’t care about their performance. Keep employee engagement high to ensure that your customers receive the full support of your highly motivated customer success team.

4. Employee and Client Retention

Workplaces with low employee engagement are likely to have a low retention rate, the measurement of how many employees are hired and stay in a company versus how many leave or are let go. Some companies don’t mind having low retention rates, especially if they regularly receive stacks of job applications.

But it’s very important to remember that with every employee who leaves the company, you may lose one or several clients. Here’s a simple example of how this happens; say you have a sales representative who has built up great rapport with a number of high-profile clients. If that employee decides to leave because they are not engaged with their work, there’s a very good chance your company will lose some, if not all the clients who trust that particular employee.

Keeping workplace engagement levels high means more satisfied employees, higher employee retention rates, and a long, healthy relationship with the clientele.

To Conclude

Employee engagement is key to having an effective and motivated team that is dedicated to ensuring the success of the brand. Keep employee engagement high by incentivising professional growth, recognising and appreciating employees for their efforts, and rewarding outstanding performance.

This will go a long way in how your customers perceive your brand, as they see so many employees engaged in their work and determined to deliver the absolute best results.

This article was guest written by Sara Novicic.