This week we feature an article* by Candace Sheitelman, CMO at Edify. She shares five different strategies to build a stronger and more effective employee experience. According to Gallup’s recent polls, 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged. Think about that for a moment—that’s a staggeringly high number. If 50 people work in your contact […]
This week we feature an article* by Candace Sheitelman, CMO at Edify. She shares five different strategies to build a stronger and more effective employee experience.
According to Gallup’s recent polls, 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged. Think about that for a moment—that’s a staggeringly high number. If 50 people work in your contact center, that’s like saying only 6.5 of them actually care about what’s going on in your business. And yet all 50 are TALKING TO CUSTOMERS! Yes, you should be freaking out. Because, yes, this is impacting your bottom line.
Contact center work is tough. Churn is higher in this industry than in almost any other. We’ve seen documentation (not naming names) of attrition rates as high as 150%—as in agent positions being hired for more than once a year EACH. I get it, it’s hard to always interact with unhappy customers or deal with people complaining about a product or service they disliked. But most contact center leaders also don’t help the matter because they’re not that great at training people to handle these interactions with grace, and supervisors often don’t even have the data and insight to help agents do better.
So, we find ourselves in the ugly circular dilemma: which comes first, the employees or the customers?
I’m OK with old clichés like the customer is king (queen!), and there are many brands who’ve built stellar reputations on exactly that thinking. However, most agents aren’t supported with the right training, knowledge, coaching (and so on), hence they are incapable of delivering their best.
So I say this with certainty: Unless we start putting the employee experience at the top of the list, the customer experience will never reach its potential. Here are 5 things you can start doing right now to give power to your people in the name of creating extraordinary customer experiences:
Research tells us that a 5% increase in employee engagement can lead to a 3% jump in revenue. With no math at all, we already know this is worth it. When agents feel valued, heard, prepared, and integral to a team striving to achieve big goals, nothing can come between them and your customers. A top-notch employee experience must lie at the heart of any hope or plan for a top-notch customer experience.
Hence, the employee comes first. There, I said it.
*This article written by Candace Sheitelman was previously posted in January 2020 on Contact Center Pipeline.
Candace Sheitelman brings more than two decades of marketing expertise to Edify, much of it focused on CX and the contact center. She’s responsible for Edify’s go-to-market strategy and execution.
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.
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