Companies that implement voice-of-employee (VoE) programs are usually in it to improve the employee experience (EX).
If that sounds like your organization’s approach, hear us out: There’s another way to reap the benefits of an employee insight community—and it’s worth trying out for yourself.
Here, we’re talking about two ways to leverage the voice of the employee: to improve EX as well as the customer experience (CX).
VoE and EX: Use Insights from the Workforce to Improve the Employee Experience
First, there’s the tried-and-true method: using insights from the workforce to improve employee experience and retention.
Are you aware of the obstacles your customer support staff has to get past before they can reach satisfactory solutions for clients? Do you really know what’s causing top performers to disengage after just a year or two on the job?
The only way to find out exactly what’s happening up and down the organizational ladder is to ask.
Collecting employee feedback can uncover issues that would otherwise contribute to a host of issues, like:
- Frustration.
- Disengagement.
- Burnout.
- Lack of productivity.
- Attrition.
The discoveries you make will empower you to make informed decisions and proactive, positive changes. This might mean introducing process improvements or realigning policies and perks with what the workforce actually wants.
Either way, talking and listening to an employee—asking what you can do to make their day-to-day better—makes that person feel like a valued team member, not just a cog in the machine.
And, if enough individuals experience the benefits of this empathetic approach, it can serve as a catalyst for company-wide change.
As HR Technologist explains, “Organizational success is reinforced” by VoE programs: You’ll be more likely to see top talent stick as resource utilization improves. Plus, after eliminating those day-to-day hurdles and hassles, your company will be primed for cross-team collaborations that simply weren’t possible before.
All of those VoE advantages and EX improvements trickle down to the bottom line, too.
If you can join companies that rank in the top quartile for EX, Deloitte says you’ll be 25% more profitable than competitors trailing in the bottom quartile. Just think about what it would mean to fuel a revenue growth rate that’s 2.3 times greater than average—all by asking employees how to create a best-in-class EX and following through.
VoE and CX: Leverage Employee Perspectives to Enhance the Customer Journey
Now for a different way of thinking about the value of VoE: Have you tried using employee input to improve the customer experience?
It’s a newer, more innovative way to peer into the customer journey. But companies that aren’t there yet will soon fall behind.
According to Forrester, companies investing in “voice-of-the-customer (VoC) programs focus too much on [customer] surveys and miss out on the value of other crucial sources of feedback. Employee feedback about your CX is a critical input for VoC programs; it provides additional context to better understand customer feedback.”
If you care about building a better CX, asking for customer feedback is an important step. It just shouldn’t be your only step.
Customers simply don’t have the same level of visibility as your workforce. Buyers can offer feedback based on their one-sided experience, but only employees can fill in the story and identify internal processes that contributed to less-than-ideal interactions.
By considering employees as boots-on-the-ground CX experts, your VoE program can yield transformative but yet-to-be-discovered opportunities for improving the customer journey. You’ll:
- See a 360-degree view of the many aspects of your business that contribute to CX.
- Pinpoint and eliminate obstacles in the way of a positive customer experience.
- Discover and resolve the root causes of complex CX issues.
Employees on your sales and support teams work one-on-one with customers every day. They’re the ones who will see gaps and missed opportunities well before higher-level stakeholders do. In your workforce, there’s a wealth of institutional knowledge and insight just waiting to be tapped.
This approach is incredibly empowering to employees, too. They can do their jobs better and make a real difference across critical customer touchpoints.
We’d call that a win-win for CX and EX.
Collect Valuable Employee Feedback Through Digital Insight Communities
The voice of the employee isn’t only a means to a better EX—and customer surveys aren’t the only way to collect feedback about CX. Augmenting voice-of-the-customer insights with employee feedback provides valuable perspectives that a lot of companies aren’t taking advantage of.
To shed light on issues on both sides of the company-customer relationship, build a digital insight community with your employees at the center. Use a tool like Alida Voice of Employee to generate engaging activities and gather responses in real time. From there, leverage text analytics and sentiment analysis to unearth key insights around EX and CX alike.
After getting rid of roadblocks and making the changes everyone’s asking for, share the results with your employees so they feel heard and empowered. Encourage teams to update the customers they speak with everyday, too.
To find out what VoE can mean for your organization, ask us about Alida Voice of Employee.
