Do your employees know more than you do? When it comes to your customers and operations, chances are the answer is yes! Frontline staff are interacting with customers every day. They can answer key questions, like. . .
What do our customers love about us? What frustrates them? What do they want us to fix?
So often, companies don't give employees a voice to access that wealth of knowledge.
So, your next question may be . . . What is an employee engagement app?
What are best practices to engage employees?
What is an employee engagement app?
An employee engagement app is designed to create connected digital communities aligned around the company's mission, vision and values. It facilitates communication, collaboration and innovation by giving employees a voice. It encourages the exchange of ideas around improving both the customer and workplace experience. The result of effective employee engagement will be higher customer and employee satisfaction, reduced staff turnover, more efficient operations, and higher team productivity.
7 best practices to get the best from your employees with engagement
How do you get the best from your employees? Knowing how to retain, engage and motivate your employees starts by increasing communications and empathy. If you understand and act on what is most important to your staff, you will see increases in customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, team productivity and staff retention.
Getting the best from your employees requires a shift from top down - "Head office knows best" to a bottom up - "We're here to support your success" management mindset. Remember that embracing change in culture takes time. It won't happen overnight - but it will happen if you lay the groundwork and stay committed.
So, how do you build a customer and team centric culture focused on delivering amazing customer and workplace experiences? Follow these 7 steps.
1. Give employees a voice
Find out what is important to your employees. Measure your E-NPS to find out how likely your staff is to recommend your company as a great place to work to their friends and colleagues. Continually make changes that give employees more of what they value.
2. Take a weekly "team pulse" check.
Create a short 4 question "team pulse" survey. Ask operations based questions like - "Any customer requests or complaints this week? Anything you found frustrating? Tell us something that made you proud? Any suggestions for us? Improve employee satisfaction, engagement and retention by acting on employee feedback.
3. Start a "Team Feed" to share ideas.
Share customer feedback with frontline teams and get them to share their ideas on how they think the problem can be solved. Ask what barriers they see to providing a great customer experience. If they were making the decisions, what changes would they make. See what interesting ideas may image.
4. Build connected "digital communities".
Create community employee profiles to share a bit about themselves with the team. introduce new employees to the their team members in the "team feed". Share your company vision, values and goals as part of onboarding. Create a welcome video to strengthen the brand culture. Make it easy to message team members and managers.
5. Ask employees how they would improve the workplace.
Acknowledge employees that are brave enough to give you input, whether or not you agree. Creating a culture where it is safe to share ideas takes time. It requires a period of building trust. Show teams there is no judgement and it is safe to put ideas forward.
6. Show employees they can make an impact.
Find one suggestion a month you can implement on and announce that to the team. Let them know you they can make a difference by sharing their feedback. Shout out to thank the person for the chosen idea. Acknowledge everyone for sharing their ideas.
7. Give kudos to scale desirable behaviors.
Reward excellence. Shout out to the team members with outstanding performance. Acknowledge exemplary behaviors consistent with the company core values. It may be an innovative idea, or staying late to help a customer or team member. Perhaps it is a community initiative or charitable contribution.