It’s a simple equation, one that has been studied and substantiated over the past couple of decades or more:
A happy and engaged employee = improved customer service, higher productivity, lower turnover = better business and financial outcomes for the organization.
Building that employee experience
What contributes to keeping employees happy and engaged? It’s a combination of factors that we can collectively call the employee experience. Approached thoughtfully, this can form the core of why people choose to join your company – and stay on. The elements that constitute employee experience, according to a study by McKinsey, include nine social, work-related, and organization-related factors such as recognition of employee contribution, sense of belonging, interesting work, incentives for growth and learning, safe surroundings, aligned goals and values, work control and flexibility, and technology that enables efficient and frictionless work.
While these are all important, the last two are particularly significant in what we have been calling the “new normal” for work and the workplace.
While the new normal may mean different things for different organizations and/or industries, one common thread across all is the hybrid, or distributed, model of work that is here to stay. Omdia found in its Future of Work 2022: Hybrid Work Insights survey that over the next two years, 48% of the total workforce will work in a mobile or hybrid fashion. Companies are now focused on working through the implications of this for their businesses and how it can be optimized without disrupting business continuity or efficiency.
The hybrid workplace could mean some employees are working remotely all the time or part of the time, while others are working from the office. Some might be working from home offices while, yet others could be at an external location like a shared workspace. So, a key requirement of hybrid work is that the workforce will need to be able to connect, always communicate and collaborate securely, from anywhere and on any device, in an “always-on” mode.
This ties back to the employee experience factors of work control and flexibility, and technology that enables efficient and frictionless work. It also contributes to better communication and collaboration that engenders that crucial sense of belonging and community. Now, more than ever, employees need to feel more deeply connected to each other since face-to-face interactions are limited.
Connectivity is a key determinant of not just overall experience but also of productivity and efficiency across people and systems. A distributed workforce needs collaboration applications and voice connectivity that enables teams to work together seamlessly with reduced digital friction, which leads to increased productivity as well as the ability to provide a better experience to customers.
McKinsey research also shows that, at companies that are ahead in the employee experience stakes, employees tend to surpass work expectations, having a 40 percent higher level of discretionary effort. This is huge in terms of potential organizational success and can make the difference between your company’s merely surviving - or thriving.
Looking at ‘total experience’ instead of just customers
Let’s look at how this translates into a better customer experience. At Tata Communications, we like to take a holistic view that we call total experience - one that encompasses all stakeholders from the employee to the partner, the customer and the end-user.
Total experience entails more than just customer service - it means providing an excellent experience for everyone involved in the extended ecosystem. Delivering this involves breaking down silos within and outside the organization and facilitating better information flow by seamlessly and securely connecting all the stakeholders across different channels.
However, customer experience leaders are grappling with challenges like rising call volumes, increased employee turnover and greater customer expectations. Organizations are struggling with digital transformation and new ways of working. According to McKinsey’s State of Customer Care 2022 report, 77 percent of survey respondents reported that their organizations have built digital platforms, but only 10 percent report that those platforms are fully scaled and adopted by customers.
This is where enterprises need to look at engaging a wider range of CX solutions. Take for example, a cloud-based approach to managing the customer engagement lifecycle. This will help bring together the flexibility of a cloud-based, highly scalable contact center infrastructure, complemented by self-service and contact-center deflection capabilities to ensure you deliver optimum service for your customers and agents in the most efficient way possible, while also reaping business benefits. We have helped our customers achieve 50 percent cost reduction, 25 percent revenue increase, 30 percent capital investment reduction, 60 percent call wait time reduction, and 40 percent call containment.
Today, customers want brands to engage them on their terms, with each step of their buying and servicing to be personalized, seamless, consistent, and contextualized. The foundation of such compelling experiences is the ability to communicate, engage, and collaborate anytime, anywhere, across any channel. The ability to integrate human interactions with digital experiences can be a significant differentiator for companies.
