“Success depends on effort,” advised Greek playwright Sophocles. When he penned those words, he probably didn’t imagine that they would ring true for the business world 2,000 years later, but indeed they do, and not just in an aphoristic sense. PeopleMetric’s 2010 Most Engaged Customers (MEC) study found that employees of companies with the highest Customer Engagement scores demonstrate extraordinary effort in meeting customer needs. Customers are more engaged when they can see that employees are trying hard to exceed their expectations.
To provide context, the 2010 MEC study found Effort is the fifth crucial ingredient in high Customer Engagement scores. After gathering more than 15,000 customer ratings for 67 brands, PeopleMetrics analyzed how the highest ranking companies achieved Customer Engagement and customer love. From this data, as detailed in the full Most Engaged Customers report, PeopleMetrics created a customer engagement model any company can follow. The model is based on a pyramid of traits companies must have in order to attain high Customer Engagement. Moving from the base to the fourth layer of the pyramid, companies must have a compelling business offer, a caring organization, consistent customer service, and high levels of customer trust in order to achieve gain engaged customers.
Employee effort is the fifth layer of the pyramid, and the step that moves customers from mere Satisfaction and Loyalty toward full Engagement. That matters because, unlike other customer satisfaction metrics, Customer Engagement has been tied to important business metrics including stock price, profit margin, share-of-market, and more. Overall, employee effort is difficult to achieve, but definitely worth it.
Our research of more than 60 brands across 12 industries uncovered three types of amazing employee effort:
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Extraordinary Effort or Unexpected Acts of Kindness. When employees are willing to “go the extra mile,” customer engagement increases. As an example, one Trader Joe’s customer explained: “While we were there, they were offering samples of cookies, and my children did not like the variety they had offered for sample, so they offered another cookie, actually opening the package for us to try.”
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Investing Extra Time to Serve the Customer. Money may talk, but time shouts—at least that’s what customers indicate with their engagement levels. An Allstate customer summarized the power of time, saying, “My reps will take their time in going over any questions I have. They also recently helped me with a tow on my vehicle. They went out of their way to offer to Google a tow company—provided me the number and had already called to confirm the company would be able to tow my vehicle within 30 minutes. THEY ARE AWESOME!!”
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Employees Who Love Their Jobs So Much That Doing More Is Natural To Them. Here’s where Employee Engagement feeds Customer Engagement. Engaged Employees find it easy to put in extra effort for the customer. As one Wegmans customer put it, “They are on the like top 100 or 500 companies to work for, everyone I have ever encountered while in the store (employees) speaks kindly, is helpful, and even if it’s not their job will go out of their way to make sure you got the answer or found what you were looking for.”
Some things never change. Business success is indeed dependent on effort, as Sophocles wrote. When customers see employees working extra hard, they are more likely to be engaged. Consistent employee effort can dramatically improve Customer Engagement scores.
Topics: Employee Experience, Customer Experience
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