Engaging employees to deliver the brand

The way customers experience a brand is not just at an impersonal company level, but also at a personal level through the interface with customer-facing employees.

But success in this respect is notoriously difficult to achieve and even more difficult to sustain. Business leaders are recognising that the effective management of employees can have a big impact on customer retention and business profitability. Simply put, employee commitment plays a major role in delivering a great customer experience, which leads to customer satisfaction, customer commitment and improved business performance.

A Sears case history published by Harvard Business Review in 1998 provided the first robust, empirically-based demonstration of the service-profit chain, indicative of the following:

* Employee attitudes about their job and the company are the two factors that predict their behaviour in front of the customer.

* Employee behaviour in front of customers and the delivery of a particular customer experience directly influences customer attitudes, commitment and retention.

* Customer commitment and retention directly influence financial performance.

Research shows that the engagement and commitment of employees towards the brand, proposition and, ultimately, to the customer, impacts significantly on business performance:

* Companies with highly engaged employees generated 200% higher three-year returns to shareholders than low commitment companies between 1999 and 2002.

* Over the past five years, companies which employees rate as great places to work have shown 25% growth in share and dividend returns, compared with 6.3% for the rest.

* 70% of customer brand perception is determined by experiences with people.

* 41% of customers are loyal because of good employee attitude.

It may be customer service 101, but a warm, smiling, helpful and knowledgeable person on the phone or in the retail outlet will make a big impression - and because it`s so rare, it`s likely to lead to advocacy.

Employees cannot be motivated and engaged effectively until hygiene factors such as remuneration, working environment, and health and safety are satisfied. The following conditions show the strongest correlation with business results:

* Do I know what is expected of me at work?
* Do I have the materials and equipment to do my job?
* Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
* In the last seven days have I received recognition for good work?
* Does my supervisor or manager seem to care about me as a person?
* Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

Employee commitment plays a major role in delivering a great customer experience, which leads to customer satisfaction, customer commitment and improved business performance.

Doug Leather, MD, REAP Consulting

The most common problem for leaders trying to lead is that they are often too busy trying to manage and do. In employee surveys, employees rate their leaders through the prism created by their manager - poor management results in lack of trust in leadership. First line managers have a significant impact on employee performance and commitment. It`s important to note that 70% of employees do not leave their company; they leave their manager. Great managers create great teams with loyal customers by creating a great workplace.

Marketers are increasingly aware of the proven links between employee engagement, customer commitment, retention and business profitability. But brand values must be translated into a set of guidelines that can be used by staff to manage customers. Desired behaviours should be derived from the proposition. Managers and staff need to know what behaviours they must adopt to deliver the experience - you can`t expect them to guess!

Brand values must be defined as part of a shared organisational experience informed by internal and external research. These values need to be translated into behaviours with standards, developed with employees which, when delivered by employees, will evoke the desired customer experience. Employees must also understand the benefits of service quality and its relationship with customer retention.

A good employee engagement strategy includes employee involvement in developing the proposition; customer-focused leadership; powerful and ongoing employee communications through "huddles"; gaining employee buy-in before customer buy-in; and recognising employees in a relevant and impactful way.

It is vital for companies to focus on retaining their best employees; some forward-thinking companies have begun to measure employee retention according to the value/performance of the employee.

Companies need to enable staff to see how their job supports the company`s objectives of value maximisation. This alignment can help to shape their behaviours and provides employees throughout the organisation with a line of sight from the high level (such as profitability), to the low level (such as cost of customer management of a particular activity).