Happy employees, happy customers, great profits

The future is about treating and seeing people as people rather as customers and employees.

People have feelings.

People have needs.

The future of profit is therefore about creating a great human experience that attracts happy customers and great employees.

Its all about creating positive working environments for employees who want to (rather than have to) show up to work and who want to create positive service experience for their customers.

Businesses that deliver superior customer service and experience through their employees outperform their competition hands down.

This causal link between employee experience and customer experience is very real and it should not be ignored.

The future of work is about giving employees, especially Millennial, holistic and authentic employee experience that will ignite their passion and purpose to go the extra mile to improve the individual, team and organisational performance.

The future of buying is service. It’s all about the customer experience receiving the service (or product) or the user experience using the product (or service).

From our own personal experience, we love going to cafés that have pleasant employees offering great service seasoned with smiles and joy. We will definitely enjoy interacting with employees who are friendly and pleasant.

Conversely, would you ever return to a café that is serviced by grumpy employees even if the food is good?

The reality is that successful customer experience will totally depend on organisations putting their employees first, not their customers.

Customers will only have positive service experience when they interact with employees who they themselves have a positive experience with their employer and colleagues and work environment.

It’s a case of happy employees attracting and retaining happy customers who will gladly make repeated purchases in the future.

Organisations will have to survey or ask their workforce and customers what positive human experience look like for them, what they consider as positive experiences during various touchpoints, and what they can do to close any gaps in experience and expectations.

Employee experience

Employee experience (EX) is about how workers respond to their interactions with their employers, colleagues, and working environment, which includes having a positive experience at all stages of the employee life-cycle.

Employees want to feel valued, respected and invested in long-term relationships.

EX is generally based on the following two basic elements:

1. An overall set of employee emotions, attitudes, perceptions, and expectations across time and during touchpoints along the employee life-cycle.
2. A collection of factors that include cultural experience, physical experience, and technological experience.

It’s only when employers take constructive steps toward actively designing and shaping the compelling positive human experience for their employees that they will also see increased positive experience for their customers.

This will lead to better customer service and experience and ultimately, increased profits.

The customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX)

The customer experience (CX) is defined by positive interactions and business relationships with employees, policies, systems, and processes of organisations.

CX is generally based on the following two basic elements:

1. Touch-points (or moments of truth) that the customer interacts with throughout their customer journey and business relationship.
2. A collection of factors that include cultural experience, physical experience, technological experience, and product or service experience (user experience or UX).

User experience (UX) is about the customer’s emotions, attitudes, and perceptions when using a particular product (i.e., website, application, etc.) or service provided by an organisation.

A good customer or user experience means that the individual’s experience during all points of contact with the organisation matches his/her expectations.

Treating both employees and customers as humans and with respect can lead to sustainable profits for the businesses.

Focus on people first and profits will naturally flow.