One of the most significant advantages of community engagement is that it helps companies to engage their employees on a variety of levels, ultimately driving overall employee engagement in the company. At the same time, employee engagement is at the heart of workplace transformation that leads to greater customer experience. So we know that there a strong link between community engagement, customer experience, and employee engagement. And that is what we will talk about in this episode.
In this podcast, Scott Gould explains how increased employee engagement and retention contribute to a stronger focus on the customer, resulting in a superior customer experience.
Read our blog on: How Employee Satisfaction can lead to Customer Satisfaction
This podcast will also help you in figuring out how to use community engagement, such as charitable activities, to help employees feel more connected to their jobs and, as a result, produce a more productive and engaged workforce. Scott also discusses some low-cost, high-impact approaches to increase both community and employee engagement.
About the speaker:
Scott Gould is an author and authority on engagement. Formerly a church minister, he literally wrote the book on how people engage with ideas, things, and each other. As a consultant, he works with a wide and diverse range of organisations to help them engage employees, customers and communities in face-to-face and virtual settings.
Connect with Scott on Linkedin
Show Notes:
(00:55) Let us know a brief about your journey in the corporate world.
(02:00) Richard Branson said: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients“.
Of course, the customer remains king, but employees are the ambassadors of a brand. What do you put first, employee engagement or customer experience?
(03:50) According to a recent Fortune report, the most successful companies are figuring out how to use community engagement, such as charitable activities, to link workers to their jobs and, as a result, create a more efficient and engaged workforce.
This is a clear description of how positive psychology can help improve employee engagement. What are some other low-cost, high-impact ways to boost community engagement and employee engagement at the same time?
(06:50) Post difficult times, customers always recall how you handled them when they were in need, and your employees must be assisted and cared for to be ready for that challenge.
We can call it a super-power but employees can tell if their bosses are really concerned. When they sense that care has other agendas or other motives, they become suspicious.
True caring can catalyze satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty, but a transactional version of care can suffocate it.
To wrap everything up, leaders or employers must really care in order to deliver a great customer experience and employee engagement, but each effort must be unadulterated. What are your views on being genuinely caring for each other at this crucial time of crisis?
(13:03) According to research conducted over the last decade, higher levels of employee engagement and retention contribute to a greater emphasis on the customer leading to a great customer experience. After all, it is the employees who are in charge of driving customer focus, maintaining customer loyalty, and improving customer relationships within a company.
Employees that are disengaged from their jobs would not go above and beyond to assist customers. But, the other way round, there are a lot of things that customer experience can teach us about employee engagement. Is that something you'd agree to?
(16:49) In the fight for consumer loyalty, rewards and recognition are like big weapons. The same principle applies to employees, maybe more dramatically. Employees love it when someone notices what they’ve been up to. They love rewards, especially when they have a choice.
Unfortunately, when most companies keep customer loyalty points, they tend to forget about their employees. What are the true motivators for employees today considering traditional motivating strategies don’t work anymore?
Read our resource on: Employee Motivation- A Comprehensive Guide
(21:45) Tell us more about your book- The Shape of Engagement: The Art of Building Enduring Connections with Your Customers, Employees and Communities.
(23:05) Suggestions to aspiring HRs and employee engagement enthusiasts.
(24:08) Any HR leader/book you follow.
Scott suggests to read Gung Ho, a fantastic business book that has a wealth of useful knowledge as well as a gripping, page-turning story.
