By Anthony Hynes, Managing Director and CEO, eNett International
We’re all familiar with the phrase ‘digital disruptors’. Companies born in the digital era who are giving traditional firms, across all industries, a run for their money. Just look at Airbnb or Netflix. As a result, traditional businesses are having to up their game, ensuring they’re adaptable and agile enough to rival their competitors and importantly, draw in customers and retain them.
However, what’s interesting is that price isn’t always king in consumer purchasing decisions. Increasingly, customer experience (CX) is the true differentiator. And the winners are those that can create, personalise and guide a customer’s journey – providing a high-quality customer experience throughout.
In fact, research from Smith Co, global leaders in CX, found that improving CX directly impacts business performance: a 5% increase in customer loyalty can boost profits by up to 85%. But this can’t just be underpinned by fast technology or great interfaces. The research also found that cultivating a good employee experience and business culture is essential for delivery exceptional CX too.
The working environment must therefore be one that’s happy, where employees feel valued and motivated to deliver an amazing experience to customers. Here are a few approaches I’ve seen that can help create this:
1) On-board and nurture: When you’re growing your company and on-boarding new hires, you want to get someone new entrenched in your brand and culture as quickly as possible. Welcome packs, a new starter video, and branded notebooks, mugs, pens and t-shirts, are all things that can help make new employees feel instantly welcome. Also consider launching a buddy-system, running from an initial induction through to 30/60/90-day touch points, to help a new starter integrate with the team.
2) Training and development: Delivering on-the-job training is vital for developing employees’ skills, for their own personal development and to support company expansion. Consider implementing frequent feedback processes to ensure you’re continuously evaluating employees’ needs and fulfilling their passion to learn. Also look at learning platforms such as Lynda.com that offers thousands of online courses that can help your employees learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals.
3) Have a “super hack day”: A FedEx Day is 24-hour blitz for participants to originate, develop, and deliver new products, new services, or business process improvements overnight. In the same spirit, we hold bi-annual “eNex Days”, where we set challenges for employees to come up with new ideas which will drive the business forwards, such as as how to work better as a team and technologies to consider for product innovation. This helps employees be part of the overall company vision.
4) Foster feedback: The most innovative brands create ways of encouraging feedback from a wide range of people interacting with their business – not only partners and customers, but also employees too. This can be executed in a number of ways, from employee surveys to customer interviews, and gaining feedback from customer facing teams. Don’t just sit on this information. Review and action ideas that could drive the business forward. We also hold quarterly all staff Town Halls and “coffee sessions” with cross-functional groups of people so leaders can communicate what’s going on in the business and answer questions people may have in different forums.
5) Give back: Getting behind a good cause or charity is an enriching experience. We’ve seen first-hand the enthusiasm, creativity and generosity that came from all areas of the company when we launched our Corporate Social Responsibility programme, Repay the eNett Way, which supports impoverished communities around the world that have been displaced by tourism – the industry we work in. It’s been amazing to see our employees come together to support the initiative, from arranging fundraising activities, to helping with hands-on projects in Cambodia, South Africa and Nepal.
6) Small touches: Remember the little things. Games, snacks and “How To” sessions support engagement and retention of employees. And even having beers in the fridge, ready to be cracked open at the end of a hard day, can go a long way.
If people love where they work, and are passionate about what the company is doing, they will become your customer experience superheros – bringing more innovation to the table and helping the organisation be successful in a fast-moving, competitive world.
