How employee satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction

There’s a direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Happy employees equal happy customers. Unhappy employees lead to unhappy customers. Both employees and customers greatly impact day-to-day operations and the bottom line. Any company’s employees can — and should — be its best advocates and brand ambassadors.

Measuring and responding to employee and customer satisfaction is vitally important because the two influence and inform each other (and your balance sheet). There are a few ways to measure employee satisfaction, but it’s always best to use a two-pronged approach. One prong should be a more formal survey, such as the annual Great Place to Work survey.

The second prong should be something more informal and internally based. Many companies already have annual employee reviews built into their calendars, which can be expanded to include a mid-year check-in. It is important to clearly identify areas for improvement and continue to gather feedback throughout the year.

A third-party survey can also be helpful for monitoring customer satisfaction. One of the most important questions is how likely a customer is to recommend your business to family or friends. That’s just one metric, but it tells you a lot and can be used as a marker to measure improvement. As any marketer knows, word-of-mouth advertising is invaluable.

More leaders are coming to understand the link between great employee experiences and driving customer satisfaction. If you’ve got a happy customer because they had a good service experience, there’s an opportunity to cross-sell or upsell to additional services. Or they might become an advocate, which helps you get new customers.

It is important to hire the right people who relentlessly want to serve customers and love solving complex puzzles. There are people who love to deal with other people’s problems. They have the personality to calm the angriest customers. Getting the right people in the right job is crucial to that 100% satisfaction rating.

A great company culture trickles down through the entire organization, keeping employees happy and motivated. That energy also extends to your customers, creating a better overall experience. Fostering a culture focused on employee happiness is sometimes trickier than it seems, though, so leaders need a well-planned strategy to make it a reality.

The best employee experiences begin on day one. A smooth onboarding process—one that allows new workers to settle into their roles quickly and without undue hassle—sets a lasting impression. This is more than just ‘nice to have’. It’s imperative to create great employee experiences or you’ll lose out on talent.

This also applies to internal transitions, such as job changes and restructuring. Well-executed processes can prevent attrition. Retaining talent is significant these days because the younger generation isn’t afraid to hop around and seek great experiences in different organizations. The longer you can retain talent, the more ROI you’re going to see.

Another critical piece of the employee experience is training and development. Employees should be equipped with the skills they need to excel at their jobs and have opportunities to continue to learn and develop. They should be able to check in and touch base with their managers to monitor their progress and discuss any questions or concerns as they arise.

The benefits of retention go beyond saving on recruiting costs. Not only are longer-term employees often more skilled at serving customers, but they also serve as internal ambassadors. This yields a network effect, where one employee’s satisfaction can spread among their colleagues exponentially.

Employee happiness is derived from finding meaning in work. Employees need to feel that they are going somewhere and that there is a chance to progress. They need to feel that their work makes a difference for an internal or an external customer. The key is to figure out how the organization’s purpose and everyone’s individual purpose can be aligned.

Showing employees that you value the work they’re doing is one of the easiest ways to boost their motivation. It can be as simple as saying thank you, publicly acknowledging and celebrating their contributions. It’s time to shift the mindset from employees working just to work, to acknowledging that they’re valuable contributors to a company’s success.

Creating a good employee experience has often taken a back seat to the customer experience. Happy customers were simply seen as more valuable than happy employees. That’s changing, thanks in large part to powerful new workflow products that make it easier to unite EX and CX—and, in turn, benefit the bottom line.

TMP’s role

Here at TMP, we value continuous learning as it leads to a profitable improvement. Customers leave feedback through emails and phone calls and we calculate and analyze the needs of the business based on the numbers. Our customer satisfaction exceeds 95%!