Organizations still pay little attention to the relationship between employee and customer satisfaction. That will change rapidly in the coming years. With major challenges for HR professionals. The HRM profession is changing rapidly and is increasingly focused on the strategic level of organizations. This turnaround starts with attention to customer needs. Products, services, work processes and the actions of employees are geared to this as much as possible.
This attention of HR professionals to customer needs is relatively new. As a result in addition to the traditional 'employee satisfaction', the experience of customers is now also becoming increasingly important. The relationship between the two is increasingly viewed in conjunction. Because satisfied employees in particular ensure satisfied customers. And the needs of customers are therefore increasingly determining the workforce and employee development.
Measure continuously
New technology helps HR professionals to make this move. This makes it possible to continuously measure, analyze and manage the experience of customers and employees – and the mutual cohesion. With the aim: to provide customers and employees with the most optimal experience. The number of employers in the Netherlands who have already tackled this jointly is currently still limited to a few corporates and medium-sized companies. About 20 percent of the employers are already doing 'something' with employee satisfaction, but that says nothing about the follow-up actions, let alone the relationship with customer satisfaction. It is expected that in five years' time 80 percent of employers will look at the experience of customers and employees in conjunction and will start working on this.
Bottlenecks in data processing
Continuously measuring the experience of employees and customers online has become a lot easier and has therefore become commonplace. The next step is to use that data in conjunction for important improvement themes. Organizations that want to take this step often experience two bottlenecks: a lack of people (manpower and the right expertise) and a single powerful platform that bundles all data centrally. In practice, organizations often work with data in many different systems – sometimes as many as 20! - next to each other. That does not work well and is inefficient.
As a specialist in software for (marketing) research among customers and employees, we have translated the needs of our customers in this area into one platform. As a result, it is now possible to centralize all desired data, to visualize and analyze it in real time and to initiate actions. Fully substantiated according to the principles of HR Analytics. With links, valuable information can be accessed elsewhere and interaction is possible with, for example, the personnel system or CRM. In order to also remove the other bottleneck (the right people), we recently started deploying our specialists to customers in addition to the platform. Because much data collection is done automatically, support of one day per month is sometimes enough.
Set priorities
The arrival of these types of systems will enable HR to make the desired turnaround in the coming years. The input of customers and employees can be better and more easily used to implement organizational improvements for the (ultimate) customer journey. Also use their input to prioritize the various themes that are placed on the agenda through data analyses. Because working on multiple themes at the same time often does not work well: one or a maximum of two themes often works best. In practice, these often turn out to be themes in the field of (internal) communication. Due to all kinds of filters in an organization, the message from management does not reach the workplace properly, for example. In fact, employees do not really know what is expected of them. Improvement actions then immediately lead to greater involvement and better performance.
Organizations that choose this data-driven approach notice the results in different areas. The higher valuations of customers and employees are often directly reflected in lower customer turnover (more turnover) and the employees they want to retain. This leads to lower recruitment costs and a higher quality workforce, because the composition and development of employees means that it is better attuned to the needs of customers.
