When it comes to financial planning, customer experience is a key factor in increasing your conversion rates, however, in the process of trying to make your customers happy, some financial planners forget about the key person that helps your business increase client happiness and retention – your employees. Being the first point of contact in your sales funnel, your employees reflect the state of your work culture.
Increase Employee Engagement, Motivation and Participation
At Asendium, we have taken the time to designed and implemented out employee experience processes into the customer experience processes.
“I think that the one thing that employers can forget is that your current employees can become future customers of your future business ventures. Invest time in ensuring that your work culture fosters a highly engaging and motivating employee experience so that when they become future customers, they are immediate advocates of your business.” – Scott
Here are some ways you can maximise your employee experience to increase your customer experience journey.
Realign Your KPI Structure
The KPI structure that you give to your employees should reflect the values and long-term goals of your business. For example, if your goal is to increase client retention through high touch customer service, but you measure their performance based on the amount of turnover of calls per month, you will not only get poor performance measures but disgruntled employees who will see clients as a KPI that needs to be met.
Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, authors of Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth, gave a perfect example of this point, “Good customer support is so rare that, if you simply try to make your customers happy, they are likely to spread the news of your awesome product on that basis alone.”
Case closed.
Feedback from The Frontline Is Key
Your employees are at the frontline of your business. This means that they are the ones who hear all the comments, concerns and complaints from your customers. Our advice – Listen. To. Your. Employees.
If you are leading your business, you should be constantly asking your client facing employees about the common questions, concerns and complaints that they often hear from your clients. Not only does your employee feel appreciated and heard, but you will continually improve your client experience.
As Ed Batistia, executive coach and business lecturer said, “We can’t just sit back and wait for feedback to be offered, particularly when we’re in a leadership role. If we want feedback to take root in the culture, we need to explicitly ask for it.”
Protect Your Most Valuable Asset
Incorporate Your Employees Throughout the CX Journey
Given your employees are the face of the company, they need to be incorporated throughout your customer experience journey. Resonate Solutions points out, “Employees should be considered a touch point within your customer’s journey. The interaction with your employees can have a signification effect on brand perception and customer sentiment. Thus, the customer’s experience needs to be managed end to end including any employee touchpoints in the middle. Managing employees experience creates an easier and more sustainable customer experience.” Read more about it – A Holistic Approach to Experience: Why CX and EX are equally important.
Great employees are rare to find and they are even harder to hold onto. If you can make your employees the vocal point of your customer experience journey, it will not only increase their sense of worth, but create a holistic culture where employee and customer experience journeys support each other.
