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Happy Employees, Happy Customers

Contributed article by Renaud Charvet, CEO of Ringover

~ The secret to unlocking both employee and customer satisfaction ~

United States businessman Harry Gordon Selfridge was one of the first influential people to triumph the phrase “the customer is always right”. A saying that’s traced back to the late 1800s and still valued today, keeping customers happy is key. But ensuring customer happiness requires a domino effect — starting with employee satisfaction. Here, Renaud Charvet, CEO of business telephony provider Ringover, explains how the right business technology can enhance employee satisfaction and improve customer experience. 

Good customer experience starts with good employee experience. When employees aren’t happy at work, their interactions with customers suffer as a result, which can have detrimental repercussions for a business and its reputation.

The impact of employees on customers

Delivering good customer service has never been more crucial. A PwC survey examining customer experience found that in the United States, even when people love a company or product, over half will walk away after several bad experiences, and 65 per cent believing a positive experience is more influential than great advertising.

While companies must acknowledge the importance of delivering good service, they should also understand the pressure this can place on their teams. The Microsoft 2022 Work Trend Index, a study of more than 30,000 employees across 31 countries, predicts that over 40 per cent of the workforce is contemplating leaving their current jobs in the coming year. The main reason why? They feel their workload is unreasonable.

Call centers  

Contact and call centers often have a reputation for being high-stress workplaces. Widely associated with workers being monitored electronically, having tightly controlled schedules and taking an average of 50 calls a day, call centers can be challenging work environments if employees don’t receive sufficient support.

In 2021, almost 300,000 agents were employed, with most centers located in Texas, Florida and California. According to data from Cornell University, almost 90 per cent of employees in call centers report high-stress levels. A further 50 per cent of the agents surveyed said they felt emotionally drained, suffered sleep problems and experienced burnout. Combined, these issues can be a dangerous cocktail for employee dissatisfaction.

What’s more, research from Avaya found that 60 per cent of agents think their companies don’t always provide the technology they need to address customer service challenges, with 34 per cent admitting they don’t have the right data in front of them when speaking with a customer. So how can call center managers help?

Tech is here to help

Giving call center agents the tools to make their jobs easier will undoubtedly lead to less stress, greater employee satisfaction and a better experience all round. This should start with a good customer relationship management (CRM) strategy — which is the blueprint for how a business will maintain the relationship between its customers and its customer service teams. It encompasses all the activities, strategies and technologies a business needs manage interactions with existing and prospective customers.

With a third of agents without the right data in front of them when speaking to a customer, having the right CRM for your business is key to turning this around. Consolidating data into one central location, meaning tasks can be completed more efficiently and with confidence when addressing the customer, will assist employees in meeting deadlines and managing their workload — reducing stress and granting better job satisfaction.

However, to unlock the full potential of a CRM system, it must easily integrate with other vital business applications. Ringover can integrate with multiple CRM systems to offer businesses more than just a telephony system, meaning any area of a business can unite its communications technology with its CRM software. In doing so, companies can match the tools they need to communicate with their customers, with the tools that help them build relationships and work more effectively.  

With customers prepared to leave a brand after just a few bad experiences, businesses must pay attention to the impact low employee satisfaction can have on the customer experience. Businesses must invest in their employees by providing them with all the tools possible to make their jobs as efficient as possible and improve satisfaction.

About Ringover: A leader in cloud communications, Ringover seamlessly combines unlimited calling, group messaging and video conferencing into one easy-to-use app. No expertise is needed to set up and integrates with your CRM or helpdesk tools. Within a few clicks, you’ve gained access to all the data you need to enhance your call centre or sales team’s performance and boost customer engagement.