The evidence continues to accumulate: happy, satisfied, highly engaged employees help increase customer satisfaction.  And vice versa.

Why is this?

  • Customers like to do business with people who have good attitudes.

How many times have you done business with a company and gotten the impression that people just don’t like working there?  Their unhappiness/dissatisfaction oozes from their pores and can’t help but impact their interactions with customers.  And it makes you want to shudder to think about how your employees’ negative attitudes about your products/services could impact your customers’ own attitudes…

  • Knowledgeable, experienced employees make it easier to do business with your company.

Employees who have worked at your company for a long period of time and have mastered their jobs, understand procedures, and know when to escalate issues are a huge asset when it comes to providing satisfying customer interactions.  And the only way to retain your employees is through high levels of satisfaction and engagement.  Starbucks makes this a very high priority, knowing that there are bottom-line benefits for them.

  • Your employees are an important tool for understanding your customers.

Your employees who work directly with customers are constantly receiving input about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to doing business with you.  And they also know what other options your customers have and how you measure up.  It’s important that your employees feel engaged and invested enough to share this information with others in the organization, enabling you to ensure that your products, services, and policies are in synch with what your customers want.

There are other factors at play which drive the close relationship between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, but these are three of the most important ones.

And if you wonder why good service is hard to find these days, consider this: only about fifty-percent of employees are satisfied with their jobs — and only one in five are passionate about their work.

Some very successful companies have a radical approach: employees first, customers second.  There must be a reason for that thinking.

If you consider customer satisfaction and loyalty an important strategy for your company, be sure to invest some energy in understanding and measuring your employees’ satisfaction/loyalty also.  The results could be enlightening and help you understand why your customer sat/loyalty numbers aren’t quite what you are hoping for.