Customer Experience & Employee Experience: Pitfalls & Successes (P2)

Part 2 of Connecting the Dots: Customer Experience & Employee Experience. We will be sharing case studies to guide you through implementation and highlighting some pitfalls to avoid. 

In Part 1, we discussed the link between Customer Experience (CX) & Employee Experience (EX), as well as the 6 different pathways that could be influenced by each other.

Learning from Success Stories 🎯

Kentucky Fried Chicken - KFC.

KFC is a customer satisfaction leader in Asia, especially Indonesia, scoring the highest among restaurant chains in the country. With a high EX score of 3.4 on both Work-Life Balance & Culture, it is reflected through their high CX score of 26.5 amongst dining & quick service restaurants.

What are the top contributing factors for their high EX?

• Supportive Environment: Health and safety of employees is ensured with implementation of Occupational Health and Safety System (e.g. KFC made sure vaccines were available for all.)
• Collaborative Environment: Process set up to allow customer center team to communicate complaints to the respective departments for follow-up
• Growth & Development: Investment in training and offers internal advancements opportunities (e.g. online and leadership programmes aim to develop “All Star” crew by improving the service speed and quality. Certified crews can be promoted.)

In-N-Out

Known for its made-to-order hamburgers, fresh ingredients, and efficient service, In-N-Out has maintained the same basic menu and a simple, customer-friendly philosophy since its founding in 1948.

They consistently rank high on various consumer surveys, especially in areas such as brand loyalty, food quality and service. Ranked #39 as the best place to work in the US, their high EX is converted to high CX, where consumers are provided with great service & experience. 70% of consumers rate “best in class” or “above average” for service, 87% for freshness and 87% for taste. These positive feelings have in turn, resulted in greater brand loyalty.

What are the top contributing factors for their high EX?

• Rewards & Recognition: Store managers have an average yearly salary of US$160k, triple of industry average. Apart from that, managers who met their annual goals were sent on trips and associates were invited to store achievement parties hosted throughout the year.
• Growth & Development: There are internal advancement opportunities known as the ‘Associate Levels of Development’. Entry level staff have an opportunity to work their way up to a part-time supervisor.

Starhub

Starhub is a leading homegrown Singapore company that provides customers with world-class telecom solutions and services. 

When the pandemic hit, they faced unexpected challenges and market dynamics. They took it as an opportunity to focus on the growth and development of its workforce by accelerating its ongoing business initiatives.

The pandemic created the perfect storm for leaders to re-think and re-evaluate how work is designed and organised. We designed engagement, wellness, and learning & development programmes to help our employees better manage their personal growth. Our primary priority was to ensure employees’ health, safety, and well-being.

- Catherine Chia, Chief HR Officer at StarHub

Click here to read the full case study.

Aided by EngageRocket, StarHub is able to deploy a data-driven HR strategy that is aligned with the unexpected needs of the hour. The solution helps the company measure and monitor a wide range of metrics across the employee lifecycle. 

With data-driven insights and relevant follow-up actions from the team, StarHub saw improvements in:

• Participation in engagement events: Averages between 700 and 1000 employees, which is more than 75% of the company’s non-frontline workforce
• Reduced attrition rate: 20.9% in 2018 vs. 16.2% in 2020
• Improved eNPS: -41 in 2019 vs. -4 in 2020

From the real-life examples above, we can see that employees who feel appreciated and engaged in their role possess a more positive attitude toward their workplace, which helps in delivering a more effective customer service.

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Potential Pitfalls & How to Avoid ⛔️

Kellogg’s is a multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in the United States of America. Though a big organisation with good earnings every year, its net income does not always increase year-on-year. Its brand is also said to have lost its luster even with 100 years of experience in the industry. 

Employees were forced to work over 80 hours a week with a chilling point system that dings them when requesting for time-off. 

“The worst is when you work a 7-to-7 and they tell you to come back at 3 a.m. on a short turnaround,” says Omaha BCTGM president Daniel Osborn, a mechanic at the plant. “You work 20, 30 days in a row and you don’t know where work and your life ends and begins.”

In 2021, there was a month-long strike of about 1,400 workers in cereal plants that produce popular brands such as Rice Krispies and Frosted Flakes. Unable to reach a deal, Kellogg then announced plans to permanently replace striking workers who rejected their proposed contract.

Ultimately, their poor EX led to poor CX. Firstly, a group of consumers spammed Kellogg’s job portal to support striking workers. Secondly, consumers on social media started a movement to boycott Kellogg, as a way to stand in solidarity with the company's employees. This fiasco ultimately led to their poor overall net promoter score (NPS) of 8 as compared to a competitor’s score of 100. 

Forever 21 was one of the largest and most competitive fast fashion retail brands in the world, headquartered in the United States of America. Despite its scale across the globe, it had poor customer advocacy and ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2019.

In 2012, Forever 21 was caught in an employee rights lawsuit that claimed that employees were required to work without compensation and were denied meal breaks. Instead, they were detained in stores on lunch breaks and after their shifts for bag checks. 

A quick search on their company reviews indicated low scores across culture, development and overall eNPS. Without engaged employees, it is tough to get the business going. This is reflected in their poor CX with unfavorable website experiences, a disconnect with customers when trying to expand the brand which led to confusion in product offerings and eventually, an overall net promoter score (NPS) of -5 as compared to a competitor’s score of 49. 

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The Bottom Line ⚖️

Just like how you would track and trend CX metrics continuously over time, the same should be done for EX, especially taking into account that there are different moments that matter to employees across their entire lifecycle. 

• Employee Experience (EX): Listen with empathy and gather feedback at each moment that matters to employees.

• Customer Experience (CX): Understand your customers behavior and outcomes. Consider adopting one or more of these metrics: Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer churn rate & Customer complaints.

By capturing and connecting the right data, you will be able to recognize the link between employees, customers, and your organization’s overall revenue.

📩 If you have questions about this topic, please write to us at hello@engagerocket.co and we will be more than happy to assist.