Colleague experience = growth?

When it comes to stakeholder experience there are, broadly speaking, two core areas where companies have looked to invest; customer experience and people & culture; with some looking into developer experience, partner experience and similar.

But not all experience management programmes are created equal and there appears to be significant variance in their performance, specifically when it comes to colleagues. People & culture programmes are, by nature, business-centric, not necessarily people-centric when it comes to the HOW and WHY rather than the WHAT. Not least because experience managers are usually recruited into customer-oriented functions like CX and UX. There may be overlap in their objectives with experiential factors, but they are not always there by design. This means there is inherently less focus on engagement at the emotional level to unlock the benefits associated with that type of activation. So what are the benefits in terms of data points?

Here are a few:

• 21% increase in profitability for companies who effectively engage employees (Gallup study)

• 50% reduction in turnover costs (Kenexa High Performance Institute study)

• 1.4x increase in customer satisfaction for companies with a high quality employee experience (Temkin group study)

• 3 times more likely to be innovation leaders (IBM study)

Looking pretty good. So why aren’t more companies focusing on this as a key portfolio opportunity? Of course there is a good deal of software and organisational consultancy when it comes to unlocking some of the above benefits, but it seems the barrier isn’t operational or focused on function. Based on experience, I would argue unlocking these benefits needs to be a powerfully engaging strategic shift. A broadcast on the intranet, team re-shuffle and some mandated training are unlikely to receive many cheers from around the firm, when work feels a lot like work, it is just more work. But what if it wasn’t? American Express doesn’t need to have concierge services to run a credit card business, Wise doesn’t need to make their cards fluorescent green or transfer money in less than 3 seconds and The North Face could have continued to sell windproof jackets without creating high budget, powerful documentary content on YouTube. These things engage on a level that isn’t functional - and that’s where (in my view) growth that goes from good or even great to exceptional lies.

This is also where experience design makes its big play on ROI, turning processes into experiences makes them fundamentally more fun, which in turn sparks engagement and influences people to do things which they are unsure of or flat out unwilling to do. When it comes to colleagues this is fundamental and also frequently overlooked because unlike customers, they get paid to be where they are, but showing up doesn’t mean they will engage, which if studies and benchmarks are to be believed, is a solid secret sauce for new levels of growth.

Unempathy.

2024 is a confusing time to be a customer. AI can think faster, robots can produce better, data quality is entirely unclear, privacy is dead and traditional sources of information are the least trusted sources of information. It would appear businesses finally have an opportunity to be empathetic with customers, to be on their side when every day anxieties (visible or not) continually bubble to the surface. But that's not what's happening. There has been a rise in the uncoupling of business objectives, social and tech progress and customer lives (which, if good service design fundamentals and corporate communications are to be believed should actually sit at the center not at the periphery of this equation).

On the one hand companies have the largest recorded amount of data about how customers interact with their businesses and should be able to translate this into strategic flexibility that is driven by customer behaviour.

On the other hand, there has been an emergence of terminology like 'enshittinfication', 'shrinkflation' and other less than flattering concepts that have emerged in a high interest rate environment that is inevitably putting the squeeze on vast amounts of people.

Businesses exist to make money, and so they should. But if you're going to ask for money, ask nicely and at the right time. Troubleshooting cannot be the end of customer care. Conversely, customer experience isn't limited to personalisation for an ad that pops up on Instagram. Research is just one component of the customer journey and typically NOT the one where the customer is most invested. CX leadership teams cannot behave like political parties with a 4-5 year tenure. Customer experiences are built on empathy over the long term, through thick and thin; satisfaction scores are transitory, true customer advocacy and recommendation is not.

Customer-to-business relationships will always be at a cross-section. One side wants to take the money out of the other side's pocket. But the most successful products and services have relied on alignment in that transfer and a deep understanding of current market dynamics. The market has shifted. Exponential, 'to the moon' growth has never been and cannot be a persistent reality. Customers understand this because they can feel it right away. The social contract adjusts. And businesses need to be wise enough to create win-win opportunities for them before during and after the sale, especially in trickier times.