Employees: The Key to Becoming a Customer Company

Engaged employees close 33% more deals, and these same employees are key to driving customer engagement.  When employees have access to the right information at the right time, they are able to effectively build relationships with their customers and solve their problems. 

The same tools that enable customer engagement – cloud, social and mobile technologies – also enable employee engagement. For example, we work with clients to implement Salesforce Chatter and Communities, so their employees can collaborate internally and externally in real-time and access the right knowledge at the right time – making them more effective in their roles. Even with the right technologies, however, engagement doesn't just happen; it must be cultivated and nurtured.

One emerging strategy for increasing employee engagement is gamification – or the use of game dynamics to build participation.  Fundamentally, gamification taps into our human inclinations for fun and competition, to encourage and reward certain behaviours.  Introducing game mechanics into a company builds camaraderie and a sense of accomplishment among employees that, in turn, builds engagement.

Here at Bluewolf, we’ve used Bunchball’s Nitro for Salesforce gamification solution (available on salesforce.com’s AppExchange) to roll out the #GoingSocial program, which incentivises our team to use social media to collaborate and build their influence. Employees can earn points by creating and updating their social profiles, using Chatter, writing blogs for our website, engaging in training, sharing knowledge and collaborating with peers.  Points can then be exchanged for different levels of rewards in Bluewolf’s “store”.  Since we launched the #GoingSocial early last year, we have seen a 153 per cent increase in traffic to the Bluewolf Blog and a 57 per cent increase in activity on our internal social collaboration platform.

To be a Customer Company, employee engagement is critical.  After all, employees on the front lines know best what works for your customers - what engages them and what alienates them.  In addition, an engaged workforce is an innovative workforce because engaged employees bubble up ideas for innovations that will drive increased efficiencies and differentiation in the market.

Your employees are the key to becoming a customer-obsessed organisation. Engage your employees to reinvigorate the way you sell, market and provide service to your customers.