Communication is Far Too Critical to Keep Sweeping Your Problems Under the Rug
A low cost (or even free!) audit can identify your biggest opportunities to drastically improve the two most vital aspects of business: Employee and Customer happiness. Both of which are deeply rooted in effective communication.
The amount of Connection, Engagement, and Trust in your company and with your customers, is in direct proportion to the quality and effectiveness of your company’s communication (and communication technology).
“Customer Experience” is created in large by the quality and effectiveness of your company’s communication. The better the systems, processes, enablement, and technology you have, the better you can service and delight your customers.
And according to a recent study from Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence, most business leaders, and the Managers they lead, tend to drastically overestimate how happy their employees actually are. The same is true of customers.
Positive Culture, Toxic Silence: Exposing Unacknowledged Struggles
Likely due to our relentless pursuit of success (i.e. “laser focus on the business at hand”), as well as the desire to maintain a culture of “positivity”, we tend to shy away from challenges, sweeping them under the rug so everyone can remain “focused” and “positive”.
However the never ending sprint to exceed our goals, along with the hustle and bustle of daily operations, blinds us to fundamental problems lurking and growing below. Despite occasional surveys, there’s an unspoken code of silence — and major fundamental issues go undealt with or even unacknowledged (well by leadership at least. Front line employees are often very familiar with the problems and openly complain about them in exasperation).
For instance:
- IT leaders often misinterpret employee silence as employee satisfaction with technology, while independent surveys tell us otherwise (see stats below).
- Ops leaders might misjudge lack of customer engagement with the website chatbot as customer satisfaction, even though customers weren’t truly satisfied with it at all.
- Sales leaders might misinterpret a lack of booked meetings and low morale from their sales reps as a lack of activity and motivation rather than a gap in technology that causes customers to not answer calls, respond to emails, or otherwise convert down the pipeline.
- Marketing leaders may falsely attribute lower engagement and conversions on campaigns to a problem with the product, offer, or content when the real problem was with something much simpler like inbox placement, caller ID or friction in the sales process.
- HR leaders may feel like employees no longer care about culture and engagement, when there could be nothing further from the truth with employees simply looking for new options.
The point with all of these examples is: what problems are affecting the most critical aspects of your company (sales, service, retention, etc) where you’re only seeing the symptoms and not the underlying root problems?
We’re all so busy trying to stay “optimistic” and “focused” “team players” that we can’t handle (let alone search for!) more problems.
And so major problems take their natural place under the rug while their symptom children continue to run amok.
Even with the root problems safely tucked away under the rug, the symptoms cannot be hidden and the murmurs, frustrations, and agitation abound, spreading from department to department like sand in the gears.
Meanwhile Happy Employees are the Bedrock of Successful Businesses.
Happy employees are more loyal, and work harder to create superior products and services, as well as happier more engaged customers. It’s a simple equation that top companies follow: happy employees = happy customers = happy shareholders.
Despite this, most companies fall short in investing adequately in these critical areas. Maximizing communication, the most essential building block in business, to enhance employee and customer happiness remains a missed opportunity.
While technology alone isn’t the panacea, it can drive transformative change. Working to identify your company’s largest gaps, frictions, and challenges in communication internally and externally can be the first step in bringing change.
Consider that communication lies at the heart of resolving many cultural, efficiency, productivity, and service-related hurdles and yet companies often lack experts in employee and customer experiences who can help identify the root problems and best solutions for all stakeholders.
How An Outside Advisor Can Help
And that’s where bringing in an outside advisor can help. A trusted partner with the ability to transcend departments and politics searching only for truth. Working with stakeholders across departments to identify their biggest challenges to creating happier employees and customers within their teams. Not looking to place blame or create scapegoats, but simply to surface the biggest problems standing in the way of the greatest success.
A partner who can not only recommend the right technology, but provide the crucial support and enablement that are often missing from the equation. Remembering that having technology is not the answer, but that maximizing and optimizing the use of technology is what allows businesses to enhance both employee and customer satisfaction swiftly.
At Everything Communications our approach differs—quick, impactful assessments leading to actionable solutions.
So go ahead and give us a try. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!
