Editorial
The Gist
- Coordinated strategy needed. Integrating customer experience and employee experience strategies creates a unified approach that benefits both employees and customers.
- Clear communication matters. Effective communication between departments is vital for enhancing CX and ensuring that frontline employees are well-informed.
- Empowering employees is essential. Empowered frontline employees can significantly improve customer satisfaction and retention.
When I worked on the front line in retail, we were trained to watch for many issues. We were told to watch for people hiding expensive products in the bottom of the shopping cart, and we learned how to spot counterfeit currency. Reminders were posted at every register to check for the expiration date on any coupons presented by the customer.
With so many processes, there was quite a bit to manage in a fairly fast-paced environment. We had regular team meetings to remind us of the importance of adhering to protocol and letting us know of any new or emerging concerns. Failure to adhere to any of these was grounds for punishment or termination. Meanwhile, a policy that was documented in our handbook and accepted by the labor union was designed to protect the frontline employees.
Why HR and Store Operations Must Work Together
At this point in time, I usually worked on the floor, but I occasionally helped out on the check-out line when needed. I remember one time when I was called up front to help out. When I got to my lane, I noticed another cashier crying and two managers walking her away from her stand while the front-end manager directed the people in her line to my lane.
Later that day I learned that she had been “suspended pending termination” for violating multiple rules in one transaction. I wondered how they knew, given how difficult it was to monitor someone violating these rules real-time. Usually they weren’t discovered until the end of the day.
It turned out that the store management had contracted with a mystery shopping company to check on employee adherence to many of these processes. A few days later, the suspended employee was back and bragging that her record had been cleared and she was paid for the days missed.
What prompted this change of fortune? The union representing the employees had notified the management team that the use of external contractors in this manner violated the collective bargaining agreement made between the employees and the store. It was clear that store operations (which included asset protection) and human resources departments did not coordinate their efforts surrounding processes and procedure.
Related Article: How Cross-Department Collaboration Fuels a Customer Experience Model
Effective Communication for Frontline Employees
In customer experience, the goal is to improve the processes and procedures so the customer has a better perception of the brand and a greater likelihood of returning for additional purchases. To accomplish this, you must start with measuring KPIs across various touchpoints, communicate those results to the front line and develop initiatives to make improvements. Measurement usually requires coordination between multiple departments, often including information technology, operations, merchandising and purchasing. But often left out of that discussion in procedural changes is human resources.
When it comes to strategy and action, these teams have been working in silos, and there is no buy-in from many stakeholders to make changes. As a customer experience leader, I know how to develop the key drivers critical for customer retention, and I usually can pinpoint a process or policy that will improve the customer experience. However, without advocacy from other teams, nothing will happen.
Who will suffer? Often it is frontline employees that get caught between operational processes, company policy and which one will take precedence. If you do a casual read of the subreddit called “antiwork,” you will find many of these stories where the employee simply decides it’s easier to do less rather than more.
For this reason, I advocate that CX and EX (employee experience) should either be closely coordinated or — even better — run under the same department. I don’t advocate specifically for operations or human resources to manage these programs, but if there is a disconnect between the strategies developed for customers and the needs of employees, the brand will not be able to manage the entire experience with the brand.
Related Article: 4 Internal Communication Strategy Tips to Boost Teams and Customer Experience
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Journey Management Programs Are Key
This process should start with journey management programs that look across all stakeholders (i.e., including customers, frontline employees and management) and integrate measurement, actions and recursive processes that allow refinement and re-measurement any time changes are made.
By understanding how customers and frontline employees react to these changes, organizations can foster regular communication with frontline staff, eliminating the need for middle management to interpret frontline conversations. When information flows freely, everyone will feel free to broadcast their needs and minimize the confusion that can happen when silos are allowed to remain in place.
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