Allegiance Blog

Brace yourself – while arguably the most important part of a successful employee engagement program, acting on the results is where things seem to get tricky for a lot of companies. Response tends to go one of three ways: 1) overwhelmed by the data; 2) defensive of the data; or 3) a sincere desire to respond to the data. However, now that you know what is most relevant to your team, you can tailor your communication and strategic direction accordingly.

How much impact does employee engagement have on a company’s bottom line? More than you think. A recent Gallup study estimated that disengaged employees wasted more than $300 billion in productivity at U.S. firms. The flip side: firms with engaged workforces have 2.6 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to their industry counterparts.

Engaged employees contribute to the bottom line. As their engagement is reflected in their service to customers, they are helping to create more loyal customers. Highly engaged customers buy more products, refer potential customers to a company, stay longer and give more feedback, which, in turn, gives companies the opportunity to address issues and concerns and preserve potentially lost revenue.

This blog post discusses the results of a quantitative survey that Allegiance recently conducted with voice of the employee (VOE) practitioners, including human resource vice presidents, directors and managers, as well as other HR-related titles. It also talks about why, in order for companies to create and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage once they economy rebounds, they not only need to be actively listening to their employees now in real-time to address and resolve any concerns that they have, but also start putting some strategic measures in place to retain their best and brightest employees.

There is a direct connection between employee engagement and customer engagement, otherwise known as “The Spillover Effect”. In this blog post, Dr. Gary Rhoads, Allegiance Loyalty and Engagement Expert, discusses this link, and some research that shows why and how the work environment, combined with employee attitudes, can have a significant impact on a customer’s perception of quality.

In the current economy, there is a very real and growing concern about how to gain and to keep customers. In stressful times such as these, many companies tend to pull away from their customers, and may even cut back on ‘satisfaction and loyalty’ programs to try and improve their bottom line. This, unfortunately, is a mistake because it cuts at the very heart of what we all need to be doing during this time – engaging customers to the point that they are willing to ride out tough economic times with us, rather than viewing us as yet another business that really doesn’t care about its customers.

Read this article to leanr more about some of the time-tested things you can do to increase your customers’ and employees’ engagement.