The Relationship Between Happy Employees and Satisfied Customers
Everyone wants to be happy in their work. As the famous quote goes, "Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” and although there is some debate as to the provenance of this phrase (it is often attributed to either Mark Twain or Confucius), the logic is sound.
Presumably, every employer would rather have happy and satisfied employees than miserable and stressed ones – although we’ve probably all worked for someone who has sorely tested this presumption at least once in our lives, haven’t we? – as common sense tells us that if staff are in a positive frame of mind, they will produce better work than if they are not.
With that in mind, let’s take a dive into the relationship between employee happiness and customer satisfaction and discover whether focusing on the wellbeing of your staff truly is an important factor in the success of your field service operation.
The Stats
The headline news is that employee satisfaction is decreasing in the post-pandemic world. 2020 research published before the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, showed an average of 48% of Americans were satisfied with their job. However, a follow up study published in 2022, found this average had fallen by 10% to 38%.
What is the impact therefore of increased levels of dissatisfaction among employees? Research from the Queen’s School of Business and Gallup discovered that dissatisfied workers showed levels of absenteeism 37% higher than their more satisfied equivalents. They also suffered 49% more accidents in the workplace and made 60% more mistakes. In real monetary terms, it is estimated by the Canada Human Resources Centre that unhappy employees cost North American businesses over $350 billion due to lost productivity.
"We have shown that happier subjects are more productive, and the same pattern appears in four different experiments,” says Professor Oswald of the University of Warwick regarding their own research into the relationship between employee happiness and productivity. "This research will provide some guidance for management in all kinds of organizations, they should strive to make their workplaces emotionally healthy for their workforce.”
These results will naturally end up affecting the customer experience as well. More mistakes and defects mean more time customers must spend interacting with customer services – a process a significant number of customers resent having to do – and lower staff numbers due to absenteeism will mean increased workloads for the employees who are present thus reducing the amount of time and care they can deliver to each customer.
It seems clear that happy employees are a key determinant of satisfied customers. However, does it provide the whole story, or is there more going on behind the scenes?
SPOILER: There is More Going on Behind the Scenes
Whilst happy employees are indeed part of the equation which determines customer satisfaction, it is most certainly not the whole picture. Your staff may be having a whale of a time in their roles and are delivering amazing customer service day after day, but this will all be for nought of they aren’t supported by effective and efficient systems.
Everything from IT systems, executive strategy, internal bureaucracy, and process inefficiencies can and will throw up roadblocks which will make it difficult or impossible for even the happiest and most engaged staff in existence to perform their role effectively. This will then result in increasingly dissatisfied and angry customers, which will in turn increase frustration and dissatisfaction among staff. The whole thing becomes an ouroboros which feeds on itself to spread unhappiness and dissatisfaction throughout the entire organization.
This means that, whilst it’s all well and good providing staff with perks such as free coffee and games to enjoy and brighten up their day, what they really need is commitment and investment from leadership in the appropriate tools to perform their roles. Keep the perks coming by all means – after all, everyone loves free coffee – but don’t think to can simply shove a barista at your staff and solve all the customer satisfaction woes of your business.
Happy employees are a core component of the customer satisfaction puzzle, but the factors which lead to that happiness are not surface level perks but rather meaningful investment which makes performing their core function within the organization easier and more efficient. Outdated legacy systems, worn out tools and tech, slow internet, bad comms, and more will all contribute towards dissatisfaction.
Field Service Connect
Discovering the key to customer satisfaction through employee engagement and happiness will be a hot topic on the agenda at Field Service Connect 2023, being held in November at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center, CO.
Download the agenda today for more information and insights.