Five steps to employee and customer engagement heaven

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has introduced a five-step model to increase customer satisfaction through cultivating an engaged workforce

The vendor’s new Employee Effectiveness Model (EEM) is a five-step strategic guide that is designed to help customer service organisations get a better understanding of how engaged their customer service workforce is, identify the root-cause of any lack of engagement and put in place actions to build a happier and more engaged team.

The importance of building a more engaged workforce is supported by recent research published in the Harvard Business Review on 'The Happiness Dividend' which points out that a happy and engaged workforce is capable of raising sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%.

Most executives do not have the high-level view of workforce capabilities they need to identify and develop the talent their organisations require to keep pace with customer demands. The EEM model enables them to get a 360 degree view through a five-step process:

1. Planning & forecasting of resources – To deliver good quality of service, having the right people available at the right time to handle each customer interaction is critical. By offering integrated forecasting and scheduling tools businesses can find the right balance between employee productivity and employee happiness.
2. Delivery of customer interactions to the right person – The customer experience is largely defined by what is called ‘first call resolution’. Matching customers' questions or issues to an employee with the right skills is critical. It drives effectiveness and customer satisfaction simultaneously.
3. Measure & control of Intra-day performance – Every day is different and there are many things that can change service level performance. Having real-time intra-day insight helps to make smarter decisions faster.
4. Monitor the quality of conversations and analyse trends & performance – By carefully listening to customer conversations and scoring them, businesses will understand what skills staff has and what customers are asking them.
5. Assess employee skills & automate the scheduling of training – By using self-assessment modules, businesses can easily measure the knowledge of staff. Do they know the products & procedures inside out, or is more training required? Once the training requirements are known, training can be scheduled efficiently into master schedule.

Stefan Captijn, Strategic Business Director for WFO & Analytics, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise says: "The Employee Effectiveness model provides a 360 degree view on the quality and performance delivered by your customer service organisation, and is a great methodology to start a continuous improvement cycle. As customer demands grow through the use of new communication channels such as social media, an engaged workforce is a key requirement in delivering a consistently good customer experience.

"You may of course have all the information, processes and technology you need already in place, but if your staff cannot translate these into effective and positive customer experiences, many opportunities will be missed."