Overcoming Communication Disconnects in the Digital AgeOvercoming Communication Disconnects in the Digital Age

Happy employees lead to happy customers. Most successful businesses today understand that customers have high service expectations, and companies need to empower their frontline employees to deliver on these expectations.

This was the clear takeaway from a recent study that RingCentral commissioned. The intent of the research -- based on a global survey of 2,000 customer-facing knowledge workers and customer support employees -- was to learn more about the connection between employee engagement and customer engagement. The findings were unmistakable: Employee and customer engagement are inextricably linked.

Loyalty Isn’t Enough

When it comes to customer loyalty and having a bad customer service experience, the study confirmed what we already suspected: When customers don’t get what they want, they’re prone to walking away. According to the survey, customers stopped doing business with brands an average of four times last year due to poor customer service. As for Gen Z and Millennials, they cut ties five times on average in the same 12-month period.

The research also showed that customers want to engage on their terms and using their preferred digital channels, such as social media, live chat, in-app messaging, online communities, video conferencing, email, and more. For brands to stay competitive, they need to provide customers with the access they expect through the channels of their choice.

Empowering Your Employees

So, if customers expect great service, why aren’t companies delivering? According to the survey, there are several reasons, and they relate to disjointed communications technologies. For example, 74% of frontline employees said they couldn’t serve customers effectively because they didn’t have a communications platform that allows them to seamlessly collaborate with customers and coworkers to efficiently resolve customer issues. Additionally, nine in 10 said that disjointed communications technologies negatively affect workflow and job satisfaction—and this, in turn, impacts customer satisfaction and the company bottom line.

Solving Engagement Challenges

How do we resolve this employee and customer engagement challenge? Consider that over 90% of survey respondents said that an integrated communications platform would enable them to better engage with customers and collaborate with coworkers. This would result in both happier employees and customers, improved customer satisfaction scores, and increased business profitability.

Developing Engagement Strategies

Companies need to empower customer-facing employees with the communications tools they need to delight customers. In designing a digital transformation strategy, businesses need to think about employee and customer engagement as tightly connected—two sides of the same coin.

To learn more about how you can solve the employee and customer engagement equation, read the infographic and eBook.