Ears on the ground #employees providing #customer insight

We all know that it’s the people that make an organisation what it is. This is obvious to most of us. What may not be so obvious to all is the #strategic role #employees can play in the organisation. Yes, strategic.

Think of it this way. Who spends the most time interacting with customers? Is it the C-level executives who have gazillions of meetings to attend, boards to report to and a million of other high level tasks to perform? Not really. It is, more often than not, those employees who answer the phone, meet hundreds of customers face-to-face, and are usually on the receiving end of a dissatisfied customer’s fury.

Surely then, it is only right for them to get a chance to give feedback to the powers that be on how things are going on the ground level?

According to 1to1media (a division of Peppers and Rogers) organisations can go beyond using general #customer complaints to monitor experiences. They can utilise more innovative strategies to "collect, integrate and leverage" employee feedback. The technique referred to here is a ‘voice of the employee’ #VOE one which works in conjunction with #VOC. It is all about listening not only to customers but employees as well to gain a holistic view on customer experiences in order to identify the root cause of problems being faced.

Join Ivo Sarges of  Peppers and Rogers where he will be discussing these and other issues at The Customer Show Africa 2011 from 11 – 14 October.

By Rumbi Dube