Temkin Group Insight Report

Transcription

1 The Five I s of Employee Engagement 25 Best Practices to Inform, Inspire, Instruct, Involve and Incent Employees Aimee Lucas Customer Experience Analyst Bruce Temkin Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner Temkin Group November 2012

2 Executive Summary Employee engagement leads to great customer experience and superior business results. Despite the compelling upside to employee engagement, many companies neglect this key area, leaving employees much less than fully engaged. Our research uncovered 25 best practices across what we call the Five I s of Employee Engagement: Inform, Inspire, Instruct, Involve, and Incent. Among these practices are Symantec s Customer First News, an online customer experience update broadcast for employees, Sprint s day in the life of the frontline experience bringing senior leaders together with call center and retail employees in their locations, Disney Store s e-learning modules that develop both retail and entertainment skills in cast members, Fidelity Investments Voice of the Customer Ambassador program, and BKD s Hi5 peer recognition campaign. CX professionals cannot drive employee engagement on their own; it requires support from across the organization. We ve identified some areas for CX to start collaborating with HR. Employee Engagement Needs an Overhaul Engaged employees are valuable assets. They trigger a virtuous cycle driving good customer experience and superior business results (see Figure 1). Our research shows that engaged employees: Try harder. When compared to disengaged employees, engaged employees are 3.5 times more likely to do something good for the company that is unexpected of them, 3.5 times more likely to make a recommendation about an improvement, and 5.8 times more committed to helping their organization succeed. 1 Engage customers. Seventy-five percent of employees in companies with superior customer experience are highly or moderately engaged, compared with 30% of employees at companies with sub-par customer experience. 2 Drive business results. Improved customer experience from engaged employees drives more sales and more recommendations from customers. 3 Engaged employees also help the bottom line because they are less likely to take a sick day and look for a new job, and more likely to recommend that a friend or relative apply for a job within their organization. 4 Companies Are Leaving Employees Unengaged Despite the compelling value of engaged employees, we found that: 1 See Temkin Group Insight Report Employee Engagement Benchmark Study (January 2012). 2 Ibid. 3 See Temkin Group Insight Report The ROI of Customer Experience (March 2012). 4 See Temkin Group Insight Report Employee Engagement Benchmark Study (January 2012). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 2

3 Few employees are highly engaged. Using the Temkin Employee Engagement Index, our analysis showed that less than one-third of U.S. employees are highly engaged. 5 Companies lack employee engagement skills. In our recent assessment of 255 large organizations, we found that only 35% of firms received strong scores in employee engagement, one of Temkin Group s four customer experience competencies. 6 HR groups aren t very involved. We surveyed 300 HR professionals from large companies and found that few were driving employee engagement efforts. 7 Although HR professionals recognize that becoming more customer-centric is important, only 15% report that they are significantly helping in those efforts. Five I s of Employee Engagement Given the missed opportunity with employee engagement, we interviewed thought leaders, vendors, and practitioners to identify best practices. 8 This research uncovered five categories of activities that we call the Five I s of Employee Engagement (see Figure 2): Inform: Provide employees the information they need to understand the organization s vision and brand values, along with how customers feel about the organization. Inspire: Connect employees to the organization s vision and values so that they believe those matter and take pride in their job and the organization. Instruct: Support employees with the training, coaching, and feedback they need to successfully deliver the organization s brand promises to customers. Involve: Take action with employees when designing their jobs, improving work processes, and solving problems identified through customer or employee feedback. Incent: Deploy appropriate systems to measure, reward, and reinforce desired employee behaviors and motivate employees to give their best. Inform Best Practices Employees need a constant flow of communications about company priorities and what s expected of them. Here are some Inform best practices: 1. Follow a thorough communication plan. Employees are exposed to many messages at work every day. To stand out to employees over time, CX professionals should be executing welldefined communication strategies that include consistent themes and distinctive branding. Fidelity Investments uses a carefully constructed communication matrix that identifies target 5 See Temkin Group Insight Report Employee Engagement Benchmark Study (January 2012). 6 See Temkin Group Insight Report The State of Customer Experience Management, 2012 (May 2012). 7 See Temkin Group Insight Report CX Needs More HR Focus on Employee Engagement (September 2012). 8 Companies interviewed for this report include: BKD, Blessing White, BMO Financial, Crawford and Company, Disney Store, EMC, Fidelity Investments, Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, Hampton brand, Hilton Garden Inn, ITA Group, JetBlue Airways, Nicor, PeopleMetrics, Root, Safeco, Safelite AutoGlass, SimplexGrinnell, Sprint, Symantec, Zappos, ZocDoc Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 3

4 audiences, critical top-line CX themes, delivery channels, and frequency (see Figure 3). All employees at BMO Financial were provided a brand book that covered its new brand positioning including a breakdown of what will be different tomorrow from today along with the Our Way model that defined the employee behaviors of how to work together to deliver on the customer experience. The launch kit for leaders included a DVD and materials covering key messages and talking points, along with anticipated Q&As to prepare them to lead discussions with their teams. 2. Communicate across multiple channels. Since organizations often have to reach employee audiences that are geographically and generationally diverse, they need to take advantage of an assortment of available channels. Safelite AutoGlass communication team takes advantage of annual and quarterly meetings, audio podcasts, live and pre-recorded webinars, text messages, and flat-screen monitors in high-traffic areas in offices, along with more traditional tactics including newsletters for associates and technicians, some of which are mailed to their homes. Symantec communicates with their employees through a number of channels including a dedicated Intranet portal that brings together in one location the most up-to-date information on customer experience and the Voice of Customer programs, along with access to loyalty training and other resources. One of the key ways they communicate overall results is through the Customer First News a quarterly five minute, news-style video covering the current NPS score and performance drivers, along with success stories on company and account-level customer experience efforts. ITA Group, a business-to-business firm specializing in customer and employee loyalty, strives to communicate important messages 8 to 10 times through various channels to ensure they are understood and retained by employees. The company uses traditional channels, but its most powerful communications come from the cascading of key information from CEO-led town hall meetings, to manager meetings, to team meetings where the topical discussions become more refined and action-oriented. 3. Make content employee-centric. Information not only has to reach employees, it has to be interesting and relevant to them. ZocDoc s Weekly Wire keeps the operations team up-to-date and focused by communicating current activity metrics supporting their experience goals, along with patient quotes and employee service highlights (see Figure 4). EMC s Information Intelligence Group produces an employee newsletter with a core goal to get employees thinking: If they can do it, I can do it too. The newsletter s content keeps the focus on employees what individuals and departments are doing to support the customer experience, activities EMC s CX Ambassadors have underway, and customer feedback and stories about working with the business unit. Hilton Garden Inn provides an advice line that any employee can use to get answers to questions via a dedicated toll-free number or monitored address. For instance, if a hotel manager has a question regarding an updated brand standard, or if a banquet server has a question regarding menu templates, the advice line is available to provide assistance. 4. Create opportunities for employees to hear from customers. While sharing internal information with employees is important, exposing employees to customer feedback can have even more of an effect. Nicor National uses dedicated quarterly department meetings to discuss feedback, along with giving visibility via the company s CX intranet site. It also has a Wall of Fame, which is a wall on which it places actual verbatim comments from surveys that reflect company values. Survey comments positive and negative are also included in the depictions of Nicor National s customer personas in a section titled My Experiences. SimplexGrinnell, a fire and life-safety company, holds annual district NICE Workshops (Next Improvement in Customer Experience) to drive continuous improvement across the company. During the Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 4

5 workshop, managers, administrative staff, and front-line employees review CX metrics and code customer verbatim comments by service issue to identify the top customer issues. The output of the workshop is an action plan that addresses the top issues identified, which is reviewed on a quarterly basis. Fidelity s CX portal, called Voices, includes positive and negative customer feedback from calls, s, and letters. Inspire Best Practices Helping employees connect with the organization s vision and values can be very powerful. Here are some Inspire best practices: 5. Define, communicate, and live by a set of values. Some of the most successful companies use a set of core values to guide their decision-making and actions. ZocDoc s employee engagement and customer experience efforts revolve around their Seven Core Values, which include Own it and Us before Me. These values are frequently communicated to employees, posted visibly around the office, and used as themes for team- and company-wide meetings. BKD, a national CPA and advisory firm, has published a hardcover book titled The BKD Experience: Unmatched Client Service. Authored by a group of firm partners, the book codifies the five standards that make up the BKD client experience. 9 Client service teams give this book to clients in order to set expectations and establish accountability. Zappos, the online retailer, has 10 core values that serve as the cornerstone to how the business is run. This includes hiring, firing, and promoting individuals based on how well they support the values (see Figure 5). 6. Increase accessibility to senior executives. Senior executives should be an important source of inspiration for employees. The first day of work for new ZocDoc employees includes lunch with the founders, where they hear about the early days of the company, what they are focused on now, and the seven core values. Throughout the year, Intel s CEO and other executives visit sites around the world to talk with employees. These forums are offered live and, in some cases, via webcast, to allow employees at other sites to join in virtually. A smaller, more informal element to the live forums is hour-long employee roundtables between top leaders and one to two dozen randomly selected employees. 10 Safelite AutoGlass CEO, Tom Feeney, maintains his Ask Tom blog where any employee can ask any question with no fear of retribution. Mr. Feeney researches the answers and provides a personal response. As a way to continue to reinforce to employees the company s commitment to customer experience, Sprint takes their senior leaders out of the office and into their call centers and retail locations for a day in the life of the frontline experience. Daily activities include job shadowing, observation, and facilitating a focus group with employees. 7. Tell compelling stories. Storytelling is not only motivating; it creates stronger memories in the minds of employees about what s important to the organization. Hershey Entertainment tells stories about their own Service Action Heroes in company newsletters, training programs, and new hire orientation. These heroes are employees who have been recognized for going above and beyond living Hershey s values for guests or their co-workers. The Hampton brand engages its hotel employees in their Hamptonality culture not only through stories but also song. To reinforce and inspire employees to let their own personalities shine through with guests, the 9 They are: Integrity First. Professional demeanor. True expertise. Responsive reliability. Principled innovation. 10 Training Magazine, I Want to Work There (July 2012). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 5

6 hotel brand licensed the song (You ve Got) Personality to deliver that message. Now individual hotels have started making employee music videos to show off their Hamptonality Give employees a reason to be proud of the company. Organizations can gain employee commitment by finding ways to make them proud of what the company does, in its business and also as part of the community. Hershey Entertainment and Resorts regularly reminds employees that their efforts are in support of the Milton Hershey School, which provides free K-12 education to underprivileged children. Hershey also sponsors a number of community events, including a half-marathon, which provide opportunities for community members and employees to participate side-by-side. Safelite AutoGlass also puts an emphasis on and supports employees involvement in community and charitable efforts, including an Associate Volunteer Day, a paid day off to volunteer at a charity of the employee s choice, and coordinated community service days. Company-wide fundraising opportunities include the Safelite Challenge, which is an annual fundraising event that inspires employees to do something healthy while raising money for a good cause. Umpqua Bank s Connect Volunteer Network provides up to 40 hours of paid time off to do volunteer work at a non-profit or school of their choice. 12 Instruct Best Practices If you want engaged employees, then you need to provide them with the knowledge, skills, and training to succeed. Here are some Instruct best practices: 9. Launch company-wide CX training programs. Just about any change to customer experience requires employees to change what they do and how they do it, requiring company-wide CX training. To ensure all Hilton Garden Inn team members were engaging with guests in ways that lived up to the hotel s new brand promise and guest satisfaction guarantee, the brand developed a multi-faceted engagement program that included videos, board game, role-playing, and prizes. Hotel General Managers were provided materials and participated in webinars to prepare for delivering the training at their hotels. BMO Financial launched a one-day learning program called Fundamentals of Customer Experience to develop employees' understanding of the company s customer experience vision and to help them learn the behaviors needed to deliver great customer experiences consistently with the BMO s brand principles. Following the initial bankwide launch, delivery of the program continues through a train-the-trainer program that prepares branch managers to deliver sessions locally, as well as through an online version. 10. Embed CX training in new employee onboarding. You don t want new employees to get off on the wrong foot, so CX training needs to be incorporated into the new hire process. Symantec modified their company-wide launch training and created an online program to introduce new employees to the importance of customer loyalty to the company, how it s measured, and what individuals can do to positively impact the customer experience. Hershey Entertainment onboards around 6,000 new and returning seasonal employees every year. Their program focuses on three key topics: organizational awareness of the operations; an introduction to the Milton Hershey School (which is supported by the revenues of Hershey); and the Hershey legacy, values, and stories of service from the president and employees. Because the culture and internal 11 Here s one Hamptonality music video: 12 Umpqua Bank, Umpqua Bank s Connect Volunteer Network Sets Industry Standard with 90% Associate Participation (January 11, 2012). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 6

7 environment at Nicor National are drivers of their customer experience, the VP of customer experience and the call center director spend an hour with every new hire class to ensure that new employees understand that Nicor National s culture is a reflection of everybody s daily behaviors and contributions. New hires describe the type of culture they want in a company that would make them look forward to coming to work and then identify the types of behaviors they expect to see in a supportive environment. The new hire group meets three months later to examine whether the environment matches what was shared in the initial training and discuss what they can do to contribute to the environment. 11. Develop training for managers and supervisors. Middle managers play a key role in guiding employees a daily basis, so they need to be ready and supported to meet those expectations. When the Disney Store was preparing to rollout its new guest experience training, specific sessions were held with district managers and store managers. District managers tested the session content and provided feedback to the training and development team. Training for store managers included a run-through of the session and improvisational exercises to prepare them to train cast members (employees) for new in-store responsibilities including storytelling and other interactive guest events. Standard Chartered, a British bank, has developed four manager principles (know me, focus me, care about me, and inspire me). The bank s managers are supported through the Great Managers Program. 13 As part of Safelite AutoGlass People First initiative, 1,000+ leaders participated in its custom-designed People First Leadership development series (see Figure 6). 12. Use managers and front-line employees to deliver training programs. CX teams and training departments may not always be the best options to deliver training, so companies need to embrace train-the-trainer approaches. BKD relies on its influential office managing partners to champion BKD s unique client service culture through training, on-going discussions, coaching and celebrations. The marketing and training and development groups produce materials (videos, presentation materials, and instructor scripts) for the kick-off program and subsequent quarterly sessions that the managing partners lead in each office. Increasing employee awareness is an on-going effort at Sprint. Education sessions are offered to facilitate employees understanding of Sprint s strategic and cultural priorities (including customer experience). These sessions highlight keys to Sprint s success, following up with a call-to-action to drive results. Subject matter experts are recruited from across the organization to prepare and present the content. Since the sessions are brief, paths to additional information and tools are provided. Hershey Entertainment uses a dozen employee volunteers to facilitate their new hire orientation programs. These ambassadors are selected through a screening process to ensure they have driven guest service and live Hershey's values. 13. Reinforce training with coaching and feedback. Lessons learned in the classroom can fail to stick, so feedback and coaching is an important part of embedding new behaviors into an employee s routine. Contact center supervisors at Hershey Entertainment have a Weekly Review with each of their agents. This is an opportunity for them to sit one-on-one with agents to discuss performance feedback and coaching, feedback from the employee about what he or she is seeing, and which company activities or processes have made the agent s or customer s experience more difficult. The company rebalanced work tasks to ensure that supervisors had time available for these discussions. At Nicor National, the CX team reaches out to customers within 48 hours of their interactions with the call center. Team members then use those call 13 David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, Engaging for Success: A Report for the U.K. Government (July 2009). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 7

8 recordings to engage account representatives (and their supervisors) in performance coaching. Hampton brand sends hotel managers targeted text and video tips and techniques derived from other hotel managers who share their same strengths, based on an assessment 14 everyone takes. The twice-weekly tips are short, personalized, and interactive, delivered via an app for laptops, tablets, and smartphones, and can be banked or ditched from the manager s personal tool kit, which influences future tips they receive. 14. Tap into e-learning for distributed employees. Not all lessons can be taught in centralized classrooms, so companies need to deliver high-quality training to employees, where they are at, when they need it, in easy-to-digest modules. The Disney Store implemented e-learning two years ago for its cast members (store employees). These modules are unique in that they connect traditional retail operational training topics with the Walt Disney stories and characters that are the heart of entertaining and engaging store guests. Learning guides that complement the modules are provided to store managers, who use them to confirm employee understanding through role-plays and on-stage observations. Safelite AutoGlass supports its call center employees after formal training with its online Safelite University so that the practices are reinforced right from their desktops and are easy to use. It replaces all written materials including frequently used phone numbers, FAQs, and other updates and internal information. With this digital format, information is updated daily so it is always accurate. Involve Best Practices Involving employees in CX efforts not only extends the reach of the CX team, but it also creates broader buy-in and a groundswell of engagement. Here are some Involve best practices. 15. Develop a Voice of the Employee (VoE) program. Employees are a fountain of valuable information, so companies should be applying the same rigor with employee feedback that they do with customer feedback and voice of the customer programs. JetBlue Airways s its employee engagement survey monthly to a sample of Crewmembers across the organization. Questions cover core metrics including performance, retention, and Crewmember satisfaction. The executive team regularly monitors employee engagement performance metrics. Also, JetBlue s Crewmember Insight team works with its Survey Ambassador Team 15 to define action plans across the organization. VoE results have driven new employee recognition and career opportunities initiatives at JetBlue. BKD measures employee engagement on an annual basis and benchmarks its results against other companies. Following its 2011 employee survey, the company created an Employee Engagement Council. The 14 members of this council, who represent a cross-section of roles and levels, meet on a quarterly basis to provide input on survey action planning. Nicor National s VoE program includes three parts: Employee Voice (employee-initiated feedback), Employee Pulse (biannual employee survey), and monthly employee Roundtables. Because the loyalty measures for customers and employees are based on parallel survey questions, Nicor National is able to connect employee and customer feedback with operational data to spot patterns and develop insights and action plans based on trends and opportunities. 14 Hampton Inn uses the StandOut assessment from The Marcus Buckingham Company. 15 JetBlue s Survey Ambassador Team is made up of directors and managers from across the business who are responsible for the survey action plans for their departments. Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 8

9 16. Establish a CX Ambassador program. CX teams can t do it alone, so an ambassador (or champion) program can help engage employees from across the organization. Sprint s Ambassador Network manages employee engagement in a variety of customer experiencefocused activities. As an extension of Sprint's central CX team, Sprint Ambassadors develop engagement, communication, and recognition plans tailored to meet the needs of their organization. Ambassadors are selected from a pool of volunteers within each work group at Sprint. These leaders are passionate about the customer experience and take on the role to encourage employee participation within their work group in addition to their normal work responsibilities. Fidelity s Voice of the Customer Ambassadors are the cornerstone of the company s efforts to engage customer-facing associates across the organization. Ambassadors are expected to identify opportunities for improvement, inform next generation product/service development, and inspire their peers. They receive special recognition for their participation, which also includes taking a best practice visit to another CX leading organization (see Figure 7). 17. Develop employee-driven improvement processes. ITA Group has an employee suggestion program called Shareholder Xchange, the name reflecting that they are an employee-owned company. This program invites suggestions on a variety of topics from ways to improve customer service to how to become more cost effective. Employees submit their idea and its potential business impact. Submissions are reviewed by the Xchange committee and shared with senior management where they are categorized and discussed during planning meetings. Public accounting firm Eichstaedt & Deveraux has instituted an employee involvement program to engage employees in the firm's operations. The firm identified strategic initiatives and delegated authority to employees across all levels of the firm through task forces called pods to develop those initiatives. Since the program started, these pods have created formal recruiting, training, mentoring, and employee recognition programs. Each pod tracks and reports their results and other information to the rest of the firm via a monthly newsletter and scheduled firm meetings Facilitate cross-role, cross-functional employee connections. Employees are often disconnected from operations outside of their organization, which can result in lower empathy for customers and coworkers. Because of the close connections and deep understanding of the doctors and customers they support, the operations team at ZocDoc is included as members of new product development teams. On these teams, they work along side the COO, product manager, engineers, and developers on product enhancements and improvements. In line with ZocDoc's core values, the front-line representatives speak up about what should and should not go live. Sprint promotes front-line involvement through a cross-channel program to create more engagement between call center and retail store employees. Each group visits the others locations for job shadowing in order to gain a greater appreciation of the customer experience in each other s settings and identify lessons to bring back to their own workplace. 19. Invite employees to thank customers. Sometimes employees can lose sight of the value of customers. Sprint's Thank You Thursdays is a one of the company s most popular employee advocacy activities to help keep customers top of mind. Employees at offices, call centers, and retail stores enjoy getting together monthly to collectively write personal thank you notes to customers. Supplies and sample notes are provided, but employees are free to express thanks in their own words. Even the CEO participates in this activity. Over the three years this program 16 Cameron Kauffman, CPA, Employee Involvement: A New Blueprint for Success, Journal of Accountancy (May 2010). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 9

10 has been in existence, the number of thank you notes sent has increased 100-fold topping 700,000 for Find simple, informal opportunities to involve employees. While tremendous value can come from highly structured corporate programs, simple actions can also go a long way. Hershey Entertainment's contact center director got back to basics with a Coffee Talk program. The director simply started taking agents out for coffee or lunch, two to four at a time, in order to get back in touch with what is happening on the front-line. She wanted to compare what she heard from agents to the voice of the customer, survey trends, and supervisor input, while building a higher level of trust with front-line employees. That inspired supervisors to do something similar with their teams, resulting in the Weekly Review process. Not all VoE needs to be collected through formal surveys, as Fidelity proved during recent road shows at their phone centers. Fidelity invited the teams in each phone center to create posters depicting customer experience issues. Teams not only articulated the issues they felt needed attention, but also with passion and creativity, even suggesting fixes. Winning posters were selected and displayed at headquarters and the winning groups received funding for a team event. Incent Best Practices Companies need to create an environment that reinforces the behaviors that they want to see, which is why one of Temkin Group s six laws of customer experience is that employees do what is measured, incented, and celebrated. 17 Here are some Incent best practices. 21. Enable peer-to-peer recognition. Peer pressure and support can be a powerful incentive for behavior change. ZocDoc s Ops Props is the peer-to-peer employee recognition program where team members can give up to three props to their teammates per week. Props can be awarded for many reasons including providing help or support to a fellow team member, exceptional support to a doctor or patient, or demonstrating any of ZocDoc s core values. Typically every team member gets at least one prop a week. At the end of each quarter, props are tallied and the winner with the most props is awarded a significant prize (for example, a get-away for two to a tropical resort). BKD s Hi5 peer recognition contest, part of a larger focus on the firm s unique client service culture, culminates in the giveaway of a Mazda Miata and other prizes to BKD employees selected at random from all recognized individuals (see Figure 8). When employees observe their colleagues living BKD s five service standards with clients or co-workers, they "elevate" each other on a Wall of Fame, which is a Facebook-style wall on BKD s intranet (see Figure 9). At JetBlue Airways, Crewmembers can send messages of thanks and nominate their colleagues for living the company values through the Lift program, which includes awards redeemable for choice of gift cards. By mining the data captured through various recognition platforms, JetBlue is also able to identify influencers and others who consistently and frequently deliver exceptional experiences. Making Values a Priority (MVP) is a program developed by three of Nicor National s front-line supervisors, which has since expanded to the entire company. Any Nicor National employee can nominate a colleague who has put one of the company s five values into action. Nominations are submitted online and include the nominee, the value, and a description of what was done. Every other Thursday, the president of Nicor National, VP of customer experience, VP of operations, and other members of the management team walk around the entire company to present a card and certificate of recognition. 17 See Temkin Group ebook The Six Laws of Customer Experience. Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 10

11 22. Provide on-the-spot rewards. A powerful opportunity to reinforce desired employee behaviors is often missed because the moment has passed. Hershey Entertainment s Legacy Check program gives every manager and supervisor a checkbook they can use to write a Legacy Check and give on-the-spot recognition when they catch an employee doing something exceptional in line with Hershey s values. Copies of the check go to the employee, their supervisor, and the gift card program. As an employee receives Legacy Checks during the course of a year, the value increases in $5 increments each time. Employees can save up their gift cards and use them across Hershey entertainment options (including concerts, restaurants, spa, theme park, etc.). Recipient profiles are published on Hershey s intranet including their name, picture, what they did, and who presented the award. At Downtown Decorations, managers and executives carry $20 gift cards with them so they are ready to immediately recognize employees who are going above and beyond the call of duty to ensure a great service experience for their customers Formalize CX incentive programs. Companies often have existing award and incentive programs, so it makes sense for customer experience awards and incentives to be formalized as well. Safelite AutoGlass recognizes employees for their contributions to the customer experience in multiple ways within their formal programs. The awards include the Excellence in Service program, which recognizes any employee who delights a customer with a personalized letter from the president and CEO and points towards a gift of their choice, and a biannual performance competition for CSRs and technicians to be recognized nationally and internationally for quality and customer service, with the top prize being one year s salary. Fidelity uses a combination of awards including a quarterly peer-nominated individual award for CX excellence and an annual destination trip award to recognize the best of the best in CX. 24. Celebrate high-performing teams. Many reward, recognition, and incentive programs focus only on individual accomplishments causing companies to miss celebrating the teams that collectively demonstrate excellence. Fidelity s Customer Experience Leaders awards teams for exceeding customer experience KPIs with funding for a team celebration. Sprint celebrates participation in Sprint Ambassador-led activities by measuring success and recognizing the accomplishments of each organization quarterly. And one Texas-based hospital has departments present a traveling trophy to each other every month to recognize the team that excelled at creating great experiences for employees and patients Turn employee engagement into a management metric. If employee engagement is important, then companies need to measure it. One example of how to do this is the threequestion Temkin Employee Engagement Index (see Figure 10). Once the metric is in place, companies need to define goals, identify and act upon improvement opportunities, and track progress on a regular basis. Hilton Garden Inn has incorporated engagement levels of hotel management and ownership company management into leaders scorecards at the brand level. Nicor National s call center management has performance goals set related to target levels for employee engagement. Employee Engagement is a Team Effort Employee engagement requires collaboration across many groups (see Figure 11). For companies to master the Five I s, CX professionals should start by teaming up with their HR peers. Here s how: to1 Customer Champions, 1to1 Media, a division of Peppers & Rogers Group (October 2012). 19 Training Magazine, I Want to Work There (July 2012). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 11

12 Training and development. Often CX subject matter expertise and instructional design skills reside on different teams inside a company. CX pros can work shoulder-to-shoulder with HR to contribute the required subject matter expertise to design (and deliver) customer-centric training programs (see Figure 12). Performance management. CX professionals can work with HR to ensure that employee goal setting and evaluation processes include role-specific performance expectations or measures of success that connect employees efforts to the CX strategy. Hiring and onboarding. CX and HR professionals can collaborate on ways to screen individuals for the attitudes and abilities needed to deliver on the company s CX vision. For example, Disney Store s interview is actually a casting call and includes role playing in-store scenarios to demonstrate potential guest interactions and reading a portion of a Disney story, which is part of the job description. Job competency profiles. Many organizations put significant effort into defining what they want to accomplish, yet do not adequately define how employees need to act in order to achieve those objectives. CX and HR can define identify elements to be included in the competency profiles for different roles across the company. Safelite AutoGlass has identified the core competencies that define the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required by level to deliver desired results (see Figure 13). Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 12

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26 About the Authors Aimee Lucas is Customer Experience Analyst at Temkin Group. She has over 15 years of experience improving service delivery and transforming the customer experience through people development and process improvement initiatives. Her areas of expertise include market research, program management, marketing, instructional design, and training. Prior to joining The Temkin Group, Aimee was responsible for implementing the client experience strategy and managing the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program for one of the top 10 public accounting and consulting firms in the U.S. Her work included planning and managing strategic initiatives, collaborating with cross-functional teams to introduce new-to-company functions and improvements. Past projects include starting the firm s internal market research function, managing the design and implementation of its sales and relationship management process, and delivering instructional design and training services across the organization. Aimee is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor s degree in marketing management. In her free time, she volunteers as a marathon coach for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society s Team in Training program. Bruce Temkin is Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner of Temkin Group. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (cxpa.org). Bruce is widely viewed as a leading expert in how organizations build differentiation with customer experience. He has worked with hundreds of large organizations on the strategies, operational processes, leadership, and culture required to sustain superior customer relationships. Bruce s research focuses on identifying current and emerging best practices. He has published seminal reports such as The ROI of Customer Experience, The Future of Customer Experience, and The Four Customer Experience Core Competencies. He uses this insight to advise companies on their customer experience journeys, identifying opportunities for sustainable breakthrough performance. Bruce is the author of the popular blog Customer Experience Matters. His ebook Six Laws of Customer Experience that is available for free on the blog has been downloaded by tens of thousands of people. 20 Prior to forming Temkin Group, Bruce was VP & Principal Analyst with Forrester Research. During his 12 years with Forrester, he led the company's B2B, financial services, and customer experience practices. Bruce was Forrester s most-read analyst for 13 consecutive quarters and created Forrester s Customer Experience Index as well as its Voice of the Customer Award. Prior to Forrester, Bruce co-founded and ran a couple of Internet start-ups. He also held management positions with GE, Stratus Computers, and Fidelity Investments. Bruce has been widely quoted in the press and is a highly demanded public speaker. He combines deep expertise with an engaging, entertaining style and has delivered hundreds of keynote speeches at industry and corporate events. 20 Customer Experience Matters is a registered trademark of Temkin Group. Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 26

27 Bruce holds a master s degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Union College. Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 27

28 About Temkin Group Temkin Group is a consulting and research firm that helps clients increase customer loyalty by improving their customer experience. The company was founded based on four core beliefs: Customer experience drives loyalty. Our research and work with clients has shown that interactions with customers influences how much business they ll do with you in the future and how often they recommend you to friends and colleagues. Improvement requires systemic change. Companies can improve isolated customer interactions, but they can t gain competitive advantage until customer experience is embedded in their operating fabric. It s a journey, not a project. Building the capabilities to consistently delight customers doesn t happen overnight. Companies need to plan for a multi-year corporate change program. We can help you make a difference. Transformation isn t easy, but leading your company to be more customer-centric is worth the effort. We help our clients accelerate their results and avoid many of the bumps along the way. Temkin Group combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of large organizations to accelerate results. We help companies build the four competencies required for longterm success: 1. Purposeful Leadership. Does your leadership team operate consistently from a clear, well-articulated set of values? 2. Engaged Employees. Are employees fully committed to the goals of your organization? 3. Compelling Brand Values. Are your brand attributes driving decisions about how you treat customers? 4. Customer-connectedness. Is customer feedback and insight deeply integrated throughout all of your internal processes? Temkin Group provides a number of services that include: Interactive workshops to instill a common mindset, vocabulary, and approach across an organization. Strategic reviews of customer experience plans and objectives to identify opportunities for accelerating efforts and avoiding missteps along the way. Assessments of customer experience competencies to identify and close critical gaps. Senior executive sessions to ensure appropriate levels of alignment and commitment. Executive coaching to help executives leading customer experience efforts. Speeches and webinars to teach customer experience concepts. Temkin Ratings that provides quantitative data on customer experience and loyalty. Copyright 2012 Temkin Group. All rights reserved. Page 28