Why Your Customers Care About These 15 Employee Engagement Statistics (And Why You Need to Do the Same)
There’s no red curtain of mystique hiding the benefits of engaged employees. Countless research reports and surveys pile up each year defining the business impacts of keeping your employees engaged with their work.
Higher productivity. More profits. Happier employees. Less turnover…
The list goes on. It’s clear that a deeper-pocket investment in your employees brings a high ROI for your company. Yet, even with all this knowledge, companies still miss the mark on employee experience. Work is more frustrating than it is gratifying for most employees.
Maybe, though, if more companies knew the direct connection between employee engagement and a better customer experience, they’d stop missing the mark, in the name of a better CX.
The statistics don’t always call out how this endless state of disengagement impacts your customers. Sure, we can draw fuzzy associations in our minds and connect the dots on our own. But there’s a crystal-clear connection worth talking about.
We’re laying it all out on the table for you.
Here are 15 employee engagement stats and facts on why engagement matters to your customers.
1. Employees who use their strengths on the job every day are 6 times more likely to be engaged at work, 8 percent more productive, and 15 percent less likely to head for the door. (Gallup)
Why it matters to your customers:
Playing up your agents’ strengths and encouraging them to use skills where they excel improves your customer experience and your agent experience. Engaged agents thrive. And they bump up productivity and are more loyal to your company. That means your customers have more knowledgeable agents providing frictionless experiences.
2. When your employees feel that they have a voice at your company, they’re engaged and 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. (Salesforce)
Why it matters to your customers:
Your customers deserve the best. They don’t deserve lackluster efforts from agents who don’t have the support and inclusion they need to succeed. When you give your agents a seat at the table, they’re compelled to make sure every, single customer interaction tops the last one.
3. Some 70 percent of employees say the empowerment to take action when a problem comes up is important to their engagement at work. (SHRM)
Why it matters to your customers:
Empowerment puts humanity back in your customer experience. Empowered agents take ownership of your customers’ problems. And they’ll do what it takes to solve issues the first go-round. (Even if it means handing out a refund or making a call that isn’t explicitly defined in the agent handbook.) Each customer interaction happens on a human-to-human level, not by a script.
4. Companies who work to actively engage employees have customer loyalty rates 233 percent higher than those who don’t. (Aberdeen Group)
Why it matters to your customers:
Most customers don’t buy from you with the intent to ditch you in a year or two. Customers only question their loyalty after a poor customer experience, delivered by your agents. Engaged employees help cut pain points and make it valuable for your customers to stay put.
Bonus: Sticking around saves customers from the frustrations of finding a new solution.
5. Three in five workers say they’re burned out at work. And 31 percent of workers report high or extremely high stress levels on the job. Even so, 33 percent of workers haven’t taken and don’t plan to take a vacation this year. (Career Builder)
Why it matters to your customers:
Your customers suffer when your agents are stressed out and overworked. Disengaged agents with schedules that leave no room for breaks or time to recharge live in a rightful cloud of negativity.
Since 92 percent of customers say an agent’s perceived happiness affects their personal customer experience, your CX suffers from unhappy agents.
6. Roughly 39 percent of your employees don’t feel like they have enough autonomy in their roles at work. (Officevibe)
Why it matters to your customers:
A lack of autonomy stifles resolutions for your customers. When an agent has to ask permission before every response to a customer problem, your customers get sub-par service. Autonomy lets your agents think on the fly and do what’s in the best interest of your customer. They know the payoff for your company might happen down-the-line, but doing what’s right for the customer works in the best interest of the company.
7. Only 40 percent of people in the workforce are aware of their company’s goals, strategies, and tactics. (Bain & Company)
Why it matters to your customers:
Let’s say you’re a company who’s going all-in on customer experience, reshaping how you serve customers. If your agents can’t align themselves to your customer-first goals and behaviors, then your customers will never get the level of service you promise. And you’ll never deliver the stellar service you need to reach your organizational goals.
8. Employees are more engaged and productive when working from home. Seventy-five percent attribute the productivity to fewer distractions While 74 percent say they have fewer interruptions, 71 percent are less stressed from commuting, and 61 percent experience less office politics. (FlexJobs)
Why it matters to your customers:
When your agents have the technology and empowerment they need to work flexibly, they can help more customers each day. Plus, the fewer distractions and lower stress levels give agents the peace of mind and clarity they need to up their effectiveness, in addition to efficiency, for your customers.
9. Actively disengaged employees outnumber engaged employees by almost a two-to-one ratio. (Gallup)
Why it matters to your customers:
Your customers have double the chance of talking to an unenthusiastic, semi-helpful, agent than they do a friendly and conversational one. This statistic is one that perpetuates the negative viewpoint of poor customer service experiences. Until that stat is reversed, chances are most of your frontline employees are a source of negativity for your customers.
10. Engaged teams have turnover 24 to 59 percent lower than disengaged teams. (Gallup)
Why it matters to your customers:
The more turnover in your contact center, the less institutional knowledge and peer-to-peer collaboration exist. Your customers deal with agents-in-training over those with the expertise to help them faster and more accurately.
11. Compared with disengaged teams, engaged teams have 10 percent higher customer ratings. (Gallup)
Why it matters to your customers:
This one’s as simple as it gets. Engaged employees = more satisfied customers, by a long shot.
12. Some 23 percent of employees feel drained every single day when they leave work. (Officevibe)
Why it matters to customers:
Irritability, confusion, and frustration are all symptoms of feeling drained. When your agents always feel drained , they’re not in the frame of mind to deliver lasting solutions to your customers. They might be able to slap a Band-Aid on a problem, but your customers won’t get lasting resolutions without an agent who can press the defog button.
13. More than half of employees who leave a job voluntarily say their manager or company could have done something to prevent them from leaving. (Gallup)
Why it matters to your customers:
You have the power to keep your knowledgeable, well-trained agents in their seats, ready to help customers. And with those knowledgeable, happy agents come stronger agent-customer interactions and relationships.
14. A whopping 53 percent of employees say they haven’t improved any of their skills significantly in the past year. (Officevibe)
Why it matters to customers:
If more than half of your team isn’t getting the training they need, their expertise won’t be able to evolve with your customers’ needs. Like if a customer becomes keen on a new channel to use for support requests. An agent who doesn’t improve their skills won’t know how to respond on the new channel, leaving your customers hanging without help.
15. Your happiest, most engaged employees are 12 percent more productive than your disengaged employees. (University of Warwick)
Why it matters to customers:
Your agents’ efficiency spikes when they’re engaged. When your agents are more productive, they don’t get bogged down at the sight of a full interaction queue. They tackle their interactions and power through, keeping your customers’ valuable time top-of-mind.