Why businesses should apply CX principles to their employees, too

By Terry Simpson, senior solutions engineer at Nintex

Customer experience (CX) is all the rage, with businesses focused on intelligent design of apps, websites and other front-facing interfaces. But with so much emphasis on CX, many organizations are overlooking that the same principles also apply to their own employees. All too often, employees are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to user-friendly technology tools. And, just like poor CX, it’s hurting the bottom line.

When a business’s technology tools are built with their employees in mind, it leads to improved employee happiness, increased worker retention and a stronger overall organization. In this Q&A, Terry Simpson, senior solutions engineer at Nintex, dives into how enterprises and their technology infrastructure can make life easier for employees.

How can enterprises ensure they’re prioritizing employee and customer experiences?

Scoring employee and customer experience is a critical metric to understanding the current state of the perceived experience. Monitoring this score over time will provide significant insight into what is working and not working. Feedback, surveys and other communications can be leveraged to generate this score. It’s also important to have a barometer or index to measure scoring.

Once enterprises understand where the experience is on a scale, they can then take action on enhancing the experience, which should represent a change in the barometer or index that is used. The simple act of creating a scorecard like this will provide focus on the topic and should be a priority for executive leadership.

How do bad internal tech experiences make or break employee experience?

An employee’s perception of a good or bad experience at an organization is heavily influenced by the physical environment, virtual environment, and culture. More and more today the virtual environment is playing a significantly important role with remote employees and process automation.

Just like walking into an unwelcoming physical environment, a bad technical experience can leave a similar bad taste in your mouth. This experience sets the tone on the employee’s perception of the organization. This can lead to a negative attitude and decreased respect for the process and culture – especially for newer employees.

How can technology improve the employee experience?

Positive experiences with technology lead to engaged, happy and productive employees. These employees have a higher probability of spreading this energy to colleagues and ultimately customers, which in turn encourages a great customer experience and results in repeat business. In addition, those employees and customers are less likely to leave.

As humans, we want to take the path of least resistance. Great technology provides the path of least resistance by making processes efficient and frictionless. We have all had interactions where technology has provided a great customer experience and said to ourselves “that was so easy, why didn’t they do this before?” That experience communicates that the organization values me as an employee/customer to invest in my experience. At the end of the day organizations need to serve its employees and customers. By focusing on that service, you increase your probability for profitability.

How should employee and customer experiences with tech be similar? How should they be different?

The experience that a customer experiences is a direct reflection on the employee experience. They are directly linked together starting with the culture of the organization. Great employee experiences set the tone for the organization, as those employees develop and interact with customers, that tone is passed on.

The organization can further enhance this experience by adjusting its pace and tempo as well, resulting in exceptional service to employees and customers. Employees and customers have different needs, so they will ultimately need different experiences, but they should always be reflective of focused service to the intended audience.

How does a solid technical infrastructure lead to stronger organizations?

Solid technical infrastructure is like having a solid foundation on your house. Weak foundations lead to long-term negative symptoms, vulnerabilities, increased cost, sleepless nights and an unhappy household. Strong foundations lead to happy, healthy, and vibrant households that pass onto its occupants a sustainable environment. Organizations that have invested and continue to invest in strong technical infrastructure, tend to have a higher probability of success.

Terry Simpson is a senior solutions engineer at Nintex, the global standard for process management and automation. He is an experienced PMP-certified project manager, consultant, trainer and speaker at numerous SharePoint events including SP Tech Con, Nintex User Groups, SharePoint Conference.ORG, SUGDC, SUGATL, and SharePoint Saturday events around the country. Terry is a graduate of Marshall University with a degree in Finance and holds a master’s in Business Administration from Frostburg State University.

About Nintex

Nintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 10,000 public and private sector organizations across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating and optimizing business processes. Learn more by visiting www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).