By: Sentry Marketing Group

June 29, 2015

The humanitarian reasons for listening to the suggestions and concerns of your employees are obvious. But beyond treating people like people, making sure employees are heard and their ideas treated with respect is part of sound business practice. This is especially the case in customer-centered industries like food service and hospitality.

Happy employees lead to happy customers

In many ways, it is easy to see how employee satisfaction can lead to better customer service.  A server, host, or salesperson who is miserable in their job is likely to pass on at least some of their dissatisfied attitude to customers, even if they do so from behind an accommodating smile.  Happy, satisfied employees, on the other hand, will pass that attitude along.  Remember, to a customer the person they deal with directly is the company.  An experience with an employee who is clearly loyal to and supportive of the company they work for is always going to leave a better impression than one with an employee who couldn’t seem to care less.

Satisfied employees are more likely to be engaged

According to recent studies, companies with high employee engagement have benefited from twice the level customer loyalty (repeat purchases, recommendations to friends) of companies with below-average employee engagement scores. Not only are engaged employees more likely to present a positive front to customers, they are also more committed to finding immediate, creative solutions to customer problems, putting out fires before they even start.  It stands to reason, too, that engaged employees, employees who are committed to the business, are less likely to display behavior that harms the company – like showing up late or not at all for shifts, abusing privileges, and giving away or taking home products.

 

Customer-facing employees have first-hand knowledge of customer experience

Besides being the face of the company, your staff on the ground has first-hand experience with and more intimate knowledge of customer experience.  They know what problems customers bring up repeatedly and what challenges they consistently need to address.  Including employee feedback in your strategy development can be a great way to make sure you’re covering even more of the bases.  If you have a customer service survey that you give to customers, discuss results with your staff on the ground.  They will almost always be able to shed some light on where things many be missing or what exactly is causing customer dissatisfaction and what can be done to correct it.

Turnover costs money

Dallas-based People Report reported in 2014 that the food service industry’s annual turnover rate across segments was a staggering 94% for hourly employees and 34% for managers.  The year before, a CAP study found that, for high-turnover, low-paying jobs (less than $30,000 a year) it costs an average of 16% of that annual salary to replace one employee.  This means, for example, that the cost to replace a retail employee earning $10/hour would be about $3,328.  Multiply that by 94% of your hourly staff and you’re looking at a high cost for losing employees.  If you wonder how much turnover is costing you, check out this turnover cost calculator from bonus.ly.

Besides material costs, voluntary turnover has a negative effect on morale, resulting in anxious and unhappy employees that in turn seek other employment, creating a snowball effect and making it difficult to carry forward company standards and maintain a consistent brand message.

The bottom line?

Keeping your employees engaged and satisfied is as important to your bottom as doing the same for your customers.  Even if it means paying a little more, creating programs to aid employee engagement, or just spending a little more time on the floor yourself, managers and owners do well to remember that it is the employees on the ground that make up the face and the spirit of a company.