“Employee Engagement” is a real buzz phrase at the moment as more and more companies begin to see the tangible benefits of ensuring your employees are HAPPY.
As we break out of the recession and more jobs become available, it’s up to businesses to work to attract the very best staff and retain these staff through incentivised schemes, motivational mantras and unique methods of proving – yes, our company is better than our competitors.
At Rant & Rave (www.rantandrave.com) we are proud to have a very hard working, but fun environment. We consistently organise team activities while rewarding staff when they’ve done well.
And our clients are no different. West Bromwich Building Society, for example, used Rant & Rave not only to improve their customer experience but largely to increase motivation amongst staff.
Here’s how they did it…
The background
West Bromwich Building Society has a busy call centre that answers up to 1,000 phone calls a day. They felt their old method of gathering feedback via a mystery shopper had grown staid and ineffective. Rather than using a tick-box model, they wanted a tool that would allow them to gather and respond to customer feedback in real-time – and provide them with authentic, accurate insight they could use to influence change at the company – and reward staff.
The solution
So, in August 2012 West Bromwich Building Society enlisted the services of us at Rant & Rave to gather real-time feedback from their call centre customers. Now customers are given the option of being transferred through to the Rant & Rave recording line where they are asked to rate their experience on a scale of one to five and then verbally record their reasons for leaving the score. Usually, around 15% to 20% of callers agree to complete the survey – amounting to approximately 200 people a day. All feedback is analysed in real-time by Rant & Rave’s text analysis technology and presented to the team at West Brom on their Rant & Rave dashboard.
At any time they like, staff from West Brom can log onto their dashboard and see the comments made about them – inspiring staff to do their very best to ensure their customers leave good feedback. In the rare occasion that any negative feedback is left, key personnel are alerted and their issue is dealt with promptly before it develops into a full-blown complaint.
Benefits to employee engagement
The benefits on employee engagement have been paramount. Not only can the team quickly respond to negative feedback and ensure their customer service is at an all-time high but it also helps to ensure that team morale is through the roof. A buzz is generated in the office where they have inter-team competitions, judged by the dashboard and rewarding individuals who have done particularly well.
Nigel Owens, Head of Contact Centres at West Bromwich Building Society told us that the technology has been an invaluable tool that has helped them celebrate the great work that their staff does, by using the feedback to celebrate the great work their team have done.
So if anyone is thinking about how they can increase staff morale, think a little bit leftfield; consider all the technology you have in place and how that can be capitalised upon. Hearing and responding to the voice of the customer is not only about ensuring your clients are happy – but encouraging your staff to be too.
Nigel Shanahan
Nigel Shanahan is the Chairman and founder of Rapide, one of the UK’s leading customer engagement specialiststhat provides real-time, voice of the customer solutions to over 250 global brands. Their proactive communication solutions, ‘Inform & Interact’ and their fast feedback technology, ‘Rant & Rave’, are used by leading organisations to drive profit and performance. Rapide’s solutions allow businesses to find out what their customers are really thinking and to understand, learn from and respond to customer feedback in real-time.
www.rantandrave.com