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3 Ways to Create a High-Performing Employee Culture

Relaxation in the office.

For years a close family member suffered from severe migraines and, in a desperate attempt to find a cure, visited a holistic healer. Holistic medicine practitioners believe that the whole person is made up of interdependent parts and if one part is not working properly, all the other parts will be affected.

After analyzing diet, sleep habits, stress levels, relationship issues, plus work and home environments, the holistic healer helped my family member identify potential problems and recommended solutions. A few simple lifestyle changes resulted in a rebirth-like experience filled with a new-found joy of life and the ability to be a present, productive, and high-performance individual both socially and professionally.

While disengaged and demotivated employees might physically turn up to work, they tend to behave in a detached, unproductive, and nonchalant mode that’s reminiscent of a severe migraine sufferer who’s hiding in the dark, seeking to distance themselves from their colleagues, customers, and the world. As managers and leaders, we need to adopt a holistic healer-like approach to creating and maintaining an employee experience (EX) that continuously provides moments of unexpected delight to inspire employee loyalty and retention.

Why EX is the new CX

EX is commonly equated incorrectly to employee engagement. Measuring employee engagement—which most organisations are obsessed with—is definitely not the same as improving it. A better way to think about employee engagement is to view it as a moment in time outcome. On the other hand, EX describes the ongoing journey that delivers a level of employee engagement. The simplest way to think of EX is as the sum of all observations, encounters, and feelings that employees have before, during, and after their employment with an organisation.

When a company’s EX is positive and employees are aligned with the organisation’s purpose, vision, and values, they are likely to not only get their work done efficiently, but also are willing to go the extra mile and put in considerable discretionary effort to “do the right thing” and keep customers happy. In an academic study, Alex Edmans determined that “Companies listed in the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America’ generated 2.3 to 3 percent higher stock returns per year than their peers.” 

So how can it be done? By administering the EX prescription below, leaders can lay the high-performance culture foundation that drives exceptional levels of CX:

1. Provide employees with positive touchpoints at all stages of the employee lifecycle. Employees interact with the company they work for in a multitude of ways at each stage of their employee lifecycle. It’s the sum experience of these interactions—from selection, recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, exit to alumni—that creates a memorable employee experience.

In the CX world, a customer journey map is the primary tool used to create a visual representation of customers’ interactions with a brand to understand where and when the connections occur, how customers feel at each connection point, and identify where any potential friction exists. EX professionals are now borrowing the same tools to create employee journey maps that help them to visualise current-state EX and design improved future-state EX.

Reengineering the exit process to include counseling or outplacement services, an authentic and unbiased exit interview, appropriate and timely team communications, or even leaving a card, gift, or small send-off event could mean the difference between a scathing and glowing Glassdoor review for your company.

2. Create a work environment that balances technology, culture, and physical surroundings. There’s nothing worse than the slowly escalating panic attack that sets in around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon as you dread the mental preparation required to survive the upcoming week.

As a holistic EX healer, a simple remedy for work dread is to treat your employees as if they were your only and most important customer. Setting up employees for success requires an end-to-end, employee-centric approach that aims to make their lives as easy as possible by removing friction and allowing them to focus on delivering world-class CX to your customers.

A common trap many organisations fall into is thinking that providing a work environment filled with foosball tables, free food, and funky decor will in itself deliver an amazing EX. While these factors certainly help employees feel more comfortable and valued, they need to be incorporated into a broader EX strategy to deliver more substantial EX outcomes.

Rather than only focusing on the physical environment, start with culture. You can think of organisational culture as the behaviours that employees demonstrate—especially when no one is looking. As managers and leaders, it’s up to us to create a unique organisational DNA where we establish a set of clear behaviours that our employees know, understand, buy into and passionately live every day.

EX enablers of a high-performance culture mean all employees understand what’s expected of them and they consistently behave in an aligned way. In this environment the technology and processes need to be built to support the team’s purpose, values, and behaviours. And behind that technology, it’s about employees who are genuinely excited, engaged, and empowered to deliver the shared cultural norms. This is strengthened by rewards and recognitions for their efforts and results.  

Providing the technologies and tools required to do the job is a
mandatory element of EX, as well. Look for opportunities to leverage technology when streamlining core activities such as:

  • Proficiently locating customer-related information by leveraging integrated tools and customer systems like CRM.
  • Efficiently locating corporate, product, and policy information by using a centralised knowledge management system.
  • Empowering employees to learn skills, processes, and tools at the time and point of need with an adaptive, next-generation learning platform.

3. Holistically bring together HR functions to build bridges between EX and CX. Many forward-thinking organisations around the globe have formally acknowledged their commitment to EX by creating the role of Chief EX Officer. An integral part of this strategy is to adopt an employee-centric view that holistically integrates all employee HR functions by aligning these with the stages of the employee lifecycle. Bringing together talent acquisition, learning and development, compensation and benefits, and all other HR functions will ensure a smoother transition from one employee lifecycle stage to the next.

Take, for example, the responsibilities of Airbnb’s Vice President of Employee Experience Beth Axelrod. The Fortune 500 company describes her responsibility as overseeing the recruitment of employees, maintaining a healthy and diverse work environment, and organising employee benefits and resources.

Another key EX enabler is the “consumerisation of HR”—applying a consumer and digital mindset to a company’s HR functions by creating social, mobile, and consumer-like experiences for employees. A recent report from McKinsey estimated that by 2025, 75 percent of the workforce will be digital native millennials who will expect to interact at all stages of the employee lifecycle using flexible, mobile-first apps on their own devices. A well-designed employee experience isn’t just about understanding how to improve their livelihood, but also being aware of how they conduct their everyday lives and fitting to their expectations.

Employee experiences feed into CX success

Consider the words of Sir Richard Branson, “My philosophy has always been, if you can put staff first, your customers second, and shareholders third, effectively, in the end, the shareholders do well, the customers do better, and your staff remains happy.”

Likewise, a carefully administered EX prescription that considers employees’ thoughts, feelings, and physical work environments together with a consumer-like approach to managing HR functions will generate exceptional levels of engagement, excitement, buy-in, loyalty, retention, and employer brand loyalty. This will result in the sustained health and wellbeing of your organisation’s CX.

How to Tell If Your B2B Website Is Customer-Centric

Marketers, if your B2B website was on a “first date,” would it get a second one? For many websites, the answer is probably “no,” according to recent research by Forrester. Many B2B websites would make poor conversation partners—their main focus is about what they do, they don’t relate to the other person, and they share dull stories that are nearly identical. In short, companies are missing an opportunity to better engage buyers and drive sales with a buyer-centric approach. The upside is that even with just a few changes, companies can stand out from the competition, attract audiences, and generate greater demand.

Rethink your website from the prospect POV
In its research, Forrester evaluated 60 websites of leading enterprises across 12 industries such as human resources, manufacturing, marketing automation, sales enablement, investing, and medical products. The websites were judged on whether content spoke to buyers’ issues versus company products; if content was tailored for different audiences or roles; were infographics, videos, and other media used to highlight key information; was there a convenient way to connect with sales, and other criteria.

So, how did the websites do? The study showed that the vast majority of websites in the study failed to deliver an engaging content experience and only four sites received a passing score. Most of the websites focused on the company’s capabilities and offerings instead of demonstrating an understanding of buyers’ concerns. “There are a number of reasons why marketers end up in this position and part of it is simply muscle memory,” says Laura Ramos, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, who co-authored the report. “This is how marketers are used to portraying information, but industries are getting more competitive and people are demanding more.”

The importance of buyer-centric websites also speaks to a larger trend. “Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, people expect you as a brand to know something about them,” says Scott Mager, a principal with Deloitte Digital. “The question, how do I get the right content to the right person in the right channel at the right time to create the right optimum experience for that person should be top of mind [for marketers].”

Start with customer-focused content
An effective content marketing strategy is built on three pillars: buyer insights, buyer behavior, and content design. Creating compelling content means leveraging these three areas to demonstrate how well a company understands its target audience’s needs and challenges. Some marketers, though, fear they’ll alienate potential buyers by taking a more focused approach to their content. “A common question that we hear from clients is, ‘won’t this narrow our audience?” Ramos says. Yes and no. Broad descriptions, Ramos explains, don’t communicate the value of a company’s products or services and require more work on the buyer’s part. “The onus is on companies to do their research, figure out which types of customers and situations they want to work with and make it clear who the information is intended for,” Ramos says.

While creating a better website requires time and effort, there are a few relatively easy things companies can do to start, Ramos adds. Those low-hanging fruits include making sure the homepage is easy to navigate and that the site is optimized for every channel. If the company already has different types of content, allow visitors to indicate which types of information they’d be interested in (even better: filter the information by role or other relevant categories). Even companies in highly-regulated industries can improve the user experience by replacing jargon with concise definitions.

Be human
Research shows company websites are still one of the most effective tools for building brand awareness. Websites are also what often forms a prospect’s first impression of the company and its offerings. And prospects are more likely to turn into buyers if a company demonstrates that it understands the issues prospective buyers are looking to solve and is ready to help. Or as Ramos puts it, it’s about “giving content a human voice.”

Take a Smart Seasonal Approach to Health Insurance Open Enrollment

Wireless communication connecting of smart city Internet of Things Technology which driving by Brain icon over Abstract blur photo of conference hall or seminar room,technology and education concept

Open enrollment has become a make-or-break time for insurers. Besides the pressure and competition to entice and enroll members in individual, family, Medicare, and other plans, the process to prepare and staff for the season is full of rising costs and inefficiencies. Companies essentially restart the process each year, accruing higher costs every time. Licensed, U.S.-based associates are legally required to assist consumers in their choices of health insurance, which can be expensive and hard to staff in different geographies. 

Annual enrollment on average requires a 600 percent increase in staffing levels compared to the rest of the year. It can cost some payers up to $5,000 to license an associate across all 50 states. Finding the right people in a specific geography and ramping up the physical space to house all those associates are difficult challenges. What’s more, it can take 90 days for new licensed associates to reach proficiency. 

Once hired, trained, and placed in a live environment, these highly trained expert associates often spend up to 35 percent of their time handling misdirected calls from people who see the enrollment phone number and call about something else, like a claim question.

Instead, payers can reimagine their open enrollment preparation and operations to not only save costs, but also lead to better conversions and other outcomes. It’s an approach we at TTEC call “Smart Seasonal.”

TTEC’s Smart Seasonal approach hires and trains a mix of onshore, offshore, and @home employees, then manages call flow to deflect non-sales calls to lower-cost, pre-sales support channels. Associates are hired full time, to be utilized in different ways and on full- and part-time schedules throughout the year. This leads to tenured, expert associates who can work with consumers more effectively. 

As a result, average handle time and wait times decrease, while sales conversions improve.

4 pillars to exceed open enrollment performance goals

1. Find the right labor mix

With U.S. unemployment below 4 percent and hourly wage growth up 19 percent in the past six years, it’s hard to find and keep good labor without investing in workers. Yes, licensed onshore associates are required, but not for everything. The right combination of markets and staffing structure can help meet the labor challenge and optimize results. 

Offshore resources and self-service options can remove some of the burden from onshore licensed associates for simple service inquiries that do not require a license. These associates can manage a large portion of interactions and can qualify true sales inquiries that are then sent to licensed, U.S. employees. 

The U.S. workforce model can also be adjusted to be a hybrid of brick-and-mortar and @home associates. The model allows associates to be staffed all year, which reduces annual ramp and training requirements and improves knowledge and expertise. Home-based workers are more likely to be interested in a flexible schedule, working full time during open enrollment periods and part time the rest of the year. They are more likely to become experts and more effectively drive conversions by as much as 36 percent. 

2. Invest in an optimal people strategy
The secret weapon of any company is its people. The best people provide the best member experiences. That’s why it’s important to invest strategically in the right wage structure and engagement approach to lower attrition and deliver higher performance.

A Smart Seasonal approach recommends investing in higher wages for U.S.-based, licensed associates. It will be a tighter, nimbler group of employees who are focused on complex sales-related interactions. Higher wages will attract and retain high performers, saving costs in the long run on talent acquisition and training. 

So what’s the correct wage range? It’s different for each company, based on multiple factors like geography, competition, and even job level stress. Our healthcare experts work with individual payers to help determine the wage sweet spot for each situation.

In addition to wages, we recommend payers execute an integrated engagement strategy for onshore, offshore, and @home workers. It should be a holistic approach to the member experience, not siloed groups working on their own. 

3. Empower associates to drive conversions
The right tools and processes can supercharge open enrollment outcomes. The Smart Seasonal approach uses advanced knowledge management tools as the foundation to help associates find the most appropriate information at the right moment. 

Call flows are modified to focus on conversions, scripts are regularly updated based on call history insights, and real-time sales coaching uses analytics and 360-degree associate understanding to boost strong skills and improve weak ones.

4. Implement technology to accelerate results
While associates are the experience, the right technology removes friction from both sides of the interaction.

For members, customized quote microsites help steer open enrollment inquiries to self-service tools. The sites are shared with prospective members after the initial contact with an associate. Members are greeted with a site that includes a sales associate’s photo and contact information, as well as details about insurance plans discussed and instructions for signing up. In addition, co-browse and omnichannel capabilities empower consumers in their chosen channel. And call-back assist tools shorten customer wait times and improve NPS. 

For associates, insight from voice analytics helps to refine interactions and deliver improved outcomes. TTEC’s Associate Assist puts information in the associate’s hands in real time to drive CX and efficiency. And our RealPlay AI proprietary learning program uses AI bots for digital, simulated learning in a gamified environment. 

This mix of human and digital technology creates a perfect balance of positive member experience and streamlined operations. 

Get smart about seasonal strategy to open enrollment
Every year, it costs more to convert fewer health insurance prospects. The current approach to open enrollment isn’t sustainable. A Smart Seasonal approach requires some disruption to the ways things have traditionally been done.

Changes made to associate staffing, training, and licensing can alleviate inefficiencies and allow associates to focus on what they do best while improving the experience for members. By taking best practices from other industries and applying them to health insurance, improvements are possible, even within a highly regulated industry like insurance. 

Contact Center Leaders: Look Back to Look Forward

Customer Contact Week—a conference focused on customer experience and customer care technology and trends—recently celebrated its 20th anniversary in Las Vegas. So, how has the customer experience evolved in the past two decades? While there have been some significant technological advances, attendees agreed that far more work remains to better serve customers. Business leaders and industry experts shared insights and identified opportunities to evolve even further.

Overcome CX transformation roadblocks
Back in 1999, smartphones didn’t exist. The Net Promoter Score had yet to be developed (it was introduced in 2003). And Customer Contact Week was known as Call Center Week. A lot has changed since companies were “just beginning to talk about something called digital technology” said Mario Matulich, executive director of Customer Management Practice, in a kick-off address. At the same time, some things remain the same. Companies, Matulich noted, still debate which metrics matter and strive to deliver value to the customer. The main challenge is staying ahead of customer expectations at a time when customers are more distracted, connected, and informed than ever before.

Transforming the customer experience to meet or exceed customer expectations is top of mind for many business leaders. The problem is, aside from making relatively simple changes, “people find it very difficult to implement change effectively,” said Megan Burns, founder and principal of Experience Enterprises. An aversion to change often results in companies inadvertently creating roadblocks that prevent successful transformations. Burns shared three ways to overcome CX transformation roadblocks:

1. Be specific – Shifting to more precise language can do wonders in uncovering true priorities and pathways. For example, when you’re told that a CX project is too expensive or has to be put on hold, “because of Wall Street, remember that there are two types of shareholders,” Burns said. “Investors who are in it for the long term and speculators who are looking for quick profits—so push back and ask, which type of shareholder are we most concerned with?” Knowing the answer can help CX leaders align projects better and increase their chances of being green-lit.

2. Help people see the invisible – Similar to the first point, examining something from a new angle or breaking a project down into smaller pieces could make it easier to visualize a way forward. Thinking of a customer journey map, for instance, as “a customer journey blueprint gives the connotation of planning before making a decision,” Burns said, and reduces the pressure to create the perfect map.

3. Leverage existing routines – It’s much harder to make room for a new task than to add to an existing routine. Another way to think of it is “jumping double-dutch,” Burns said. “Just as you have to get the timing right in double-dutch, look for initiatives that already have momentum and figure out how to join them.” Waiting for a budget meeting, for instance, to get approval for a project makes more sense than trying to introduce the project outside of that timeframe.

The future of AI is a human partnership
“We’ve experienced the age of the customer and now the age of the employee is upon us,” Matulich said. The understanding that great customer experiences are impossible without great employee experiences was a major theme at the conference. And as Lance Gruner, EVP of global customer care at Mastercard, pointed out, the age of the employee is concurrent with the age of AI. “Questions about retention and creating a good work environment still exist but people evolve,” Gruner told 1to1 Media. “And companies have to adapt, which is why understanding how to use AI and CX tools effectively is so important [to improving the employee experience].” More specifically, while AI is helpful for training customer care associates faster and taking on routine parts of customer interactions, technology is only a supplement to the human experience. “Tools and technology are essential, but they can’t replace the human element.”

Nick Cerise, CMO at TTEC (1to1 Media’s parent company) agreed. “AI serves a multitude of purposes, but the technology is even more effective when it’s paired with humans,” he explained. High-performing employees, for instance, are well suited for training an AI system to provide customer and education support, creating a “virtuous cycle where you’re using your best employees to train an AI that in turn trains more employees, which increases speed to proficiency and delivers an even better customer experience.”

Consistency beats novel CX
Customer loyalty is more elusive than ever, noted Shep Hyken, a customer experience and service expert. Part of the reason is not only are companies competing with other firms in the same industry, but “people also compare your service to the best service they’ve ever received from any sector,” Hyken said. However, trying to constantly one-up competitors with newer and better services and products is a fool’s game. “The best companies who are constantly seen as amazing are a little bit better than average all the time,” Hyken explained. Consistently good, personalized service is much more effective (and cost effective) than over-the-top experiences that may go unnoticed. How do companies know when they’re doing it right? Companies are on the right path when “the word always is followed by something positive [when customers speak of a brand],” Hyken said. “That’s when you know you’re in the zone of amazement.”

What’s next
Attitudes about the customer, employees, and technology’s role have significantly changed since 1999. At the same time, the pace of change has rapidly accelerated. As Gruner put it, “in the next five years we will see more changes in CX tools and AI than we have in the last 20 years.” If the past 20 years was about adapting to changes, the next 20 years will be about predicting change and preparing for it without your customers ever noticing.

Employees Shine in Some of 2019’s Best Workplaces

In 2019, a great place to work isn’t always defined by a paycheck. The modern workforce is increasingly interested in an environment where employees feel they have meaning and can support the values of the company.

Research by USGBC found that 84 percent of employees desire a job with a strong, concrete mission and positive values. And findings from the University of Warwick show that happy employees are 12 percent more productive.

“This year, we’ve seen more employees tout a mission-driven culture they can stand behind, [with] clear direction from their senior leadership team on where the company is going, transparency around career advancement opportunities, competitive compensation packages, as well as unique benefits and perks, ranging from dog-friendly offices to free catered lunches,” says Glassdoor Community Expert Sarah Stoddard. 

We reached out to leaders and employees from brands named in this year’s Glassdoor Employee Choice Award and Inc.’s Best Workplaces survey to find out what it means to be a part of a winning employee culture.

23andMe

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) genetic testing and research company 23andMe, which provides ancestry, health, trait, and wellness reports for consumers, has interwoven transparency into its culture. With a mission to help people access, understand, and benefit from their genetic material, the fast-growing company recruits and supports employees who embody a mission of understanding of the world from a microscopic to global level.

“I think that people have a sense of belonging to the mission, and when you feel like you are a part of something bigger than yourself, it’s deeply motivating,” says Jen Mease, head of recruiting at 23andMe.

The company was ranked 26th by Glassdoor in the best Small to Medium Companies to Work for in 2019, with a 97 percent recommendation rate on the website. Employee reviews on Glassdoor praised its work/life balance, mission-driven work, and investment in company culture as some of their biggest motivators.

“Knowing that behind every data point is a human being is truly inspiring for our employees,” says Mease. “We hear of stories on a daily basis of customers who find siblings or discover potentially lifesaving health information. Feeling like you are a part of that and connecting to the product is really remarkable and unique to 23andMe.”

Research from Imperative has shown that employees who feel a strong purpose with their company are 30 percent more likely to be high performers in the workplace. 23andMe seeks potential employees with relevant job experience and skills, but more importantly, Mease says the company wants to employ people who embody its core values.

“I think it can be relatively simple to provide someone with tools and resources to get better at their job, but it’s more difficult to teach someone to align with your core values. Ideally, we want everyone we hire to make a long-lasting impact at 23andMe,” says Mease. This helps create a work environment that she described as fun, collaborative, innovative, and imaginative.

Additionally, the company is bolstered by the strong leadership of its CEO and co-founder, Anne Wojcicki. As of March 2019, Wojcicki had a 100 percent approval rating as CEO on Glassdoor and was ranked as the 24th Top CEO of 2018 by the site. Despite the company’s growing size, 23andMe hosts an all-hands meeting every Friday to discuss the state of the company and dedicates time for Q&A from employees with Wojcicki and her executive leadership team.

Team Rubicon

There are a select few organizations that inspire their employees to literally go the distance and enter harm’s way to help others. Founded in 2010, Team Rubicon is a non-for-profit volunteer organization that recruits military veterans, civilians, and first responders to help with the unmet need for disaster relief and humanitarian aid across the globe. An important objective of the organization is giving veterans a chance to use the skills they learned in the service to help others, with former military making up almost 70 percent of the volunteer force.

The organization has helped during disasters such as Hurricanes Michael, Florence, and Maria, which impacted parts of the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“Many of Team Rubicon’s values, standards, and roots can be found in the military service of its founders, leaders, and volunteers,” says Josh Anderson, talent management at Team Rubicon and a Marine Corps veteran. “Many of our organizational values have to do with the delicate balance—the compromises—that must be struck during periods of conflict, stresses, hazards, or moments of severe consequence. In disasters, as in combat, the stakes are high.”

Employees and volunteers commented on Glassdoor that its mission-driven, challenging, and collaborative culture is a big driver as to why they are part of the organization.

Research from Team Rubicon found that 78 percent of those deployed report contributing to a greater purpose. “Our values are fundamentally different from what many experience in their adult working lives. They are strong, fearless, liberating, and bold,” says Anderson. “If you embrace them, live them, they free you up to become your best self, to really show up and make a difference in an authentic way. They also create a lot of value for those we serve.”

Purpose- and value-driven employees are essential to creating a positive and impactful environment. A survey from BetterUp Labs revealed that nine out of 10 American workers would give up 23 percent of future earnings to have a more meaningful career.

“We have a bias for action, but we are accountable for our actions and can’t afford to be reckless,” says Anderson. “The people who rely on us most can’t afford for us to be anything but precise, bold, and efficient. But they also need us to be totally human, to help bring them peace when they’re experiencing their worst day.”

Boll & Branch

Launched in 2014, Boll & Branch is a D2C textile (bedding, sheets, etc.) seller founded by husband and wife Scott and Missy Tanne. The pillars of the company focus on care, fair trade, and ethical workplace cultures. Reviews on Glassdoor praise the company’s ethical supply chain, family atmosphere, and values.

With a belief that family comes first, Scott Tanne wanted to ensure that those values are equally ensured to his employees. “We encourage our employees to find the balance that works for them. And, as leaders, we ensure that people feel trusted and empowered, knowing that we focus on measuring our outputs and results vs. over-emphasizing late nights in the office and trivial things like that,” he says. “The result is an office of workers that feels [and looks] more like a home with people who treat and trust one another like family.”

According to Gallup’s “State of the American Workplace” report, over half of respondents said that the ability to have a better work-life balance and personal well-being is very important to them. To Tanne, a big perk of the company’s D2C model is the ability to have a centralized team compared to traditional retailers that are more spread out. This enables the company to home in on work-life balance and flexibility by all working in one location and managing similar work schedules.

As a Fair Trade Certified company, the brand also follows ethical standards around reduced water use, no child or forced labor, living wages, and premiums to the factory and farms associated with the company.

Tanne encourages a work environment that begins with a one-on-one discussion of the company mission during hiring, and continues with transparency and reports for employees following factory trips. “When the Fair Trade impact report is released in June we present that to the full team,” says Tanne. “Things like this we prioritize to ensure we’re keeping people, our mission, at the heart of Boll & Branch’s culture.”

High ethical standards is a key ingredient to employee engagement and great workplaces. LinkedIn’s 2018 “Workplace Culture Trends” report found that 87 percent of American workers say pride in the company they work for matters, with 46 percent citing a positive impact on society as a key factor.

goodr

Founded in 2015 in Los Angeles, goodr’s small team of 39 employees runs a successful line of athletic sunglasses for runners, cyclists, and various athletic competitions and training. The brand has a lively and unique employee culture backed by autonomy and ethical workplace awareness.

For starters, everyone who applies for a position at goodr has to submit a drawing of an octopus fighting a pirate.

“What’s interesting about our brand is we’re a super vibrant fun company. And if you see us, I think there’s this idea that we slam margaritas all day, but nothing could be further from the truth. We actually work very hard,” says Stephen Lease, co-founder and CEO of goodr. “We have a super in-depth onboarding process because we realized our culture is so different and we have to deprogram people from normal ways of thinking.”

The company’s extensive onboarding process, which it calls goodr.OS (goodr operating system) is made of eight pillars that the staff, both new and current, go through. Examples include:

• New hires get a swag bag of books that goodr feels are cornerstones to its culture.

•Team members are encouraged to put together a personal productivity system.

• Training and test on an Enneagram (a tool for measuring personality types) so employees can better understand each of the nine personality types and how to best work with each other’s differences and strengths.

• The production of a weekly “Learn goodr” video that the team watches and discusses.

Goodr also has a flat reporting structure where there are no bosses, which they find isn’t for everyone. “You have a role you know what to do, we try to train leaders and adults, not followers,” says Lease.

What it takes to be a best place to work

These brands prove to be not only exceptional on the outside, but meaningful and impactful for those making it work on the inside. As consumers become more aware of unfair, toxic, or mistreated workforces, leaders need to look at the brands that are creating forward thinking and ethical workplaces to be impactful.

Forrester CX NYC 2019: How to Break Through Stagnant Customer Experiences

At Forrester’s CX NYC 2019 conference, the message was clear: customer experience has a hit a wall. The failure to understand what customers really want and deliver value has led to irrelevant experiences and disengaged customers. Across a total of 16 industries in the research firm’s latest U.S. Customer Experience Index, 81 percent of the brands have a stagnated customer experience.

The good news is with the right strategy, data insights, and a healthy dose of experimentation, companies can break through the wall to drive greater customer engagement and loyalty. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the conference on how to do exactly that.

1. Think POST
While cutting-edge technology is a key driver of great customer experiences, it isn’t the only component that matters when making a buying decision. “Too many firms don’t put the customer in the center of their CX technology buying decisions—or they’re not taking a holistic view of how the technology fits within the rest of the organization,” said Forrester Senior Analyst Faith Adams at a breakout session.

The result is a waste of resources and unsuccessful customer outcomes. Adams suggested the acronym POST (People, Objective, Strategy, Technology) as a smarter and more effective way to integrate technology into a company’s CX initiatives.

Kathy Schwartz, director of customer experience at pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, shared additional tips for implementing a successful CX strategy based on her own experiences. Being transparent in the RFP process about the sources of data that vendors would be asked to work with and asking them to demonstrate their capabilities quickly pares down the list, Schwartz said. 

Also, defining the success metrics of the CX program early on is important, but “don’t overcommit to those metrics,” she advised. As the CX program matures, companies should remember that KPIs and priorities could change, so it’s also important to do regular assessments.

2. Engage values-based consumers strategically
In an increasingly polarized environment, more and more consumers are selecting brands that reflect their values. Globally, 64 percent of consumers choose, switch, avoid, or boycott a brand based on its standing on a societal issue, according to the Edelman Earned Brand 2018 report, which is up 13 percentage points from 2017.

Brands, though, should be wary of adopting and broadcasting values simply to attract customers, warned Harley Manning, VP and research director at Forrester. “What’s hugely important is authenticity,” he said. Customers, Manning noted, are very quick to spot opportunistic attempts to win business.

Brands need a strategy to bring social, political, or moral values into their business models, added Manning, who helped create a values-based experience framework for exactly that purpose. The framework outlines nine potential approaches brands can take to integrating values into the customer experience. There is no right or wrong option, Manning said. It’s just a matter of “figuring out do our values match our customers’ values and how intensely do we want to depict those values?”

3. Unlock empathy by humanizing data
Research shows that employees provide better and more effective service when they feel empathy for a customer. The challenge is triggering empathy when employees are quickly numbed by the volume of customer complaints and requests that they receive daily. A possible solution is video testimonials. 

“Creating empathy is the key to inspiring action in CX,” said Raj Sivasubramanian, customer experience insights manager at Airbnb, in a presentation. Sivasubramanian shared a pilot he recently launched in which a small group of Airbnb users were invited to submit short videos with feedback about the rental company’s service.

Video elicits emotions that compel the viewer to act faster in a way that text doesn’t, Sivasubramanian claimed. To support his point, Sivasubramanian shared several video testimonials that ranged from a man on a hospital bed thanking Airbnb for promptly issuing him a refund when he was unable to use his reservation, to various disgruntled customers. “Our customers provide more context and deeper insight via video,” Sivasubramanian said. In one case, when a customer angrily complained about the company’s confusing cancellation policies, the video prompted the necessary teams to re-examine the text and simplify it.
Of course, video testimonials present their own challenges, such as being easily overwhelmed by the volume of content. Yet humanizing customer data can help produce better and more effective support. As companies look to pull more insights from their data, they should consider whether there are ways to visualize and tell a story better or add emotion that was stripped from another channel. Or as Sivasubramanian put it, “don’t lose sight of the human element in your data.”

4. Employee experience matters
In Forrester’s employee experience track, analysts dove into the importance of creating genuine and meaningful interactions inside of an organization.

Getting an employee experience right is tough. Forrester analysts Angelina Gennis, Sam Stern, and Adrian Chapman explained that it’s complicated to create a healthy employee environment because so many organizations shape their workers’ experience around customers’ rising expectations. Instead, they advocated that organizations design experiences that fit their employees’ expectations first. “We think what truly matters to the employees is the ability to connect to them and [for them to] stay productive on the work that matters most to them,” said Chapman.

This means fostering an environment for “purpose workers,” employees who are encouraged to incorporate their own values and meaning into the work they do. According to Forrester’s 2018 Workforce study, 96 percent of workers at high EX firm are willing to stay for the next 12 months, while fewer than half are willing to stay at a low EX firm. Additionally, 85 percent at a high-ranking firm would recommend their company’s product, while only 16 percent at a low-ranking firm would do so.

While organizations have been using customer personas for some time to better understand their customers, the analysts stressed that organizations need to paint a better picture of their employees too. Gennis outlined three steps to create an employee persona, a snapshot that represents a large segment of employees as a single individual.

  • Set a clear goal: Personas need to let an employee tell a story. Let it show how an employee can have (or what may prevent) a ‘perfect’ day at work. Then have the persona focus on a specific objective of what the end product should be and how it can be successful.
  • Plan research to inform insights: Analyzing a single employee persona does not provide a big enough picture to solve a problem. Use qualitative research to cast a wider net on an issue and use this technique to connect the dots between employees by articulating their shared experiences.  
  • Strive for inspiring and actionable: Use the story told and research collected to discover mindsets and personality traits that can be attributed to different demographics in an organization. By better understanding groups of employees’ desires at different stages of your career, an organization can introduce actionable insight.

For several years, firms have been able to elevate the customer experience by taking advantage of quick wins and simple fixes. Such opportunities are increasingly rare as more companies compete on the customer experience. As analysts and industry experts at the conference suggest, it’s time for companies to climb higher and leverage data, technology, and human creativity in more strategic and innovative ways.

Allbirds Co-Founder Dishes on Direct Customer Relationships

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) model for manufacturers grew rapidly in 2018, with brands like Quip, Dollar Shave Club, and Warby Parker providing easy ways for consumers to purchase online and manage a close relationship with the brands they use.

With the D2C market becoming saturated, products and customer experiences must be exceptional to stand out and succeed. Especially for footwear, where it may seem impossible to win in an industry with corporate giants like Nike and Adidas.

Nevertheless, the U.S. shoe company Allbirds proved naysayers wrong with an eco-friendly and innovative D2C brand now valued at over $1 billion. We recently spoke to Joey Zwillinger, co-founder of Allbirds, to get some insight on what it takes to be one of the most innovative hypergrowth shoe brands and D2C sellers in the market.

Dylan Haviland: How did the company start?

Joey Zwillinger: Allbirds was founded out of a desire to make better things in a better way. My co-founder Tim was playing professional soccer in his native New Zealand, when he came up with the idea to make a simple, comfortable shoe out of wool. Our wives were college dormmates and remain great friends, and after years of Tim thinking about and working on this idea on his own, they suggested we chat.

I come from a renewable materials and engineering background, so together we were able to create a product that wasn’t just well designed and incredibly comfortable, it was actually kinder to the planet. Tim and I are co-CEOs, sharing the role traditionally reserved for a single person; Tim focuses mostly on product and our creative design, and I lead the operations, technology, and material R&D to continue our focus on our sustainable design with novel solutions to historically high-polluting supply chains.

What does it take to be an ‘innovative’ brand in 2019?

JZ: The courage to be bold, and to know that even a small company can make a very big impact on an industry as large as shoes ($80 billion+ in the U.S. alone). Product innovation takes time, so companies need to invest early and often—our sugarcane-based foam has been in development for three years! Needless to say, we have a lot of products and materials in the pipeline for the future, and we are incredibly excited about the experiences we plan to create for our customers.

What makes Allbirds an innovative brand in the D2C footwear industry?

JZ: We think of innovation in two ways. First is the way we interact with our customers, operating exclusively in a direct-to-consumer model with our entire business listening to feedback from consumers and improving our business as a result.

The second and most important aspect of innovation is related to our product. Especially in the footwear industry, innovation has historically meant adding new features, whereas at Allbirds, we try to distill products to their simplest form. This reductive design philosophy, coupled with novel (and sustainable) materials create a differentiated experience that our customers love.

Why do you think companies are increasingly moving toward a D2C model? 

JZ: We can’t speak for the whole industry, but at Allbirds, our customers recognize that instead of paying a retailer to sell our products for us, we put that money right into the quality of every pair of shoes—this means that for a very reasonable price, customers can enjoy the amazing, premium materials that we use to make our products. We also believe that the feedback loop between us and our customers is critical, and the improvements we make to our product as a result resonate with our customers. For example, we’ve made over 35 changes to our original Wool Runner since it initially launched in 2016, almost all based on the concerns and experiences of our customers.

How is Allbirds able to compete in the tough footwear market?

JZ: Tim and I started Allbirds to create a stylish alternative that didn’t have the flashy logos and uncomfortable synthetics of other shoe brands. The response to our products has been beyond anything we could’ve ever imagined, and it shows that there’s a real appetite for simple, comfortable, and sustainable footwear.

Customers are increasingly looking for brands that can relate to their values. How does your brand mission resonate with customers on a personal level?

JZ: As a B Corp, our dedication to sustainability is written into our company charter. Regardless of customer demand, we see environmental conservation as non-negotiable and we prioritize it in each part of our business.

And while consumers are paying more attention to the provenance of what they’re buying, sustainability doesn’t necessarily drive purchase decisions. First and foremost, our customers buy our shoes because they look and feel great. We’re proving that customers don’t have to sacrifice on price or design in order to buy green products.

What steps do you take to ensure that customers will continue to come back to you?

JZ: The best way to make sure that customers return to your brand is to make great products. Though we believe it is critical to have top-notch customer support and social media teams so customers know where to go when they have a question, there’s no replacement for good design and execution.

What are the biggest challenges you see in the D2C space?

JZ: We don’t think that a direct-to-consumer model alone is sufficient to create a lasting brand. This is a wonderful way to sell products given the advances of technology, but without incredible product, the selling approach is not enough. And inventing really great, differentiated products is hard. It’s this challenge that we work on tirelessly every day.

A Unique Way to Engage Your Employees

Business person raising foam finger form cubicle

Recently I did a workshop for employees at Southern AgCredit, a financial services organization with a novel method for ensuring that its employees work together in cohesive, highly productive teams.

Joe Hayman, Southern AgCredit’s CEO, contracted with me to create and conduct a workshop to help his employees “feel more like owners” at the company. Southern AgCredit does mostly real-estate lending for rural customers, including full- and part-time farmers, ranchers, and recreational enthusiasts.

As a co-op, Southern AgCredit prides itself on being 100 percent owned by customers, and every year the vast majority of its net profits are distributed directly back to customers in the form of an annual dividend. Operating as a co-op also gives the firm’s employees a cohesive sense of real purpose, because success is based not just on making loans and liquidity available to customers, but doing so in a cost-efficient and productive manner, so that every year the customer dividend would be impactful. 

As part of my initial briefing from Joe, he sent me the results of two recent customer surveys—one involving new borrowers, and one “exit survey” of customers who had paid off their loans during the period. Both surveys showed amazing results. In fact, the numbers were astounding—higher on satisfaction than I had ever witnessed in any organization. For example, of the 217 new borrowers surveyed, in a question on customer satisfaction that used an A to E scale, 214 of them rated their satisfaction as an A, two were a B, one was a C, and no one chose D or E.

In the end, I was able to put together one of the most advanced workshops I’ve ever done on the nuances of creating genuine customer advocates, and focusing on several value-adds that can cement and strengthen a relationship with supportive customers—such as purpose-oriented content (with different content for hunters and farmers) and social-capital-based programs to motivate customers to build the business more effectively through their own efforts.

Rethinking employee incentives

One of the most interesting things I learned had to do with the unique way in which Southern AgCredit encourages its own employees to operate in cohesive, highly cooperative and engaged teams. While most of the company’s annual profit is distributed back to customers in a dividend each year, a portion is distributed to employees as an incentive bonus based on performance.

Unlike most companies, each employee’s bonus isn’t based on individual performance, but on the performance of their team. The bonus pool is established by overall company performance, divided up based on the performance of the team at each office, and then divided among the employees on the team in equal percentages regardless of their title or level of compensation. If, for instance, 40 percent is available for branch “A”, then each employee within the branch would be eligible for a 40 percent incentive.

Every office team works extremely hard to ensure that their office is absolutely as cost-efficient and productive as possible. They’re also careful only to bring on new employees who will make genuine contributions. 

Moreover, because the individual employees on a team aren’t competing with each other for a share of the team’s bonus pool, Southern AgCredit’s employees help each other.

What’s more impressive, even though annual production goals are not established at the employee or branch level, Southern AgCredit has grown from $500 million to over $1.1 billion in total assets since the incentive plan was implemented ten years ago. And the annual dividend to the customers is the highest of its peer group! The success of this company shows that no matter how big or small, a commitment to employees will reap benefits for customers and the bottom line.

What’s the State of Digital Transformation?

Abstract businessman in VR environment. This is entirely 3D generated image.

If there’s one constant in an enterprise transformation strategy, it’s disruption. Even the strategies themselves rarely remain unchanged from ideation to completion as new priorities, processes, expectations, and goals come into play. 
Case in point: Today’s digital transformation strategies have greatly evolved over just a few years, observes Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter, a Prophet company, in a recent report, “The State of Digital Transformation.” More specifically, digital transformation is becoming an enterprisewide initiative; ownership is moving to the C-suite, and employee experience and organizational culture are rising in importance, among other trends. We caught up with Solis to discuss these developments and their impact on the customer experience. 

Proving ROI from digital transformation initiatives is still a top challenge, according to the report. But at the same time, companies are expanding the budgets for digital initiatives. Are leaders softening their ROI expectations or are they just kicking the can down the road? 

Brian Solis: The fact that CEOs are becoming more involved is a blessing in that digital transformation is getting the attention of the C-suite and the CEO understands that this [transformation] will affect the balance sheet. For example, not too long ago, the CEO of Unilever said something along the lines of, we want long-term investors because we’re trying to compete for the future. In other words, stakeholders have to accept costs. Transforming a business in some ways is like renovating a house—it just keeps going. It means that [ROI data] expectations have to change. 

At the same time, if you’re not going to deliver ROI results today, you at least need KPIs that show you’re on the right path. And so, we’re starting to see metrics get much more focused on business transformation and business opportunity. It’s not unlike what you’d see at startups as they’re growing. 

Speaking of investing in the future, the report also found that most transformation efforts are focused on modernizing customer touchpoints and infrastructure before focusing on the employee experience. Why is that? 

BS: In most cases, it’s easier to connect the dots between modernizing customer touchpoints and increasing efficiencies with immediate impacts to the bottom line. Which is why customer experience is at the top or close to the top of these initiatives. But our hypothesis is that employee experience is also going to have to become paramount because employees are consumers too and they have their own growing expectations. 

And unless the employee journey is modernized, companies will eventually fall apart due to the lack of employee engagement. In fact, we started to see last year—and definitely going into this year—a greater focus on employee experience. It’s still not at the point that it matches CX, but it is on the rise. 

Is the increased focus on employee experience mainly because of the labor shortage?

BS: No, I think it’s a lot of things. You have millennials, for instance. The idea that younger employees are different is overblown, but there’s some truth to the fact that they’re used to working with digital devices and it’s only going to continue with the centennials and so on.  

When employees are being asked to use dated applications and devices that literally conflict with how their brains are wired, it’s not an intuitive or productive experience. In fact, it’s counterproductive. Which is to say, companies have to consider whether their employees have what they need to be successful. 

There’s also AI and machine learning—technologies that demand new skill sets. Marketing, for example, is starting to have access to data it didn’t have before. When you bring in all these new datasets, you need the knowledge and the skills to ask different questions of the data, as well as translate and assign it to a journey. That introduces the need for people with the right skills and talent.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s widely regarded just how sweeping this transformation of recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining human talent will be. Companies are more focused on their immediate needs. 
What are you seeing in terms of how well companies are balancing their immediate needs with their long-term digital transformation plans? 

BS: The longer-term plan is usually a 10-year plan for digital transformation and by short-term, I mean five years. We’re seeing a lot of scrambling when it comes to balancing [those plans]. However, these shorter-term investments are teaching companies what’s needed for a longer-term investment and giving them the experience and expertise to prioritize. 

For example, going back to our discussion about the need for new and developing skills, most people who are leading their company’s digital transformation are not experienced in digital transformation per se—they’re learning what’s needed as they go. And that’s why CIOs and IT professionals continue to be involved, because they understand the technology aspect best. 

But as these plans mature, we start to see cross-functional plans start to take shape because they’re touching more and more areas while silos are crumbling. Different teams that have their own priorities are being forced to come together.

This is also why both short- and long-term initiatives are overlapping as people try to work together.

You noted that many digital transformation strategies don’t include an adequate understanding of the customer. What’s an example of thorough customer research?

BS: Last year and the year before we had seen that most companies were digitally transforming in the name of CX. Meaning they were using CX as the banner to drive most of these investments. But when we asked if they had been studying a digital customer as an indicator of how to make those investments, only 35 percent of those companies said yes. So, they were making investments without necessarily understanding or having access to the data that would guide it. 

This year, we started to see that change. More and more companies are investing in a much more sophisticated data infrastructure to at least have the insights to guide the transformation. That includes studying touchpoints, behaviors, and journeys. There’s also a move toward data as a service. A lot of this is becoming part of the marketing regime where AI/machine learning systems are being built that are tracking all kinds of things across the customer journey and the customer experience. 

And marketers are feeding those data points into systems that are allowing them to better understand how to segment customers, how to make improvements, or introduce new opportunities for engagement. 

The other thing I’m seeing is the companies that get really good at using data start to build an infrastructure around real-time analytics. They’re not just using data to study what already happened, but to also predict demand and the evolution of the customer. What you’re seeing is organizations that are augmenting real-time analytics with predictive analytics. 

What other developments are you expecting to see next as digital transformation continues to mature? 

BS: It goes back to what I mentioned before: With new technologies comes a demand for people to run and apply these technologies, which is why I think we’ll see employee experience become much more important over the years to come.

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