Simple, but effective ways to make your customers and employees feel safe.
Serial entrepreneur Richard Branson is a man of great success. He owes his success to his employees. The Virgin Group takes such good care of its employees that it is counted as one among the best employers in the world.
Richard Branson says, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
Isn’t that so true?
Employees are the backbone of any company in the industry. Their well-being is directly proportional to the amount of success that a business can achieve in its given domain.
In fact, Kevin Kruse in this Forbes post feels “Employee Engagement to be Wonder Drug For Customer Satisfaction”.
He even puts up a neat flow chart that shows how taking good care of your employees leads to more growth and profit.
Image Credit: Forbes.com
Customer Satisfaction Is A Mirror Image Of Employee Satisfaction
Employee satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction have a cause-and-effect relationship. Employees who feel safe, secure and well-appreciated in their workplaces help take the organization to its next level.
In this article, we discuss how employees can be made to feel satisfied and how it can result in better customer service.
By ensuring the security and safety of your employees your organization as ample chances of beating the competition and becoming a brand known for customer service.
In any workplace, safety takes two dimensions: Virtual & Physical.
Virtual Safety
- Online identity management
- Data security
- Online Transactions
Physical Safety
- Health benefits
- Ergonomic work facilities
- Appreciation for good work
We will discuss each of these facts in detail.
Ways To Ensure Virtual Safety:
Today’s employees live a big share of their life on digital systems that run on codes and the Internet. Considering the pace at which cyber attacks are growing, it is necessary for employers to take precautions to keep the virtual life safe and keep customers happy.
Here are some ways to ensure virtual safety.
Online Identity Management
The first step to ensuring employee safety begins with securing their systems and online identity. According to USA Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), at least 17.6 Million residents experienced some kind of identity theft. Identify theft can lead to serious criminal offenses, financial losses and personal scandals which can damage an employee’s reputation and morale.
Organizations can protect their employee’s online identity by equipping system protocols that prevent cloning and copying of confidential personal information. Confidential customer data like name, login credentials, location, credit card numbers, etc. should be encrypted or stored in offline servers to prevent any loss due to hacking or physical threats. Use of strong passwords and two-factor authentication for logging in and transacting online money transactions is a good start.
Data Security
The following techniques help to ensure data security in an organization:
- Data backup: As simple as it can be explained. Periodical backups help prevent total data blackouts in case of a cyber attack.
- Self-destruct mechanism: In-built security feature that destroys the data or the access system when a security protocol is breached.
- Data Masking: Replacing real data with fake or structured data to deceive hackers from coming after genuine data sources.
- Data wipe: Data wipe is a foolproof way to ensure that no data can be restored from discarded systems like mobile phones, laptops, hard drives, etc.
All these techniques help in making the employees and customers feel that their private information remains private and safe from any kind of unauthorized access.
Online Transactions
An average online user transacts at least five to six online transactions a day. This includes sending emails, submitting login credentials, online payments and so on. You can be an online merchant or even a business corporation, securing online transactions forms the crux of making employees and customers feel safe.
To inspire confidence in them, it is necessary to use some security mechanisms like SSL certificates from ClickSSL that provides a secure channel in an encryption form for the flow of data between the user’s browser and the server system. It also helps the user (it could be an employee or the customer) to verify if they are dealing with the real website that they intend to transact with or a fake website which looks like the original.
Ways To Ensure Physical Safety:
Health Benefits
Healthy workers contribute to organizational productivity and customer’s happiness. It reduces absenteeism and helps day-to-day business affairs to move on smoothly. Healthy benefits like a medical checkup, insurance, maternity leave, medical bill reimbursement, etc. help to make employees safe and taken good care of. In fact, most national governments have passed exclusive Bills and laws to ensure that health benefits to employees.
Ergonomic Work Facilities
Workplace ergonomics play a key role in improving and maintaining employee morale. Moreover, ergonomic working facilities like comfortable chairs, spacious desks, proper ventilation help in reducing fatigue that kicks in form of working for long hours at a stretch. Good working facilities also make employees feel more attached and loyal that directly impact customer’s experience. It is the same reason why companies like Google, Facebook, etc. have least attrition rates and rank higher in employee security.
Appreciation For Good Work
Recapping the Richard Branson quote we mentioned early in this post, taking care of employees is the best way to take care of your customers. Small compliments for good work rendered, recognition for achievements, etc. go a long way in making employees secure and attached to their employers. There are bosses who take their entire teams to paid vacations and such exotic locations to show how much they care for their employees. Appreciation for good work appeals to employees and makes them stick to the company even when it is going through market depression.
Summing It Up
Within the office or at the shop aisle or at the online payment checkout page, employees and customers need to feel safe. Even the slightest hint of fear can hamper their productivity and decision-making ability. Customers who are worried about their offline and online security can affect business growth detrimentally.
By taking care of their physical and virtual safety, the business can only gain. The expenditure incurred to ensure their safety is an investment rather an irrecoverable expense.
Do you know of any more ways to make customers and employees feel safe? Feel free to let us know.
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