New research shows operators aren’t measuring customer and employee engagement

In the Customer Engagement Survey 2014 carried out by CGA Peach for customer experience specialist InMoment, a poll of nearly 100 senior executives from leading pub and restaurant chains found that just over 90% see guest feedback as a top five key performance indicator (KPI) – leaving 10% who only rate it as ‘moderately’ important and not a key focus.

Whilst 95% of those polled believe employee engagement is ‘very important’ in driving customer engagement, one in seven don’t actually track it and just 16% associate employee engagement against customer satisfaction – although 33% say they now intend to do so.

Brands surveyed ​

The survey was conducted with companies that included New Inventive Pub Company, Whitbread, Marstons, Geronimo Inns, Mitchells & Butlers, Draft House, Fuller’s, Davy’s Wine Bar and Peach Pubs.

Peter Martin, vice-president of industry research experts at CGA Peach, said: “With the customer experience so dependent on service and staff quality, not to mention employee morale, this appears to be a major gap in the market’s insight.

“There’s a need for more joined up thinking, especially when it comes to front-line teams.”

Key recommendations ​

The survey suggest that a more systematic approach to both staff and guest engagement is needed if firms are to pull out more meaningful insights to improve their operations – with five key recommendations being:

• Improve board-level buy in – lead from the top, deliver at the front
• Get HR, marketing and operations to talk to each other and share data – especially amalgamating customer and employee feedback
• Link employee recognition and reward to KPIs
• Introduce real-time feedback to frontline managers and teams
• Better understand the drivers of engagement

The survey showed that 71% of leaders saw employee recognition and reward based on customer KPI’s as a way of driving positive outcomes on the frontline, with two-thirds saying that involving their in-store teams in finding solutions will do the same.

However, only, six out of 10 share real time feedback with store or site managers while the most common method of measuring levels of staff engagement are by staff turnover and exit interviews, rather than by engaging while still on the workforce.

“This new piece of research demonstrates there are quick wins to be had for companies to improve their engagement with their two most important groups of people,” added Martin.