What motivates your employees?

While reading the most recent issue of Quirks Magazine, I came across the article of “Job satisfaction, focus on research steady.” It discussed job satisfaction within the research industry. According to the annual corporate researcher salary survey, job satisfaction data for the research industry is similar when compared to years 2013 and 2014. In 2015, data shows that 21 percent of respondents are very satisfied with their current job, 34 percent are satisfied, and 20 percent are somewhat satisfied. An improving economy and salary increases may have contributed to the high levels of satisfaction; however, it’s not the sole factor. The survey found that those who were very dissatisfied with their job also reported making the second-highest average salary of $131,000. As a side, one commentator offered a suggestion for all businessmen and businesswomen: “knowing what you are worth can be powerful leverage during raise negotiations.” Presenting survey data from research studies on compensation can help serve as an aid when discussing salary.

Employee satisfaction is a culmination of numerous factors. It can be affected by compensation, bonuses, non-monetary benefits, company culture, opportunities for advancement, etc. When asked what benefits accompany a positive company culture, one respondent in the research industry said “weekly on-site massage therapist, weekly on-site counselor, sick rooms, a gym….” Another respondent asked for intangible benefits, such as dogs at work and workplace flexibility. While all companies may not be able to physically or financially achieve those exact benefits, it’s important to listen and to respond to employees’ needs that are practical and feasible. When you feel like your voice is heard, you feel more valued, thus strengthening your commitment to the organization.

Now, let’s say you’re not in the research industry. How do you know if your employees are satisfied with their current job, as well as the company as a whole? What do you look for? What, not to mention how, do you ask? How do you know if they’ll provide you with honest feedback? By having a clear understanding of employee perceptions, it offers you opportunities for performance improvement and new business idea generation. An employee perception survey helps you identify what motivates and constrains your employees, as well as the overall health of your organization. It provides employees with an avenue to contribute detailed, unfiltered feedback to a third-party, giving your organization actionable data to help determine where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.

To uncover how your employees really feel and to learn how our employee perception survey can help you KNOW MORE so you can DO MORE, contact Tweed-Weber, Inc. at  toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

* For the full article, click here: www.quirks.com/CorporateResearchReport

What is a Net Promoter Score® (NPS)?

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS®, is based on the fundamental perspective that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.

By asking one simple question – How likely would you be to recommend XYZ Company to others as a good company to work with? – you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company’s performance through your customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale (10=extremely likely; 0=not at all likely) and are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts.
• Passives (Neutral) (score 7-8) are satisfied, but unenthusiastic.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers.

The NPS can be as low as −100 (everybody is a Detractor) or as high as 100 (everybody is a Promoter). A NPS that is positive (e.g. higher than zero) is felt to be good, and a NPS of 50 is considered excellent. To calculate the NPS, you subtract the percentage of customers who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters.  

If you would like to find out about your customer NPS, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

How Satisfied Are Your Customers?

We have in our “interesting read file” a great article highlighting five important things you need to know about customer surveys. The article was written by Julia L. Rogers of The Huffington Post. She wrote it so well that we wanted to share the main gist of it with all of you. Julie hit it right on the mark, so we figured we wouldn’t reinvent the wheel. Here’s a bit of what she had to say....

Surveying your customers regularly and in a variety of ways is a critical part of running a successful business, regardless of your industry, product or service. Surveys measure satisfaction -- or dissatisfaction -- with your offerings, determine critical needs and offer an opportunity to effectively communicate and build truly personal relationships with your customers. And when you take both praise and criticism to heart in order to fulfill the true needs of these customers, you build invaluable loyalty that can create buzz around your business and bring in enthusiastic, highly qualified referrals.

Still, many business owners don't use regular surveys as an opportunity to reach out to their customers and really get to know them. For some reason, they fail to realize that satisfied customers are the key to staying in business for the long haul.

What's the best way to get started? Here are five things you need to know.

1. Focus on the narrative, not the number.
The most valuable part of any customer survey is the narrative. Make sure to include open-ended questions in any survey you launch that allow the customer to give you specific, actionable feedback.

2. Don't stack the deck.
Objective feedback from your customers and clients is more useful than good feedback. Therefore, you should make sure the structure of your survey, as well as the distribution method, promotes the flow of truly candid customer opinions. The point of surveying is to get honest reactions.

3. Choose survey methods that garner real information in real time.
Getting real information from real customers in real time is the best way for small-business owners to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their businesses, especially as their businesses grow. Many other types of self-serve and full-service survey solutions can be integral to helping businesses quickly build their email lists and businesses that meet their customers' needs well.

4. Close the loop by reaching out and following up.
The most enlightening customer feedback often comes from just picking up the phone and having direct contact with customers. Your survey feedback is worthless if you don't take action on it. You need to put plans in place to resolve issues revealed by surveys. Also, the mere act of surveying a customer can increase satisfaction.

5. Marinate in the survey feedback.
As someone trying to build a solid business, you need to immerse yourself in customer feedback. Don't stick survey results in a binder and forget about them without analysis. Share the results -- including verbatim customer comments -- and what these results have taught you with your entire staff. Take time to thoughtfully review survey responses and consider their implications.

The five points Julie Rogers outlined in her article are definitely worth thinking about relative to customer surveys and feedback. If you would like to know the level of satisfaction among your customer base, give us a call. We specialize in customer satisfaction surveys. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Answers to Your Burning Questions...

When doing online customer and/or employee surveys, our clients often ask, “How much time should we give for people to take the survey?” Our standard answer is two weeks, unless there is an unusual circumstance that requires a longer time frame.

When the survey first launches, you will get about 80 percent of your respondents completing the survey in the first week, and most of those folks will take it within the first few days. The second week is basically to send out reminders about the survey. There will be an instant flurry of responses the second week from people who intended on taking it, but just didn’t get around to it the first week. Keeping the survey open for more than two weeks will only extend the time period of the survey activity; it will not garner a notable batch of additional responses. In a nutshell, if someone wants to participate, they will do so within two weeks. After that, they lose interest.

Just a quick hit Q&A in case you were wondering!  

If you would like to know how effective your current online customer and/or survey process is, or if you’d like to be proactive in starting a new survey initiative, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Is your organizational culture a good one?

Organizational culture is the unwritten and often unspoken assumptions on which all organizational decisions are made and action is taken. It is the result of demonstrated behavior over a period of time. In other words, it is behavior that has become organizational habit over the years. Organizations pursuing a true quality culture are finding that developing the long-term behavior consistent with that pursuit is more difficult than realized.

Management behaviors consistent with a quality culture include coaching, guiding, and facilitating an empowered work force toward organizational goals and objectives. In more traditionally managed organizations, management behavior involves goal attainment through the direction of others. Problem solving is largely seen as a management responsibility. The challenge many managers face today is demonstrating quality behavior in "moments of truth." Moments of truth are those daily situations that require immediate attention. Often times, our routine behavioral tendencies guide us to actions that can only be defined as disempowering. However, it is in these situations where we have the best opportunity to demonstrate our organization's respect for the ability of our employees to add value, and to have an empowered workforce.

Below are some things to remember when you are faced with moments of truth.

•Think before you act. "How can I involve and empower my people in this situation?"

•Seek first to understand; get all of the facts straight before moving forward.

•Your employees are watching your behavior; set a good example that is consistent with the message you want to send.

•You are not expected to have all the answers; respect the idea of teamwork in problem solving.

•Think of how you would like to be treated by your manager. Most times, this will hold true for how you manage your people.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a tried and true method for obtaining employee feedback that can help you strengthen your organizational culture.

Employee Surveys = Involvement and Empowerment

Ongoing customer satisfaction is a result of a focused and well-managed process for continuous improvement. Design your products and services to meet or exceed customer expectations, and you'll enhance your ability to grow your market share. Design the processes that provide those products and services to be performed in the most effective, efficient, reliable, and consistent manner possible, and you’ll enhance your ability to meet your organizational strategies. Proactively involve and empower your people in the previously mentioned steps, and you have the elements for gaining and sustaining long-term competitive advantage.

Even in organizations where there is a demonstrated understanding of this logic, many efforts to succeed in implementing strategies to achieve a more empowered workforce fail. Many times, this failure can be attributed to a lack of understanding regarding the nature of empowerment and the four basic elements required for successful implementation.

Involvement and Empowerment

One of the foundational principles of continuous improvement is “respect for employees demonstrated by employee involvement and empowerment.” The goal of this principle is respect. It involves genuine respect and the understanding that employees have the ability, based on their knowledge and experience, to add value to the organization’s success. While most organizational leaders intellectually and emotionally buy-in to this principle, the positive results of involvement and empowerment are sometimes elusive. To help understand why this occurs, let’s look at how the words “involvement” and “empowerment” are defined and used in a business environment.

Involvement is the ongoing process of informing employees and gathering input from them. This process results in a workforce that continuously thinks of ways to improve performance and acts in a manner consistent with that thinking. Involvement takes the form of information-sharing and can be accomplished in a number of ways. It can be achieved in state-of-the-company meetings, informal group sessions, one-on-one discussions, the Intranet, etc. Whatever the method, the objective must be to provide employees with an ongoing understanding of what is happening within the organization (and why), and how their actions impact the success of the organization.

Empowerment is the ongoing process of providing anyone in an organization with the ability to address anything that stands in the way of doing the right thing at any given time. It means that an employee is given the ability to solve a problem or improve a condition. It means that, at no time, does an employee feel ‘trapped’ in a situation. If something is standing in the way of a quality result, the employee can contribute to correcting that situation. Successful empowerment can be achieved by addressing four basic elements or “tools.”

Four Basic Elements of Empowerment

Belief
Employees need to genuinely believe the company’s leadership sincerely intends for them to be empowered. An employee also needs to believe that he or she has the capability of performing in an empowered manner. Rarely will an organization experience successful empowerment if employees do not believe management is supportive of their individual ability to solve a problem or improve a condition.

Information
Employees need to have information regarding the results of their actions, as well as information relative to the processes they are performing. In order to determine the need to solve a problem or improve a condition, employees need to receive feedback on these measures. If employees are unaware of the conditions that surround them, the chances of developing empowered actions are minimal at best.

Skills
Employees need the skills necessary to act in an empowered manner. These skills fall into two areas; technical skills and interpersonal skills. Technical skills involve those skills specific to an employee’s job. Acting in an empowered manner requires that an employee be trained and consistently updated on the technical skills needed to perform in their area of responsibility. Interpersonal skills involve the skills required for an employee to effectively work with others when acting in an empowered manner. These skills include effective communication and respect for themselves and others, as well as understanding personal styles and how they affect individual and team performance.

Opportunity
This element involves providing employees with the time, tools, and resources necessary to act in an empowered manner. Expecting empowered actions while neglecting the required time, tools, and resources will result in employee frustration. Additionally, it is extremely important to provide employees with the process and guidelines for being empowered. Employees need to understand the steps they can take to solve a problem or improve a condition. Without clearly defined guidelines and processes, many well-intentioned empowerment initiatives bring unsatisfactory and, in some cases, disastrous results.

How involved and empowered do employees in your organization feel? 

There is one way to find out – ask them. Conduct an Employee Perception Survey. Putting in place an effective employee feedback program is the responsibility of strong and confident leaders. In order to develop an involved and empowered workforce, an organization’s leadership team must provide the necessary coaching, guidance, and facilitation to foster its development. Identifying the areas employees feel are in need of special attention and focus will help direct those development efforts.

If you are trying to ensure a culture of employee involvement and empowerment, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can provide you with a proven method for obtaining employee feedback that can serve as the foundation for the elements of genuine employee engagement.

Are you providing unrivaled customer service?

Because the business climate in virtually all industries has become increasingly competitive, and the marketplace continues to change, it is even more important for all employees of an organization to demonstrate responsiveness and respect toward their customers. This means developing a whole new orientation toward customer service.

Business in general is becoming much more customer-focused in this new era of ubiquitous technology that allows for instant personal contact. Companies are recognizing that the degree to which they meet or exceed their customers' expectations will dictate their relative success in the marketplace. In order to be customer-oriented, it is important that your people understand these expectations and perform accordingly. It is also important that your people develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable and empower them to demonstrate customer responsiveness and respect.

Two Points of Focus

Unrivaled Customer Service begins with two points of focus, customer expectations and organizational outcomes. Customer expectations fall into two areas: needs and wants. When a customer's problem is solved, his or her needs are met. When a customer is made to feel good, his or her wants are satisfied. Providing unrivaled customer service means that your people understand both your customers' needs AND wants.

The first step in identifying what customers want and need is to ask them. Conducting a Customer Perception Survey to identify exactly how your customers view you is essential to understanding how to satisfy them in the future. Annual customer surveys are a best practice among the top organizations that taut unrivaled service.

Organizational outcomes fall into three areas: quality in fact, process outcomes, and final results. If your organization is not getting the outcomes it needs to survive and succeed, then you risk being marginalized in the market, or worse yet, going out of business. It is critical that you are able to balance customer expectations with organizational outcomes.

The Internal Customer/Supplier Chain

Experience shows that most external customer disappointments are created by internal process problems. Often, people within the organization are not working together to serve the customer. An effective way to deal with this is to clarify the internal customer/supplier chain. Every employee in your organization has other employees who are their internal customers. Everyone also has internal suppliers, people they depend on for support to do their jobs.

Organizations with a focus on unrivaled service work hard to clarify this internal customer/supplier chain. Every person needs to know precisely who his or her internal customers are, and what they need and want. Imagine everyone in your organization focusing on their internal customer, and working together to serve your external customers.

Knowing what your customers need and want and delivering it are two different things. The critical ingredients in are people and processes. First, your people must have the knowledge and skills to serve your customers effectively. Second, your internal processes must be designed for unrivaled service.

If you are trying to differentiate your organization through unrivaled service, we can help. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber). Tweed-Weber can help you identify what your customers need and want, not only today, but in the future, so that you can be the consistent market leader.