Is CSAT possible without ESAT?

Like CSAT, ESAT (employee satisfaction score) is a result that reflects happiness – but instead of measuring customers’ happiness against the service they receive, it measures employees’ happiness against their place of work. ESAT are generally collected via internal surveys and are closely linked with employee attitudes towards their workplace and engagement.

In customer service, CSAT is naturally the metric we measure, correlating with revenue, retention and growth. But since employees are your main driving factor behind CSAT, why is ESAT so overlooked? And does it carry more importance than we think?

ESAT And Its Impact on Productivity

ESAT is a major driving factor when it comes to productivity – in fact, businesses with highly engaged employees are 17% more productive than those with lower average engagement.

Why is this? When a company provides employees with the correct tools, training and work conditions required to fulfil their jobs, employee satisfaction rises. The knock-on effect of this means that employees are happy to be at work and get work done, resulting in less absenteeism, higher productivity and motivation, thus improving customer service.

On the other side of the coin, when ESAT is neglected and sufficient resources are not provided to employees, it shows. Not only is there a lack of job satisfaction, but productivity suffers and this impacts poorly on customers; less enquires are dealt with due to high absence rates and a general lack of effort means employees get through the day by doing the bare minimum.

It is therefore crucial for employers to provide employees with tools and opportunities that can facilitate their output, reflecting positively in ESAT and subsequently, productivity. When employees are satisfied they are inclined to get more done, and less inclined to take sick days – a study by Gallup revealed that highly engaged businesses experienced 41% less absenteeism. When more employees are engaged and present at work, productivity levels rise as more customers are successfully served.

ESAT And Its Relationship With CSAT

Companies that are looking to improve customer satisfaction, should focus internally at ESAT – a metric that strongly influences ESAT. However, the CSAT benefits can only be reaped when employees are fully engaged– and this can be achieved through the technology you equip them with.

When employees are disengaged, this reflects onto customers, creating a negative experience and is generally down to:

• Employees performing the same repetitive, mundane tasks day after day
• Employees’ lack of access to knowledge that leads to constant searching

When your employees are dealing with the same routine questions each day, work can become tedious for them. Employees like to be challenged, so when their day involves sending pre-loaded responses to the same calibre of enquires, their unhappiness is reflected negatively in CSAT.

To combat this, many businesses adopt customer service tools that using AI, are capable of automating routine queries, thus allowing employees to deal with more complex and pressing customer issues. By deploying such software to compliment your customer service team, ESAT is improved significantly as employees feel empowered, it also allows a greater volume of contact queries to be resolved – proving a win-win.

Customer experiences don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the result of employee activities. Businesses that understand the importance of employee engagement and manage it through a formal program to align to their customer experience goals, achieve far superior results”.

    2017 Aberdeen Research Report

Further, when employees cannot simply access the information they require to solve a query, they become disengaged having to seek permissions and search through internal libraries for answers. The knock-on effect of which is detrimental, ESAT suffers as employees take no pride, ownership or responsibility over work – and this affects CSAT.

Many companies are instead providing employees with tools that facilitate internal knowledge sharing and collaboration, making knowledge accessible and their jobs easier. As a result, agents spend significantly less time unnecessarily searching for information and are happier for it, subsequently providing customers with an improved service.

Measuring ESAT

ESAT can be measured internally and anonymously. The most commons methods include:

• Employee NPS score
• Employee surveys
• Employee satisfaction index

Once the data from your chosen method has been collected, your ESAT score is calculated.

Boosting ESAT In Your Workplace

ESAT plays a major role in boosting morale, productivity, achieving goals and subsequently, improving CSAT.

But how exactly can you boost ESAT?

• Provide employees with tools that simplify tasks. Whether its internal knowledge or agent scripting applications, equip your employees with the tools they need to fulfil their jobs for greater productivity.
• Introduce self-service tools into your offering. Choose software that can facilitate the automation of routine queries to give employees greater capacity and calibre of queries to deal with, promoting engagement.
• Ensure your knowledge is stored in a knowledge base. This gives employees quick and straightforward access to relevant information without roadblocks such as requesting permission.

Such customer service tools can make employees’ lives easier, automating processes for them, helping them learn and empowering them for better output and CSAT.

To Summarise

Employees can be your biggest asset when it comes to CSAT, but unfortunately their satisfaction is all too often overlooked. As a result, employees become disengaged, feel unempowered and don’t put effort into their work – all of this is reflected in the service that customers receive and negatively impacts CSAT.

To overcome this, listen to your employees' needs, equip them with useful tools that facilitate productivity, quality of work and knowledge sharing. Tools and communication are paramount for ESAT and are the best place to start.

If you enjoyed this blog post and would like to know more about customer service tools that can boost ESAT, visit us at synthetix.com.