One of my 6 Laws Of Customer Experience is that "Unengaged employees don't create engaged customers." It's that straightforward; customer experience is fully dependent on employee experience.
Engaged employees are huge assets for any company; with payback from better customer experience as well as from lower employee turnover. This relationship can be seen in a model that I call the "Employee Experience Virtuous Cycle."

According to research by Gallup, every one-tenth-of-a-point increase in employee engagement resulted in an increase of $100,000 in profits for each Best Buy store.
In a previous post The Customer Experience Evolution Of Contact Centers, I defined four core customer experience competencies. These represent the key elements that contact centers need to master in order to evolve with the times. So it's no surprise that one of those competencies is Employee Engagement.
One of the companies that is best known for its engaged employees is Southwest Airlines. If you've ever flown on Southwest, then you've probably noticed that everyone from the call center agents to the in-flight crew seem friendlier than other airlines.
But employee engagement doesn't happen by accident. It needs to be a very explicit part of the company's strategy. Here's a quote from the founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher:
"If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don't need control. They know what needs to be done and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need."
Building engaged employees takes a lot of communications. A key takeaway is that you need to communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more. Hilton's CEO, Chris Nassetta, captures this point very effectively:
"I want every team member involved in our enterprise, which is over half a million team members serving our guests, [to have] a common vision, mission, values and key strategic priorities so that [they all] understand why we exist… When you are communicating with that large group of people there are challenges. But if you are disciplined about it and if you really focus on multiple forms of communications and you are consistent about how you communicate, you can get that kind of alignment."
Some companies implement processes for institutionalizing communications across their companies. Ritz-Carlton, for instance, uses what it calls its "Lineup" before every shift where the company messages are delivered in an intimate setting and where teams share stories about great and poor customer feedback.
In addition to intense and ongoing communications, companies need to invest in their people. This is not just about pay scales and compensation. Successful contact centers need to provide the tools and training to make it easy for agents to interact with customers.
Engaging agents also means listening to them. Companies need to actively get feedback from employees about what's working and what's not working. But don't ask them for this feedback unless you're committed to do something about it.
There's a lot of good that comes from engaging your employees.
Bruce Temkin - Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner, Temkin Group and author of the popular blog, Customer Experience Matters
Note: Bruce Temkin has been retained by Jacada to participate in the Customer Service 2.0: Access The Experts speakers series. The opinions shared herein reflect the views of the author, and not necessarily Jacada or its employees.