CX Meets EX…The Era Of Experience Economy…
In 1998, authors Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, published their first article in Harvard Business Review, ‘Welcome to the Experience Economy’. They argued how the competitive battleground was shifting from the selling of products and services to the staging of experiences. They went on to state that this trend will render irrelevant for those who relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services.
Over the last decade, businesses evolved and progressed to compete in this experience economy. The digital native businesses have established new benchmarks of customer experience success. We study customer journeys, measure customer engagement rates and remove any points of friction that comes in the way of a great customer experience.
Emerging Experience Trend
Concurrently another major trend that is shaping and impacting every business is that of employee experience (EX). In the journey to digitally revolutionise organisations, empowering employees is critical for success as they become the custodians of innovation and change. Elevating employee experience enables organisations to gain a competitive edge, because empowered employees deliver superior customer experiences (CX). Gartner recently unravelled the term, ‘Total Experience’, how organisations can achieve profitable business outcomes through improved EX and CX.
Employees have come to expect consumer-like experiences at work. 70 per cent of millennials say they would quit a job due to poor technology experiences. Organisations that successfully create exceptional employee experiences have employees who are engaged and empowered to do their best work. These employees push themselves harder to overcome barriers, serve customers better and tend to stay longer with the organisation. This results in 4.3X increase in earnings per share, 17 per cent higher productivity, 21 per cent higher profitability and 81 per cent higher customer satisfaction. In other words, improving employee experience improves business.
Tools such as design thinking and journey mapping used for CX in the past, are now used to track efforts for EX. It gains further significance as employers must create and evaluate how the employee experience is integrated into the organisation's culture. Employees demand easy-to-use tools that provide fast access to information, as well as technology that allows them to be productive from anywhere. It requires companies to evaluate every tool and process, including travel and spend management, that affects your employees and designing them to provide an easier, more enjoyable work experience.
Experience Centric Structures
At SAP Concur, we are particularly passionate about EX journeys. Our experience with clients globally has taught us that investing in transforming employee journeys enable employees to free up capacity for strategic activities.
A digitally transformed employee journey helps the finance function to obtain the visibility and compliance they need to control costs, forecast cash flow, and uncover insights that aid the bottom line by collaborating with IT to make sure the tools their employees use to submit expenses, process invoices are simple to use. Employees feel empowered while the business can meet compliance requirements.
Building this experience-centric organisation is everyone’s responsibility. It takes commitment and collaboration from leaders across the company. The setting up of cross-functional teams that take ownership to review, reimagine and implement new frictionless and empowered journeys is an important step for success. Allow me to end with a quote by Simon Sinek: ‘Customers will never love a company, unless the employees do’.
