There have been a number of professional and academic studies, in
multiple industries, linking employee attitudes and behaviors with the value customers perceive in their experiences. Through targeted research, and resultant training, communication, process, and reward and recognition programs, what we define as ambassadorship formalizes the direction in which employee engagement has been trending toward for years.
Simply, the trend is optimizing employee commitment to the organization and its goals, to the company’s unique value proposition, and to the customer. This is employee ambassadorship, a state beyond satisfaction and engagement where all employees are focused on, and tasked with, delivering customer value as part of their job description, irrespective of location, function or level. Just as satisfaction has only incidental proven connection to customer experience and behavior, engagement has similar challenges for employees (and customers). Many companies are still measuring customer satisfaction in hopes that learning about its drivers will help build customer loyalty, but satisfaction isn’t contemporary regarding decision making or reflective of what is going on in the customer’s real, emotional world. The same can be said of engagement, applied to both customer and employee behavior. “Employee engagement” has many meanings and interpretations, but relatively little of it has to do, by conceptual definition, specifically with impact on customer behavior and impact on the employee experience. Typically, there is little or no mention/inclusion of “customer” or “customer focus” elements in measurement or analysis, or in application such as training, of employee engagement. Though customer experience, and resultant behavior, is certainly impacted by engagement, it is more
tangential and inferential than purposeful in nature. There is growing general agreement that both developing employee ambassadors and customer advocates should receive high priority and emphasis if an enterprise is going to be successful. What building ambassadorship does mandate, however, is that having employees focus on the customer will definitely drive more positive experiences and stronger
loyalty behavior (for both stakeholder groups). That is what the content/ scope of Employee Ambassadorship will help provide.
Keywords
advocacy, ambassadorship, behavior, communication, culture, customer experience, emotions, employee experience, empowerment, human resources, leadership, metrics, relationships, stakeholder, trust