MarketTools Blog

What did you get for Employee Appreciation Day on March 4th? Flowers, candy, praise…a raise?

What? You didn’t know about Employee Appreciation Day? I don’t think most people did, and if you’re like many of the people we surveyed last month, you’re not feeling very appreciated. Nearly 50 percent of employees surveyed have considered leaving their current jobs, and 21 percent have applied for another job in the past six months.  According to the study, salary was by far the leading cause of employee dissatisfaction, cited by 47 percent of the study participants. Other leading causes of dissatisfaction cited include workload (24 percent), lack of opportunities for advancement (21 percent), and the employee’s manager or supervisor (21 percent).

Today we expanded on our recent MarketTools ACE Award announcement by announcing the winners in a brand new category of awards:  the MarketTools ACE Awards for Best Use of EFM (enterprise feedback management) within specific use cases. This is an important step in acknowledging organizations that are the best of the best in making EFM programs strategic and actionable, and we’re excited to have such a wide range of companies and industries leading the pack.

Congratulations to the following winners:

Earlier this week, MarketTools announced the winners of our annual ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Awards. Thirty six companies won a MarketTools ACE Award, some of whom will also take awards for best use of EFM (enterprise feedback management) for specific use cases (stay tuned for that announcement, coming soon).

So what does it take to win an award for excellence in customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and partner satisfaction? While the factors vary depending on the companies that apply, there are some key commonalities I see in our winners:

This is the fourth in a four-part series of posts about best practices for setting up an effective employee feedback program.
•    View Part 1: Setting the Stage for Your Employee Feedback Program
•    View Part 2: Employee Feedback Survey Design: Asking the Right Questions
•    View Part 3:  Analyze and Act on Survey Results

Last month we started our series on best practices for employee feedback programs – beginning a discussion just in time for the holiday season about giving employees the gift of an open, anonymous place to provide feedback and input.

Unfortunately, many internal feedback programs are not given the same priority as external feedback programs (such as customer surveys or partner surveys), often resulting in lack of interest and low employee participation – which means more difficulty in getting the data that you need.  Getting the help and support of enterprise feedback management (EFM) experts with experience in employee surveys can help you ramp up your employee feedback program quickly and make it a success.

Here are some questions to help you determine when it’s time to seek outside help to run your employee satisfaction program:

This is the third in a series of posts about best practices for setting up an effective employee feedback program.
•    View Part 1: Setting the Stage for Your Employee Feedback Program
•    View Part 2: Employee Feedback Survey Design: Asking the Right Questions

In my last two blog posts, I outlined the steps required to set up an employee feedback program, including organizational requirements and survey design. Today we’ll get into the fun part – analyzing employee satisfaction survey results and taking action!

Analyzing Employee Survey Results:  Turn Data into Wisdom –and Avoid “Analysis Paralysis”
One of the biggest challenges with running a comprehensive employee feedback survey program is that the rich amount of data delivered can be overwhelming. You may feel compelled to pay equal attention to all data collected, and it might seem impossible to get to the essential truths. The analytic tools in an enterprise feedback management solution (like MarketTools CustomerSat) can help determine the short list of improvement areas that will have the most impact on increasing employee satisfaction.

This is the second in a series of posts about setting up an effective employee feedback program.  You can view Part 1 in the series by clicking here. 

When it comes to designing employee feedback surveys, there’s clearly a right way and wrong way to ask questions. In my last post I talked about the initial steps in setting up an effective Employee Feedback Program. This time, we’ll get into the details of how to ask the right questions to ensure effective analysis.

Addressing the Right Topics:  Determine Content Areas
An overall employee satisfaction survey should cover all relevant topic areas associated with the employee experience.  These typically include at least the following:

Not sure what to give your employees this year? Here’s a gift that keeps on giving: providing a confidential forum for employee feedback. I know, it’s not exactly the jelly of the month club, but its effects will last longer and certainly leave a better taste in their mouth.

Giving employees the opportunity to provide feedback through confidential surveys increases employee engagement and can make an immediate impact on morale – even before results are analyzed and action plans are put in place. Just letting them know you care enough to listen goes a long way in showing your appreciation. And as fans of the service-profit chain will note, employee loyalty is a key element in fostering customer loyalty .

The process for designing an effective employee feedback program is similar to that of your customer feedback program, but with some key differences in focus. Over the next few weeks we’ll provide best practices for conducting a successful employee feedback program, covering the following topics:

Last week I was fortunate to attend the 5th Annual Customer Experience Management and Retention Conference in San Francisco, where MarketTools was a platinum sponsor. It was an excellent opportunity to hear about what matters most in the customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty space, directly from executives from Fortune 500 companies.  With attendees from around the globe representing nearly every major industry, we covered topics ranging from social media’s impact on customer feedback to the relevance of NPS.