Retail industry: The Impact of Employees Happiness on Customers’ Experiences

Brick-and-mortar stores are still very much appreciated among consumers. And as the faces and voices of frontline organization brands, frontline employees’ satisfaction plays an integral role in driving excellent customer experiences.

Retail frontline employees hold a lot of underrated potential - and often feeling voiceless and unheard, they continue to be disengaged and unsatisfied in their work.

According to Deloitte’s 2022 retail industry outlook, frontline-retail employers have realized that employees’ priorities have shifted and that retaining talent goes beyond nominal salary perks.

To prove this, Deloitte’s report also indicated that 83% of retailers are investing in employee recruitment and retention processes, but the turnover rate is a staggering 60.5% in the retail and wholesale industry.

This data shows that although frontline employers have shifted their focus inward, there are still some failing elements that create the high-churn within the retail industry.

If you’d have to guess, what would those failing elements be?

• a) communication?
• b) engagement?
• c) satisfaction?

Ding-ding-ding. All of the above.

The constant churn isn’t only hurtful to a retailer’s brand – but also to employees’ job satisfaction and engagement that has a negative ripple effect on customer engagement and satisfaction.

You know the song - unhappy employees lead to poor service delivery which equals unsatisfied customers. And well, you know how the rest goes.  

Here we’ll explore the impact of poor communication on frontline employees and how ScreenCloud’s digital signage can help empower employees within the workplace.

Clear employee communication and direction

Internal communications stats have shown that 57% of employees don’t receive clear direction while 69% of managers are generally not comfortable communicating with employees.

Confirming the latter, is research from Harvard Business Review that shows another prominent reason for the churn of frontline employees is the dissatisfaction with their managers.

It seems like a simple solution, right? Optimistically setting up those weekly one-on-one “check-in” meetings to finally get the internal comms right. But only to find the meetings slowly fading out week-by-week because of feedback that can’t be provided to employees because the communication methods simply just aren’t sophisticated enough.  

Yet, frontline employees remain dependent on management to communicate direction and instructions – moreso than deskbound employees who could quickly ‘pop into’ their manager’s office to ask a quick question and get right back on track.  

This proves that communication filtered down from top-to-bottom is inefficient, leaving frontline employees unmotivated, disengaged and unsatisfied.

Communicating efficiently can ensure that employees execute their tasks correctly and avoid a ‘he-said-she-said’ situation.

While it’s quite clear that retail organizations must prioritize development of frontline managers’ leadership skills – by improving internal communications strategy with ScreenCloud’s digital signage solutions, they can also sustainably improve  employee-and-management relationships in the workplace.

Empowering employees with ScreenCloud’s powerful signage tools

Giving frontline employees a clear sense of what’s expected from them - coupled with the right training, mentoring and tools – won’t just boost  productivity; it’ll make them feel valued and empowered to go the extra mile and represent the organization’s brand in a positive way.  

Engaged employees have proven to bring in 21% more profit, than those who aren’t.

We’re just saying.

Enabling engagement in the workplace with ScreenCloud can help translate the organization’s objectives and expectations in clearer ways to help employees understand and execute their duties more effectively. Here’s how:

• Centralizing internal announcements 
• Live broadcasting training
• Tracking live KPI sales performances 
• Provide departmental feedback and statuses
• Displaying team members’ roles and duties for clear expectation management
• Presenting of items that require execution
• Engage and share experiences with out-of-reach colleagues
  

In summary

Frontline retail employees respond better to clear communication and directions from their frontline managers on their roles and expectations in pursuit to meet the organization’s objectives.

The lack of employee communication can easily become a symptom of much larger challenges for retailers if not managed correctly. ScreenCloud has assisted multiple organizations in improving their internal communications methods, while also elevating retailers’ customers’ shopping experiences - and they can help you too.

There’s a flipside: elevate your customers' experience with digital signage

ScreenCloud’s digital signage solutions extend from employee to customer. If you want to learn about elevating your customers’ experience with signage solutions, read ScreenCloud’s case studies on various and leading retail organizations such as Harley Davidson, Cars.com, Cos Bar and Lenovo.