The digital experiences of your frontline employees may be painfully (and strategically) bad
Frontline staff may be working in call centres, in branches or out in the field. In all cases, they’re the ones delivering the customer services that are central to the organisation’s purpose and strategy. Yet the results from the recent global DEX survey show that there is something seriously wrong with the digital experiences that they’ve been given.
What do the figures say?
The 2021 Step Two DEX survey received 117 responses, representing in excess of 300,000 employees across more than a dozen countries. The survey examined the state of digital employee experience (DEX) from a strategic perspective, as well as looking at the lived experiences of key employee groups.
The survey delved into five cohorts:
- leaders and managers
- office workers
- frontline/first-line workers
- field/mobile/out-of-office workers
- knowledge workers
While there were considerable differences across all five groups, the results for frontline and first-line workers were particularly striking. While 45% of respondents indicated office workers had good or very good digital experiences, only 17% could say the same for frontline roles. Equally troubling was the finding that 51% said their experiences were poor or very poor.
While 41% of respondents said that the digital experiences for frontline employees was greatly or somewhat improved as a result of the pandemic, this was the lowest score across all five cohorts. Only 32% say that they expect digital employee experiences to greatly improve for frontline roles throughout the remainder of 2021.
So in short, frontline and first-line employees are suffering from very poor digital employee experiences, and this is not expected to change in a hurry.
If the same survey was conducted in your organisation, would it show the same pain points?
How has this has happened?
Based on our 20+ years of consulting, and conducting research with a wide range of job roles, we’ve long flagged issues with the DEX of frontline roles. This work has consistently uncovered key pain points for most customer-facing roles. The latest survey results show that these issues are widespread, across many countries and types of businesses.
Our professional services work provides qualitative insights to complement the figures released as part of this year’s survey. Our in-depth research shows that digital employee experience problems for frontline and first-line staff relate to four main areas:
- Issues with knowledge solutions provided to customer-facing employees. Too often, frontline employees have to struggle with inadequate information repositories that are hard to use, making it difficult for them to consistently provide good advice or services.
- Complex line-of-business applications, some of which date back decades. Over time, these systems have often grown into very large and very complex beasts which impose productivity hits and increase initial training time for new starters.
- Poor access to and adoption of modern digital workplace tools. While office-based employees typically have new tools at their disposal, such as Microsoft 365 or Workplace by Facebook, these often have not been rolled out to frontline roles. This is despite a clear need for local collaboration and knowledge sharing to support outstanding customer service.
- Issues with physical devices, particularly for out-of-office employees. First-line and frontline workers may work in the field, on customer sites, or in other non-office environments. To do so effectively they need modern devices that are configured appropriately for day-to-day needs.
What work is required?
It is widely recognised that you can’t deliver a better customer experience than your employee experience. Many measures of customer satisfaction can be mapped back to the work of frontline and first-line employees. (As anyone who’s rung their bank three times and received three different answers can attest.)
The starting point is to conduct meaningful employee research, using a mix of techniques. This could include a survey that’s targeted to frontline and first-line roles, drawing on the methodology and questions that underpin Step Two’s DEX survey.
Deep-dive field research — drawing on human-centred design and design thinking methodologies — can then put shape around current needs and issues.
This information can then inform a business case for change, showing where action is required, and what business benefits will be delivered.
Above all of this, there is a need for the senior leadership team to put a highly visible priority on meeting frontline needs, as part of broader organisational strategy. This will unlock the ability to move faster and further, as well as maximising the bottom-line outcomes for the business.
(As a consulting firm, Step Two has extensive experience in mapping needs and developing strategies, so reach out if this would be valuable for you.)
Fundamentally, this year’s DEX survey has clearly shown the poor state of digital employee experiences for frontline employees. Let’s aim to get a better result next year!
