When Research Partakes in Job Satisfaction
Lessons from Tokopedia Care on how to improve their Customer-First Squad (CFS) job satisfaction and how it affects customer service activities.
Customer satisfaction is one of the aspects that Tokopedia Care always maintains, as an embodiment of our DNA Focus on Customer. To do so, our Customer-First Squad (CFS), a dedicated term for our customer care representative, needs to consistently perform well in their prime condition to give the best service experience to our users.
How exactly are we doing this, you may ask? The answer is Tokopedia Care always strives to create an environment that is able to provide CFS job satisfaction on an ongoing basis, so they can find their purpose in working at Tokopedia Care.
Importance of Job Satisfaction
There are tens of thousands of customer interactions served by our CFS every day. As the frontline team, CFS is all responsible to manage the vital part of customer experience; gaining customer satisfaction. In order to achieve this, they need to ensure that they bring an excellent service quality for every single handling process. This was definitely not an easy task, even for the CFS themselves. With that being said, it should be put into attention that all of those activities could be mentally and physically draining for CFS.
Avoiding further slippage requires a tight seal. One way to do so is by defining one’s motivation to perform their job or any given task in particular. Referring to Snell and Morris (2017), motivation was included as one of the three factors that affect an employee’s performance, alongside ability and environment. By defining the motivations of the employees, leaders or organizations would be able to make the right decision to keep the job satisfaction level high.
One of the earliest definitions for job satisfaction was coined by Locke (1969), who defines job satisfaction as the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of one’s job values. Later, Spector (1997) brings a more clear definition of the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs.
Referring to Prossack’s article at Forbes, there’s a direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, which she later defined as ‘happy employees = happy customers.’ She emphasized how the interactions made by employees will determine the tone for a positive or negative customer experience. In addition, from the research by Liao (2007) in the Journal of Applied Psychology, it is proven that customer service performance will have a positive effect on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions.
From the above facts, it finally comes into a full circle: A higher level of employee satisfaction will produce a higher level of performance, and later impact positively on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions. And the next question is: So, how exactly does Tokopedia Care do it?
Identifying Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction
Academics and industry practitioners have gone through numerous in-depth researches to search for variables affecting job satisfaction. One of the commonly used theories is Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, popularized by American Psychologist Frederick Herzberg. According to Herzberg (1968), there are two types of independent factors that affect an individual at work, namely Motivation and Hygiene factors.
Source: Adapted from Herzberg (1968)
Motivation factors include achievement, recognition, responsibility, promotion opportunity, personal growth, and the intrinsic conditions of the work itself. On the contrary, factors that influence job dissatisfaction are called hygiene factors. Hygiene factors include quality of supervision, rate of pay, job security, company policies, relationship with leaders and peers, fringe benefit, and vacation. It should be noted that Hygiene does not increase Motivation or provide a higher level of satisfaction. Instead, it will affect dissatisfaction if it is not provided.
Quality of supervision can be one of the examples of Hygiene factors. When an employee has done their job without any clear supervision, this would create ambiguity in the work they do. Usually, employees with a growth mindset tend to request a quality routing feedback session with their supervisor in order to fix and improve their performance.
Hereby, the absence of quality supervision will lead to dissatisfaction for some employees while they are still working as they would each day. However, in extreme conditions, companies could lose their well-performing employees if their basic necessities are not fulfilled. On the contrary, when companies implement good supervision, it would prevent the rise of dissatisfaction.
Leveraging Job Satisfaction from Continuous Research
To measure the Job Satisfaction level among our CFS and understand what factors that may influence it, Tokopedia Care conducts a quarterly survey, namely CFS Motivation Survey.
Step 1: Quantitative Research
In general, the CFS Motivation Survey can be divided into two main phases. The first phase is quantitative research. At this point, an online survey was distributed to all active CFS. They are requested to evaluate the statement provided by using a semantic rating scale format. Every statement provided is derived from the recited state of the art that explains the nature of Motivation and Hygiene factors, respectively, with the addition of several statements to match with Tokopedia Care’s needs. At the end of the section, an open-ended column is included to let CFS give their suggestions to make an ideal workplace for them.
Conducting the quantitative survey will let researchers know the issue that occurs at a superficial level. Thus, the determination of the number of respondents needed became important. One of the easiest ways is using the sample calculator or using the whole population for very small population size.
Source: Tokopedia Care Data
Step 2: Qualitative Research
In order to gain deeper understanding, qualitative research is also needed to complement the previous quantitative research. In a regular setting, we held a series of in-depth interviews conducted with randomly selected CFS who already stated their agreement to be interviewed. The process requires the researchers to explore the problems deeply. Researchers also need to create a relaxed environment to avoid tension during the interview process. The qualitative research findings will later confirm and strengthen the findings from the previous phase, putting the numbers into perspectives. Despite the process is focused to draw insights, researchers should always maintain the confidentiality of the result or answers. By doing so, respondents will feel safer and set a good environment for CFS to share their thoughts.
The research team would often mix and combine the research methods. The first example is using Time Study to understand the timing of CFS’ performance and using it as a basis for setting a standard time for handling customer’s inquiries. Researchers would be able to gather some interesting facts from the floor, such as unique behavior during handling, CFS’ productivity, and things that may impede them.
Another example is using direct observation, where the researchers directly observed CFS’ usage behavior in using the Knowledge Management to search for information and help them in replying to the complaint tickets addressed by users. From there, journey mapping was constructed to undermine the pain points from each of the journeys.
Step 3: Compiling and Processing the Results
After the insights have been gathered and refined, all of Tokopedia Care’s stakeholders will be involved in the presentation of the results. The most important aspect of this activity was the discussion between parties in determining actions for solving the problems faced on the floor that may impede CFS’ satisfaction.
In addition to the CFS Motivation Survey, measurement of eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) is also conducted. eNPS measures the extent to which CFS is willing to recommend working at Tokopedia Care to their relatives. This metric will act as the connecting line as it also explains the level of satisfaction of our CFS in working at Tokopedia Care.
Source: Tokopedia Care
The Results: A Positive Trend!
The CFS Motivation Survey has successfully demonstrated one of Tokopedia Care’s successes in increasing and maintaining CFS job satisfaction. The results showed a positive trend over time, both for the Motivation factor and Hygiene factor, as illustrated by the following chart:
Source: Tokopedia Care Data
The success of this achievement cannot be separated from the collaboration of every stakeholder involved. Starting from the refreshing candor of the CFS that helps to elaborate and identify problems, the erudition of the researchers to gain insights, and the active participation of respective stakeholders that sets agreed action plans to solve the issue.
One of the best examples of this closed-loop feedback can be seen from the initiatives taken as a way to answer the challenges every organization has been facing in the early 2020s. With the overhauling of the COVID-19 pandemic, it forces all employees to stay at home, making everyone interact less and less. This separation as a part of the so-called ‘new normal’ brings other imminent pressures that can lead to mental wellness.
Source: Tokopedia Care Data
To help in maintaining employee’s wellness, the Service Culture team found a way to make CFS stay engaged and connected, even though miles of distance separates, with their exciting virtual engagement program. Some of the programs include various monthly competitions (thematic virtual lunch, mobile game, cosplay, quiz), Tanya FM (greetings program), Uncommon CEx Day (monthly sharing session program), and many more.
At the site level, the Service Culture team also has their troops, called Nakawan, who will help to create engagement activity based on CFS specific interest via their social media and virtual meeting. As presented above, the result could be drawn by the increasing level of Job Satisfaction from the CFS.
Conclusion
The CFS Motivation Survey is adopted to identify the motivation of employees in your organization. This implementation can be done by defining factors that may affect both Job Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction, conducting research (from distributing surveys, in-depth interviews, etc.), analyzing the result, and giving collective effort from all stakeholders to solve the issue and make it better.
Again, job satisfaction is so important. By successfully identifying the things that affect job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the organization will be able to create a workplace that can provide a purpose. Furthermore, job satisfaction can have an impact on the way employees perform, which in turn will affect customer satisfaction. Remember, your employees’ happiness equals customer happiness!
References:
- Herzberg, F. (1968). One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? Harvard Business Review, 46 (1), 56. https://hbr.org/2003/01/one-more-time-how-do-you-motivate-employees
- Liao, H. (2007). Do it right this time: The role of employee service recovery performance in customer-perceived justice and customer loyalty after service failures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 475–489. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.475
- Locke, E. A. (1969). What is job satisfaction? Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4(4), 309–336. doi:10.1016/0030–5073(69)90013–0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0030507369900130
- Prossack, A. (2019). How Employee Satisfaction Affects Customer Satisfaction. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashiraprossack1/2019/05/31/employee-satisfaction-customer-satisfaction/
- Snell and Morris (2018). Managing Human Resources, 18th Edition. Cengage Learning.
- Spector, P.E (1997). Job Satisfaction: Application, assessment, causes, and Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
