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Powering Success Through Employee User Experiences

February 20, 2023

Throughout modern history, technological innovations have always been a boon for businesses. After all, new technologies give companies new ways of satisfying their customers, scaling their operations, and increasing their potential for success. Now, with the advent of business-focused technologies such as cloud-based computing and SaaS (Software as a Service), companies worldwide are more empowered than they have ever been before.

But so many businesses around the world fail to make optimal use of the technologies at their disposal. In fact, recent research shows that up to 70% of digital-transformation initiatives fail to meet their outlined objectives. Of course, unsuccessful digital transformations have clear opportunity costs, but the harsh reality is that the repercussions of such failures can be both much more severe and long lasting. In this day and age, businesses that repeatedly fail to leverage new technologies struggle to survive over the long term.

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Why do so many companies have such difficulty utilizing business technologies to their full potential—even technology-focused companies? The answer is relatively simple: these companies are neglecting to consider the single most important factor of digital transformation: the user experience. More specifically, they are neglecting the employee user experience.

In this article, I’ll discuss how companies can actually achieve significantly more success by placing a greater emphasis on the employee user experience.

Solid Employee User Experiences Foster Organizational Cohesion

One of the main issues that companies face with technology is succumbing to application sprawl—a phenomenon whereby the number of applications in use continually grows. Although it might not seem so at first, this is, in fact, a user-experience problem.

When companies choose to use software that has a confusing user interface or fails to provide proper onboarding support, the user experience inevitably suffers. As a result, employees feel that they must seek out more user-friendly alternatives to fulfill their duties adequately. Before long, this situation can devolve to a point where there are multiple applications in use for the same purpose across the company. This breeds confusion and inefficiency within the organization and is detrimental to the business’s overall performance.

This kind of issue is a common occurrence for companies that use complex enterprise software such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. CRM systems are platforms that store and manage all customer data. Their purpose is to serve as a single point of reference for employees across product, marketing, and sales teams. However, if employees begin to use different means of keeping track of customer data, sales teams inevitably end up working off outdated information at some point. This can greatly harm the customer experience, cause the company to lose sales, and result in considerable revenue leakage as customers opt to take their business elsewhere.

However, businesses can alleviate such issues effectively by placing a much greater emphasis on the employee user experience. By carefully selecting accessible, easy-to-use software and facilitating digital transformation through proper onboarding support, companies can make complex tools such as CRM systems work for them optimally. Choosing the best applications available and providing adequate training in their use ensures that all employees are proficient in these tools and puts everyone on the same page, which fosters cohesion, improves alignment, and boosts employee productivity.

Streamlining Employee User Experiences Helps Companies Retain Their Best Talent

The user experience also plays an important role in how staff members perceive their employers. An important part of providing a high-quality worker experience for employees is furnishing them with the latest, greatest tools available. Doing so helps employees to be more engaged with the responsibilities of their job. If a company is years behind the current technologies for its field, it won’t be long before the most talented employees begin leaving that company with a view to joining more ambitious organizations.

This principle applies across the board and can affect companies in many ways. For example, let’s consider the user experience of sales teams. Currently, one trending category of sales and contract-redlining software is CPQ (Configure Price Quote) software. These innovative tools help sales representatives streamline contract redlining, approvals-based workflows, and the quoting process, enabling them to focus on their more dynamic, customer-centric responsibilities.

Implementing a CRM tool helps drive revenues by optimizing processes along the sales pipeline. Perhaps more importantly, such tools drastically improve the overall user experience of employees, help them to engage with customers, and enable employees to focus on the most rewarding aspects of their job. So the best talent is significantly more likely to stick around, which powers further success and helps companies avoid the costly process of rehiring and training.

Of course, companies must still take care to avoid overwhelming employees as they adopt new technologies. This is why it is so important to take a thoughtful, considered approach to management that takes every aspect of the employee experience into account.

Emphasizing Employee User Experiences Creates a Positive Culture

While the concept of user experience is strongly associated with technology, it is by no means limited to that domain. On the contrary, the employee user experience encompasses every aspect of a worker’s day-to-day experience at work and is a major contributing factor to a company’s culture.

By carefully selecting the right software tools for employees and providing optimal support to help them become proficient in these tools, companies not only empower their employees to be their most productive, they also motivate their productivity. Even though every company faces challenges in attempting to transform their workplace, those who approach these challenges in the right way eventually get the results that they want.

Fostering an optimal employee experience is all about putting employees at the center of operations and giving them the opportunities, tools, training, and encouragement to be the best versions of themselves. This creates a positive workplace culture that permeates the entire organization and manifests in the growth and success of the organization.

Conclusion

A true saying tells us that a company is only as good as its employees. This speaks to the larger reality of business. A company’s success is a reflection of the day-to-day experience of its employees. A happy, engaged staff makes a successful company. Therefore, companies must adopt an employee-centric mentality if they are to achieve true, lasting success. While this is by no means a facile undertaking, focusing on the tools that employees use on a daily basis is a good way to start.

Regardless of how powerful a piece of software might be, that power remains latent if the employees using the software lack the capability to unlock its power. Tools are only as effective as those who wield them. That's why it is so crucial to invest in the employee user experience. By emphasizing the user experience of its employees in every aspect of the business’s daily operations, a company can create an environment that empowers workers and enables them to use the tools at their disposal to push their organization to entirely new heights.

In the end, while technology can bring immense potential to a business, a high-quality employee experience is what enables employees to convert that potential into tangible success. 

CEO at Soprano Media

Tel Aviv, Israel

Efrat VulfsonsEfrat is the CEO and Co-founder of Soprano Media and a data-driven marketing enthusiast. She enjoys a parallel career as a soprano opera singer with the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. Efrat holds a BFA in Opera Performance from the Jerusalem Music Academy.  Read More

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