How IT Services Improve Employee and Customer Experience

UPDATED: March 25, 2024

As a business leader, you know how important employee experience and customer experience is to the success of your business. Successful employee experience acts as the fuel to successful customer experience. Without a work environment where employees can efficiently and effectively do meaningful work – you’re left with unmotivated employees who won’t be able to communicate the value of your company to customers.

One of the most important elements of a positive employee experience is ensuring that employees have the work environment they need to do their job—and do it well. They can’t do that if the IT systems in place are not supporting them. With the right managed services and cloud solutions, you can retain employees, protect customers, and even protect business partners. 

3 ways to Improve customer experience and increase customer satisfaction 

Employees can enjoy a suite of benefits in an IT environment created to help them do their work more efficiently. By utilizing managed services and cloud solutions, employees can enjoy increased productivity, efficiency, streamlined processes, and a more stable work environment. 

1. Increase Productivity and Efficiency
   Long gone are the days in which employees are unable to work without being at their desks. According to FlexJob's 10th Annual Survey, 97% of workers desire some form of remote work. 58% of the respondents expressed wanting to be full-time remote employees post-pandemic and 39% expressed wanting a hybrid work environment.  
   
   Incorporating mobile device management through cloud-based services like Intune allows you to control what your employees have access to and how they can access it - without sacrificing the security of company data. Many companies view BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) as a more cost-effective option as it enables employees to enroll their personal devices to management, to enroll corporate data. This saves costs on the purchase of equipment for employees and has several other perks.
   
   
2. Improve Employee Morale
   There are a few different aspects that influence high employee morale. Statistics show that work-life balance, opportunities for advancement, and meaningful work are among them. And so is a sound IT system. Time is money, and your employees make the best of it when they can do their jobs with little to no disruption.Various tools and software help to improve communication among employees, automate redundant tasks, and even provide better training to your employees. It also allows business leaders to better track progress, which helps in giving employees rightful recognition for their hard work as well as providing insight into just how meaningful the work they are doing is.
   
   
3. Provide a Stable Work Environment
   COVID-19 has altered the way the world views work. Since its spread, we’ve seen a rise in touchless, remote, and contactless options. If it’s proven anything about the workforce, it’s proven that a successful workplace is an adaptable one.Backup and disaster recovery services enable employees to continue working even in circumstances that are unforeseen. No need to force employees to use PTO or be patient during downtime. One might think that Microsoft 365 contains enough cybersecurity measures on its own to defend against threats. The reality however is that while it is extremely secure on its own, it can be impacted by human error, synchronization errors, malware, outages, and malicious deletes.
   
   Cloud Solution Providers advise all companies to utilize third-party backups. Without them, it could take weeks or even months to restore data by using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms alone. Considering 60% of SMBs shut down due to data breaches or outages, a lack of a plan B (plan backup in this case) isn't ideal for either a scalable business nor its employees aiming for job stability. 

How to Improve customer experience and increase customer satisfaction 

Customer experience and satisfaction are often directly impacted by employee satisfaction. It is also aided and improved by technology. When you can gather, analyze, and optimize customer data effectively, you can shape an experience tailored to the needs of your customers more closely. The mediums used to store, transfer, edit, and maintain customer data are critical to your brand reputation. If they're working as they should, you can leverage them to provide customer service that outdoes your competitors in a few areas. 

• Provide Fast and Reliable Communication
  Research shows that 21% of customers view not having to repeat themselves as the most important aspect of customer service.  32% view resolving issues in a single transaction as the most important and 33% view having a friendly and knowledgeable agent as the most important.  
  
  In order to provide customer service that can make your organization proficient in all three of these areas, it's crucial to utilize platforms that minimize interruptions and bottlenecks. Organizations that use cloud services rather than traditional IT infrastructure, often report elevated collaboration between internal departments. This added ability to actively collaborate through file sharing services, such as Microsoft SharePoint, and secure messaging services, like Microsoft Teams, increase departmental transparency, accelerate solving of customer problems, and improve overall customer experience.
• Show Consistency
  With the right IT system in place, you can make it easier for employees to connect, collaborate, and achieve goals. With Microsoft announcement of tools like Microsoft Dynamics with Power-Bi and Copilot resources, keeping employees and customers connected is easier than ever. Not only will you have immediate automated tasks for your employees, but there will be a consistency across the company for where data is stored. These new capabilities that allow your organization to better understand your customers, optimize content delivery, and orchestrate great customer experiences.
  
  With tools like this one, employees can communicate, create, brainstorm, and effectuate solutions that are aimed to benefit customers with ease.
• Utilize 24x7 Data Security and IT Support
  Instead of waiting until something happens to respond to it, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) takes a proactive approach to actively pursue and eliminate threats before they have the opportunity to cause damage. It’s this type of data protection that allows employees to work uninterrupted. Even when a business may be starting out small, they may not think there is any importance to installing security measures in their IT system because they aren’t big enough to be a target for hackers or cyber threats. The truth is, hackers love SMBs. It’s these companies that need cyber security the most. This is where utilizing a tool like Microsoft Defender becomes very valuable.
  
  When employees feel free to work in an environment where they don’t have to worry about if they’re going to lose their data the next minute – it boosts productivity. People are able to work fast without having to go through extra steps to ensure their work is saved and stored in a safe place.
• Connect with Customers
  Adopting cloud services opens opportunities for more on-demand "as-a-subscription" services, otherwise known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This is also a major time-saver as businesses don't have to worry about installing software on individual computers and devices. Additionally, cloud applications often enable more cross-compatibility with both business- and consumer-grade services for seamless integration. 
  
  

Enact IT services that serve both your employees and customers 

Customers respond well to having their needs met and having them met fast. Providing services like these are often enabled through effective IT service implementation that supports the data your business acquires, how fast you need to acquire it, provides security for it, and will grow with your business.

These are all luxuries that enterprise grade IT support can provide for your business no matter the size.

Enterprise-grade IT support isn’t about tech, product, or skill sets. It’s about disciplined, mature processes.” 

James Shuler
Business Technology Advocate at Centre Technologies 

With the right implementation of the right tools and access to an IT team that knows how to flex the solutions to amplify your business – you can achieve incredible things for your business as well as your employees and customers who will be enjoying the results of these solutions.

Need a managed services provider who can develop the IT blueprint your business needs? Here at Centre Technologies, we work as an extension of your team to help your business achieve its goals, promoting happier employees and happier clients.