There are few guarantees in business, but this much is certain: If you don't keep it CLIENTS, you won't be in business for long. However, at a time when most companies are desperately trying maintain customer loyalty (holding is more profitable than buyingafter all), there is often a missing link in their efforts: Understanding the powerful connection between customer satisfaction AND employee engagement – and how to unlock it.

As a Chief People Officer currently overseeing my company's client organization, I've seen firsthand how connected they really are. According to him, losing customers can have a direct impact on employee morale and even lead to regret. talent turnover. But there are more nuances in this connection: almost anything employees do has the potential to profoundly affect customers. In turn, customer feedback and results can have a powerful effect on an employee's sense of purpose, achievement, and satisfaction.

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I have witnessed how the creation of one customer-centric approach throughout the organization can lead to growth opportunities that benefit both employees and customers. But to get there, businesses must leverage that connection by making customer success at the forefront of every employee's experience. Here's how.

Make customer success everyone's responsibility

Most companies have a silent approach to customer success, relegating it to a single department while others remain largely isolated from customer interaction. But I have realized that the more we empower everything of our cross-functional teams to contribute to customer success, the more purposeful, impactful and engaging their roles become, and the more they can drive customer loyalty and retention.

For a more holistic approach, I'm a fan of bow tie pattern. In contrast to the traditional marketing funnel, which ends when a customer converts, bow ties provide a more complete representation of the customer journey. It's a better way to ensure that everyone in the company is maximizing customer engagement for the long term—whether through strategic, ongoing marketing and communications efforts or more integrated processes and practices designed to deepen that relationship.

One way I do this at my company is by encouraging every department to evaluate every task—and every question—in terms of how it benefits the customer. Whether it's marketing, sales, product or engineering, this filter applies to all decision-making. Of course, we also look at metrics like Customer satisfaction scorecustomer retention and revenue expansion with existing customers to ensure our efforts translate into results.

Populate customer touchpoints

I recently traveled overseas to meet with a client, and as I was leaving, their CFO turned to me and said something I'll never forget: “Don't fire me.” It's a powerful reminder that our view of customer success must be broader than simply guaranteeing product integration or stability. Everything we do has a ripple effect on the success of their company, which can also affect their personal reputation.

the concept of radical sensitivity is not new to customer service. Cultivating a deeper understanding of customer needs is essential to effective product development, marketing and sales, but it can easily be lost once a customer is on board. Building more proactive customer touchpoints—and even introducing them in the early stages of product development — can help overcome this oversight.

For us, this means attending industry events and creating strategic channels and information sharing COmmuNiTiEs to better understand their bottlenecks. We have also created customer segments and verticals to identify and interact with the unique needs of different types of customers to provide a personalized service approach. When we understand how customers are using our product – and especially their pain points – we can better target everything from our marketing and sales campaigns to all product-centric initiatives

Everyone in our organization knows that customer retention is a team sport. Contacting customers to help resolve product issues or when launching something new is not only possible, but preferable. This is exactly why we started one customer retention program that treats flight risks as a pipeline and leverages closely coordinated cross-departmental collaboration to deliver impact to those customers.

Most importantly, these frequent and proactive touchpoints also allow us to learn what IS working for our clients, which we have found to be a powerful motivator for our team.

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Don't overlook the connection between employee experience and customer experience

Being on the receiving end of an exceptional customer experience can fundamentally change the way we perceive a business. It turns out that when an employee has a hand in making this happen, it can be just as impactful for them.

This should come as no surprise: today employees seek purpose in their work. Who doesn't want to make a difference in the lives of others? Linking this desire to customer success initiatives only makes sense—it improves the ability to deliver on customer promises AND it makes the workplace more satisfying for everyone.

And I believe organizations can take this connection a step further: by pouring the same energy into employee experience that they do into customer fulfillment. In one of my previous roles, we would actively measure customer retention versus employee retention and found a strong correlation between the two. These results were interesting, but not shocking: prioritizing the employee experience leads to more engaged employees, who, in turn, are motivated to create better experiences for customers. Simply put, increasing the enjoyment of a camp can effectively increase retention and productivity levels for both.

Of course, this balance is not always easy to achieve. But in my experience, incremental improvements are ones that add up over time. Starting small is better than none. After all, the more your employees know, understand, and care about your customers, the better they'll serve them (and the more they'll enjoy the results)—no matter what role they're in. And it's a real win-win for the bottom line.