Connecting EX and CX with digital tools for a lasting brand experience

A memorable experience needs to land across every customer interaction point. However, brands that nail this cement a lasting story in the minds of their audiences and grow a meaningful relationship with loyal customers. 

When employees rally around a shared vision, their mindset translates into a more engaging and successful customer experience. Harmony between the employee experience (EX) and the customer experience (CX) makes a great brand experience by keeping customer needs top of mind and surpassing expectations. 

Providing a great CX is vital for the longevity of a brand and has become a responsibility for the entire organisation (rather than just customer-facing teams). Therefore, EX becomes an integral part of customer success.

First, we must address the gap that exists between customers and employees. Customers are usually focused on the end product – for example, a delicious dish served in a pleasant ambiance. Behind the scenes, employees work together to cook that dish, each playing a different role in the kitchen to make it delicious.

The gap often lies in the middle of this process – the moments between gathering the correct ingredients and cooking the meal to perfection. Digital tools can facilitate this process to create a stronger relationship between employees and customers. 

Before we start cooking our delicious meal, let’s understand why it’s important from a brand perspective. In essence, your employees are the direct link to your customer’s experience, so it’s crucial to provide them with the necessary support, tools, and motivation.

Furthermore, today’s competition amongst brands goes beyond just product features and attractive deals – it directly connects to customer and employee experiences. When these two aspects are harmoniously aligned, they have the power to drive continuous business growth. 

Companies may face challenges when communicating their own brand internally. In many cases, too much emphasis is placed on technical details (a.k.a. the ‘what’ or the product) to employees, while providing overly general information about the brand out in the world. This leads to a disconnect for employees because they also need to know the ‘why’ and ‘how’ to connect the dots between these two worlds.

OK, now that we understand how the gap forms, let’s explore how it can be bridged with digital tools:

When employees truly understand the brand’s purpose and values, they can imbue them into the brand’s touchpoints to deliver a consistent and exceptional customer experience. Digital brand resource hubs and employee platforms can help strengthen this harmonious alignment that ensures every interaction (internal or external) reflects the brand’s values and purpose.

Digital tools enhance communication and rapport among employees, enabling a seamless exchange of information. This dynamic promotes collaboration and a supportive company culture where employees feel valued and empowered to contribute their expertise towards the overall success of the business. Employee forums, online surveys, Slack/Teams channels devoted to certain topics can help enhance the digital culture.

When employees can seamlessly complete their tasks, they achieve better results. Digital tools empower them to easily find the information they’re looking for, guide them through simple steps to problem solve, and even celebrate their success through gamification and rewards. Examples of these tools include Google Workspace, Teams, Figma and Miro for live collaboration; Jira and Asana for project or campaign management, and ChatGPT, DeepL, Microsoft Copilot for AI-powered tools.

Employee retention can be costly for any business. A disengaged employee is more likely to leave for a better opportunity. On the contrary, when employees feel connected to their company (such as its values, year on year performance and employee benefits), they are more likely to be engaged in their work. This increased engagement leads to higher job satisfaction and ultimately improves employee retention rates.

Now it’s time to cook our tasty meal. At Moving Brands, we strive to make the internal adaptation of brands, products or services as easy as possible for internal teams.

1. Define clear recipes

First and foremost, It is crucial to provide clear recipes for each dish, whether it is a starter, side, or main course (Yes, recipe refers to principles, approaches or frameworks for your brand or product). While it’s important to establish these principles, it’s equally important to demonstrate how they can be applied with flexibility. Keep in mind that not all employees will interpret and apply them in the exact same way.

2. Make it easy to gather ingredients

A well-organised kitchen with a clear navigation system is something that every chef aspires to have. Similarly, any relevant information about your company should be easy to find and use by your employees. This ranges from your strategic documents to employee playbook and specific resources for different departments.

At Moving Brands, our projects generate a range of strategic and design deliverables. To efficiently organise and utilise these assets and templates, we create bespoke digital asset management tools or use third party systems like Adobe DAM, Bynder, Frontify, and Papirfly.

3. Let your teams collaborate in the kitchen and beyond

A kitchen that operates in harmony is unbeatable. Collaborative tools such as Figma, Slack, Teams, Miro, Jira, and Asana promote seamless communication among employees. Companies also develop custom tools to digitise their unique processes. But it doesn’t end here. Regular meetings at the department or company level are essential to maximise the effectiveness of these tools. Insights and analytics also offer valuable data for measuring and optimising the overall experience.

4. Keep improving your dish

The culinary world is constantly evolving with new ingredients, recipes, and cooking equipment being introduced to enhance your dishes. Asset generator tools and AI-infused software will improve various aspects of the employee experience, including task automation, data analysis, personalised interactions, and virtual assistants.

We hope that this article has conveyed the importance of the alignment between Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX), and how digital tools can empower different teams to achieve this. Of course, this is only one part of the EX-CX alignment journey, and there are other considerations that go beyond brand and product design. However, if you are starting with these areas, here are five steps we recommend:

• Assess Needs & Objectives: Evaluate current processes and identify pain points through employee surveys, interviews and workshop, and set clear objectives for your digital platform and tools
• Choose the Right Tools: Select relevant tools that align with the company’s needs, scalability, and security requirements. These can be custom or off-the-shelf digital products that you can customise according to your needs.
• Integrate & Launch: Configure the platform to match internal workflows and integrate with existing systems. Flexibility is key – all of your employees should be able to easily adapt to your digital tools.
• Train & Engage Employees: Provide comprehensive training to ensure that employees fully utilise your brand values and adopt a customer-centric approach. Consider using engaging formats such as bite-sized videos and interactive workshops to deliver the information.
• Iterate & Improve: Continuously gather employee feedback, analyse usage data, and make necessary refinements to digital tools. You can streamline common patterns with workflow automation or generator tools.