Tweet

Do you feel empowered and satisfied at work?

Guest post by: Alex Khaikin

Article Overview: MaCorr Research has recently conducted a study to examine a correlation between sharing customer information within retail or CPG organisations and improvement in decision making and employees' satisfaction levels. The main hypothesis: Sharing customer information more widely within a retail or CPG organisation can lead to improved decision making and higher satisfaction levels.

Do you feel empowered and satisfied at work?

MaCorr Research has recently conducted a study to examine a correlation between sharing customer information within retail or CPG organisations and improvement in decision making and employees' satisfaction levels.

The survey was conducted among a geographically representative sample of 351 head office and store management employees at Retail and CPG companies (50 employees or more) in the US.

The main hypothesis: Sharing customer information more widely within a retail or CPG organisation can lead to improved decision making and higher satisfaction levels.

- Individuals who have and use customer information feel more empowered and engaged

- Individuals who don't have and therefore don't use customer information are less empowered and engaged.

The research finding indicated that it's not enough for Retail and CPG companies to just have access to customer information. To improve employee satisfaction; engagement and involvement in the company's decision making process, customer information has to be shared effectively across the team.

If a retail organization or a CPG manufacture has access to customer information, but doesn't share it effectively across functional team, its employees feel even more disengaged and dissatisfied than those who work for companies with no access at all to customer information.

Employees of companies that effectively share customer information feel more valuable and empowered to make business decisions. At the same time there are no significant differences between employees or companies that don't have access to customer information and those who have access, but don't feel that the information is shared effectively.

Employees of organization that effectively share customer information feel that their companies make more effective business decisions. The employees are also more satisfied with the company.

Interestingly enough, employees of companies that don't have access to customer information feel less frustrated than employees that have access to the information but don't share it effectively.

In addition, employees of companies that have and effectively share consumer information, feel that their businesses leverage social media much better.

Related Articles
  Be Empowered Before Empowering Others
  Empowerment, Autonomy & Discretion – Oh My!
  Time to Wake Up, Notice the Awakening
  Empowerment at Work
  Getting Recommended By Others Will Increase Your Profits
  How to Get Things done… Empower Your Goals with Self-Command
  How satisfied are we with our service providers?
  The True Value of Much More Than Only Satisfied Employees
  Euphemisms for Saying "I Don't Know"
  Changing the Way You Think Can Empower You
  Sam Walton: A Charismatic Leader
  Are you arrogant or is it healthy self love?
  Stay Hungry
  Marketing Strategies: 3 Simple Tips for Creating Your Ideal Income this Year
  Extraordinary Customer Service: Where Does It Begin?
  Leadership empowerment: what is it and how do you do it?
  The secret to lowering you marketing cost
  Real Estate Marketing Strategies - Are You Sabotaging Your Own Success?
  How to Be an Empowered Leader in a Challenging Business Environment
  Financial Freedom- Is It The Same As Wealth?

Article Tags: customer satisfaction survey, customer survey, employee satisfaction survey, employee survey, online survey



Related Forum Posts
Re: I really feel great today because . . . . . - October 5, 2010 I really feel great today because of several reasons. First, I got a wonderful testimonial from a satisfied customer. Second, I was able to answer all of the questions I had from students, which made me feel great to be of service and provide value. My hope is always to leave the day better than I found it. Aneshia
Re: new to EC/EC Forum and just posted an article - Donna, You're right on: [quote:3s8gzqcg]Do you think part of the problem is that society has come to expect women to accomplish everything? I know family, friends and acquaintances can exert a lot of pressure in many situations.[/quote:3s8gzqcg] That was what I meant, about how social conditioning had lured women into believing that they MUST be everything to everyone at all times. Now, I am not saying that we can't aspire to achieve and attain what we desire, as long as we know WHY we want WHAT we want. Often, we want what we think we SHOULD want based on our projection of societal (familial, peer) expectations, when in fact, some of us may not necessarily want something. Here are two extremes: One woman is very career oriented and successful professionally, she aspires to and may be close to becoming the CEO of her organization. However, she may feel the pressure in her personal life to "settle down and have children" when in fact, she is satisfied with her self and has no desire at the moment to have children. She may be made to feel "less" because she does not desire what she was taught she should desire. One woman is very family oriented and successful as a mom and "home maker". She loves her role and the community she is closely integrated with. However, she may feel the pressure from others including peers to "make something of herself because she has no identity" when in fact, she is satisfied with her self and has no desire at the moment to pursue a career in the stereotypical way. She may be made to feel "less" because she does not desire what she was taught she should desire. I think many of us fall somewhere between these extremes, but we are made to feel no less satisfied. Some of us juggle family and a career either out of necessity or out of conscious choice. Women entrepreneurs have the additional pressure of creating the very infrastructure of a business through which they pursue their passions. Those of us who are entrepreneurs - men or women - know that working for yourself can be more difficult than working for someone else, and usually we don't stop working. When we're conditioned to want to have it all and have it now, we set ourselves up for disappointment and worse - self criticism when we cannot achieve what may be logistically unrealistic (even if one of us figure out how to bend the space time continuum and manage to add more hours to the day, I have a feeling we'll just create another standard out of our reach).... Jane Chin
Re: Article: How to Improve Your Cold-Calling Skills - Another thing that can help is to separate yourself from the outcome. Even the best call in the world won't work every time -- so after you craft a great approach and make a great call, that's it. Then you walk away satisfied with the job you did, regardless of the outcome. The action of calling (and doing your absolute best every time) is what matters, the outcome is not something you can control. That mindset will help since the rejection rate is high for cold calls. Also, taking an attitude of finding out information about your client's needs instead of pushing something onto them they might not want/need can help you feel less like a pushy salesman jerk. It's nicer when they react to you more like a helpful friend putting them in touch w/ info they really might need.
Re: How many vacation and sick days do you give yourself? - I don't give myself a set amount of days off. If I'm sick then I don't work. If I want to take a vacation, I just do it. If I have something more important to do than work, I do it. If I just don't feel like working, I don't. Yes, it hurts productivity but that doesn't bother me. A big part of the reason I am an internet marketer is so I can have the freedom to do things like that. I don't want to limit myself to a certain number of days off. That would feel too much like a regular job. There are also plenty of weekends and holidays that I work. It just depends on whether or not I am doing anything else. Basically I try to at least do a little work every day but if I don't then I don't. No big deal.
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - [quote="Alan Mater":36n2n9wd]The question of quality comes into play at this point. [/quote:36n2n9wd] Yeah quality is often correlated with price, but paying more won't always guarantee higher quality. If you look around there is a huge amount of great writing talent that work at good prices. I was once one of those writers (started at $3/post) before I eventually ended up doing my own thing. The internet has empowered almost anyone to become a writer very easily, which has opened up the job market, pushing down prices considerably.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Providing Feedback

Common Sense Stress Management

Effective Leadership

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.