Do Happy Customers Mean Happy Employees?

Employee satisfaction is an often overlooked tool in managing your business. Many companies base their opinions of employee satisfaction on perceived satisfaction – that is, they ask management how they feel the employees are feeling, and assume that whatever their perception must be correct. Obviously that is not the case.

Rarely does management know the true feelings of the staff members other than what they see directly in front of them. Yet rather than initiate employee satisfaction surveys, most companies look to something else – happy customers.

Imagine you’re in the checkout line of a grocery store. You walk up to the front of the line, and the cashier scowls at you with hate and rage. You leave the store unhappy, and it can be assumed that the employees of the store are also unhappy.

Cognitively this makes sense, since unhappy employees are more likely to show distaste for their jobs. Yet there are several problems with this line of thinking. Very few studies have shown a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

Most have shown no correlation at all (and a few have shown a negative correlation, although that result is highly questionable). Even if low employee morale and low customer satisfaction are linked, that does not mean that high customer satisfaction and high employee morale would be linked. Many unhappy employees can still put on their best face for the customer, leading to high customer satisfaction despite the poor employee satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is based on so many more factors than simply the employees that high or low satisfaction may be due to some other aspect of your company, rather than their interaction with the employees. Even if low employee satisfaction and low customers satisfaction are linked, it seems unlikely that the opposite is true. Similarly, very few studies have shown any type of connection, and even if a connection was found, there is no way to definitively show that the reason for high levels of customer satisfaction is due solely to the amiability of the employees.

So while it is tempting to look at the results of your customer satisfaction surveys and assume that these hold true to employees as well, the evidence simply isn’t there. There may be a relationship, but any relationship is small, and assuming there is a relationship may do more harm to your business than good.