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.
