Here (at last) is definitive proof about the relationship between employee and customer satisfaction. Surprise! There is very little relationship between the two. The research covers 345 US businesses that sell to consumers. It confirms similar research done a year ago.

1. Do Happy Employees = Happy Customers?
NO!

2. In short:
The relationship between employee and consumer
satisfaction for large American companies is close to zero,
contrary to what most people believe. There are three
industry sectors that seem to be exceptions. There are
also some individual companies with surprising results
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
Note: This presentation is designed to accompany the blog post about the research at http://customerstrategy.net/employee-customer-satisfaction-2/

3. Conventional wisdom
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

4. Existing research
• Most articles only cover single companies
• The message tends to be something like “Google employees and
customers are both highly satisfied, therefore one drives the other for
all companies”
• James A Harrington showed employee satisfaction was not a
major factor in customer satisfaction in an article in the
American Quality Digest covering 100 companies in the media
industry
• A Northwestern University study found a weak relationship
between the two for 100 companies in the media industry
Article references are in our blog post12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

5. WYSIATI
• Nobel-winner Daniel Kahneman talks about ‘What You See Is
All There Is’. He says our brains are lazy and want to jump to
any available immediate conclusion without much thought
Intuition
Limited data
(for example, only employee
and customer satisfaction)
Conclusion based on
the assumption that
the limited data is all
that matters
• If we had to brainstorm a list of things that drive customer
satisfaction, employee satisfaction would be on the list, but
nowhere near the top for most companies
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

6. Solution: match these two
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

7. Glassdoor overall ratings by employees explain
4.4% of ACSI customer satisfaction
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
R² = 0.0438
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90
Glassdoorrating
ACSI score
ACSI vs. Glassdoor for 345 businesses

8. Glassdoor explains 9.6% of ACSI in high-touch
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
R² = 0.0963
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
60 65 70 75 80 85 90
Glassdoorrating
ACSI score
ACSI vs. Glassdoor for 125 higher-touch businesses

9. Glassdoor explains 5.1% of ACSI in low-touch
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
R² = 0.0514
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90
Glassdoorrating
ACSI score
ACSI vs. Glassdoor for 220 lower-touch businesses

10. Sectors with more human touch have
higher numbers
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
An R-squared number of 0.313 means the Glassdoor variations explain 31% of the ACSI variations, for example
Sector R2 Count Touch
Retail Trade 0.324 68 High
Transportation 0.313 12 High
Accommodation & Food Services 0.196 39 High
Manufacturing/Durable Goods 0.130 42 Low
Telecommunications & Information 0.126 42 Low
Energy Utilities 0.027 29 Low
E-Business 0.004 22 Low
Finance & Insurance 0.002 49 Low
Manufacturing/Nondurable Goods 0.004 26 Low
E-Commerce 0.013 16 Low

11. Not surprising
• This is a study of large companies. In many cases, no
employees of a company have any interaction whatsoever with
customers. Products or services are provided by resellers or
franchisees. Support may be outsourced
• There are companies such as Amazon (High ACSI, average
Glassdoor) where it is rare to interact with a human
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

12. 12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

13. The ‘love-hate matrix’ (examples)
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
American Customer Satisfaction Index
Glassdoorrating
9050
2.5
4.5
3.5
70
Customers
Employees

14. Top 10% for both employees and
customers
Used Toyota Glassdoor number Lexus12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
* Companies on the same list last year

15. Bottom 10% for both employees and
customers
Only one Glassdoor number available for the three Frontier businesses
and and for the two Windstream businesses12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
* Companies on the same list last year

16. Counter-intuitive: top 10% for customers,
bottom 10% for employees
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
* Companies on the same list last year

17. Counter-intuitive: bottom 10% for
customers, top 10% for employees
Only one Glassdoor number available for both Spectrum businesses12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
* Companies on the same list last year

18. Conclusion
• This is the best study possible with public data
• Employee satisfaction is quite different from employee
engagement. People can be happy with their pay, free food in
the cafeteria, child care and their short commute to work. None
of these do anything for customers
• There is no standard metric for employee engagement, and no
public data, so I believe looking at satisfaction is the best we
can do
• Feel free to disagree on our blog or by contacting me
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

19. Notes
• Download the Excel file from the customerstrategy.net
resources page to examine detail and do your own analysis
• All ACSI data is for all of 2017. Most Glassdoor ratings are from
November 2017, with about 15 from March 2018
• Disagreement and debate welcome. Add comments to blog post
at http://customerstrategy.net/customer-employee-satisfaction
• Contact: Maurice FitzGerald mfg@customerstrategy.net
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

20. 12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/

21. Thank you
12 March 2018 http://customerstrategy.net/
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