How to Improve Frontline Employee Engagement

Improving employee engagement is critical to providing excellent customer service. Frontline teams face a multitude of competing priorities that cause them to disengage when transitioning from one task to another, making daily tasks challenging and leading to overwhelmed workers and a poor customer experience. 

When your retail team can pivot their priorities effortlessly in real-time, it enables them to be efficient, effective and consistently engaged. Consolidating retail execution tasks allows store and field teams to respond to issues as they arise, making managing their workload easier. 

Increasing workflow and ease of task-switching means employees stay engaged longer while providing the best possible experience to staff and customers.

Who Are Frontline Employees?

Frontline teams are the backbone of any organization. They are the first, and sometimes only, point of contact with your customers. They’re responsible for direct service and operational activities, filling customer-facing roles such as store manager and associates, customer service representatives, and suppliers’ field teams. 

Since frontline teams are the ones that are in direct contact with customers, they can make or break a business. They have a lot to deal with at any given time, so it’s crucial for them to have the right tools to help them be efficient and effective in their work.

Why Workforce Engagement Matters

Streamlining in-store workflow allows frontline staff to feel more accomplished with their daily tasks. This leads to increased motivation and productivity, promoting a better work environment and higher levels of job satisfaction. 

Your employees want technology that makes their job easier. By providing them with tools that automate tedious or complicated work processes, they become more efficient and independent. Supervisors are freed from micromanaging, and frontline workers can focus on what's really important - serving customers and providing an excellent experience. 

Reducing the burden of juggling multiple tasks allows staff to quickly and easily execute their work. This improvement in performance and efficiency leads to decreased operation costs, increased promotional compliance, and fewer out-of-stock occurrences for customers. 

How Can I Better Engage my Frontline Team?

Use Unified Technology

Engaged frontline teams make successful business outcomes possible, so it is important to ensure they are equipped with the right tools. Having multiple features in a single application allows your frontline teams to solve issues as they arise and cuts training and onboarding time. In addition, this eases task transition and improves workflow because store and field teams have everything they need on hand and no longer need to switch from app to app or between devices. 

Intuitive Task Management

The power to execute, track, and measure work in one unified solution means work gets done more efficiently and tasks become more manageable. Task management via personal dashboards supplies users with access to view time-sensitive tasks and track their priorities. This allows managers and supervisors to create, assign, and delegate tasks while keeping an accurate, updated account of what work is being done and what areas need more attention. 

Integrated Communications

Having an integrated communications module is vital for teams to quickly and compliantly collaborate with one another. Broadcasting announcements, direct messaging, and group messaging allow employees to communicate with one another in real-time to solve the problem at hand without getting pulled out of the task. With communications in a centralized location, your teams won't waste time digging through emails, searching announcement backlogs, or scanning through multiple messaging apps. 

At-Shelf Item Management

At-shelf ordering and replenishment can have a significant impact on workflow, shopper experience, and operational costs. With a centralized mobile interface, employees have everything they need to manage in-store items on the floor or in the field. This gives frontline workers the ability to submit photos, flag items, replenish inventory, and reorder specific stock on the go, lowering the possibility of empty shelf experiences for customers and giving real-time visibility into product availability.

The frontline teams are the face of your business, so it's vital that they have the right tools and resources to do their jobs. Providing employees with an easy-to-use mobile interface simplifies tasks and improves the overall experience by decluttering processes. When you make life easier for frontline teams, you keep them engaged longer, help them succeed, and enhance productivity across departments.