Brandpie Energy - Issue 04

Rethinking EX for business growth

Rethinking EX for business growth

> wrong thing. The result is frustration inside and inconsistency outside. By aligning employee experience (EX) with customer experience (CX), businesses remove those barriers, enabling people to serve customers the way the brand intends. For CMOs, this is the sweet spot. But with their roles expanding and budgets under pressure, bandwidth is stretched thinner than ever. Against that backdrop, asking marketing to also take on EX isn’t always realistic. Yet frustration with EX runs deep. Marketers question how HR and internal comms can deliver more impact – HR often seen as process-heavy, IC as focused on volume over value. They respect the intent, but feel the commercial edge is missing. Marketing, by contrast, is built for momentum. But with their own fires to fight, CMOs can’t step fully into the void. So, where’s the opportunity? Rethinking EX Part of the problem is how we’ve traditionally defined EX. Too often, it’s reduced to HR-led processes – learning and development, performance management, wellness schemes. While all valuable, they are far removed from the everyday friction that shapes how employees deliver for customers. If EX is confined to HR programs, it’s no wonder marketing leaders feel they can’t make an impact, or it’s not their responsibility. But: if you reframe EX as everything that enables (or blocks)

A call for selective boldness Listen first Your people know where the friction is. Don’t rely on generic surveys – use tools and forums that let employees flag what’s broken and suggest how to fix it (such as VYTALS). That’s where the most actionable insights come from, and how you build credibility from day one. Remove friction Strip away processes that make customer service harder. Empower the frontline Give customer-facing staff the tools and trust to act with confidence. Align the story Ensure the narrative you tell the outside world is the same story employees hear and live inside. Measure both Track the correlation between employee engagement and customer satisfaction, and make that link visible in board-level reporting.

internally, and you can transform EX in ways that matter most for CX.

Where EX meets CX What does this mean in practice? Take the case of a digital contact center with low morale, high turnover, poor customer scores and frustrated managers. HR and IC rolled out an engagement program of team meetings, success stories, and suggestion boxes. The result? No change. Reframed as an EX-to-CX challenge, the approach shifted. First, the ten elements of an on-brand customer experience were mapped. Then, the internal barriers were identified – process, skills, roles, systems, technology. The findings were stark: the company had invested in sleek customer- facing platforms, but left employees with clunky systems. Customers actually had better visibility of their data than the staff trying to help them. Employees had never been briefed on the customer promise and were measured only on call volume and speed, not satisfaction or resolution. What moved the needle was different: giving employees the same quality of tools as customers, changing KPIs to include CSAT, adding empathy training, and tying the whole program back to brand, not just the bottom line. That’s the EX–CX difference. Not your typical HR or IC approach, but an integrated one. Marketing’s hidden advantage Marketing’s edge lies in perspective – used to balancing brand promise with customer reality. They know that inconsistency erodes trust faster than anything else. And they understand how to design experiences that build belief, as uncovered in Brandpie’s recent CMO Report. Translating this inside the business means shaping the employee journey with the same care given to the customer journey. It means ensuring employees

employees from delivering value to customers, the opportunity becomes clearer.

This is where marketing’s toolkit comes into play, applying their skills in journey mapping, friction removal, and emotional engagement. Apply those same disciplines

Flip that, and the opposite is true. Inspired and empowered employees build customer belief. Customers who feel listened to and supported are more loyal and more likely to advocate. In a sector where switching is sometimes limited, advocacy matters even more. As one CMO put it bluntly: “If you can’t sell your value proposition to your own employees, you’ll never sell it to customers.”

understand not just what the company does, but why it matters. And it means equipping them with the tools, freedom, and confidence to deliver on that promise day in, day out. This isn’t about adding another responsibility to marketing’s already full plate but focusing efforts where EX and CX overlap. Trust as the ultimate differentiator In regulated or monopolistic markets, customers may not always have a choice of provider. But they still have a voice. Dissatisfied customers escalate complaints, lobby regulators, and erode public reputation. When trust is the differentiator, even perceived indifference costs dearly.

If you reframe EX as everything that enables (or blocks) employees from delivering value to customers, the opportunity becomes clearer.

A call for selective boldness The way forward is not a wholesale takeover of EX by marketing. That’s

not realistic. Nor is it a culture program run by HR. Instead it’s about focused interventions where your business needs it most – where your EX directly powers CX.

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Brandpie Energy - Issue 04

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