Case Study: Driving Customer Engagement With Employee Networks
Employee Networks or Employee Resource Groups can help organizations achieve their business objectives by offering valuable insight to create inclusive products and services to reach new audiences and increase customer engagement.
That’s exactly what happened when the Alexa Team at Amazon UK partnered with their Black Employee Network (BEN) to share Black British history to customers using Alexa.
The Black Employee Network worked with the Alexa Team to create utterances for their UK customers to expand their knowledge of Black British history.
The initiative began in 2019 when BEN commissioned unique and inspiring illustrations of historical African figures from artist and illustrator Onyinye Iwu for their Black History Month posters.
The Alexa Team collaborated with BEN to create utterances that would enable their users to learn more about the historical figures.
In 2020, the team grew the initiative by creating a quiz for customers to expand their knowledge of Black British history. Additionally, throughout October, Alexa users had access to new daily facts about Black History.
The Alexa team saw great results from the partnership with their customer engagement skyrocketing that month. The quiz also got more engagement than any other quiz they created that year.
“We saw a great boost in terms of engagement for Fact of the Day, with its use more than tripling over the month! The quiz on Black History got more user engagement than any other quiz we created in 2020.”
Collaborating with employee networks provides an opportunity for businesses to design more inclusive products and services that can attract a wider audience and increase customer engagement.
Identifying opportunities to partner with employee networks long term and strategically is key in order to maximize impact.
How To Partner With Employee Networks
Here are some tips from the Amazon UK team on how to partner with employee networks.
Be open
Employee networks bring diverse perspectives and present options you may not have thought of before. It’s important to be open to new ways of creating value for your customers.
“Don’t underestimate how much employee networks can bring to the project. Explain what you want to achieve and be open to their ideas too. If possible, involve them in the planning as well as the execution.”
“Don’t underestimate how much employee networks can bring to the project.
Explain what you want to achieve and be open to their ideas too. If possible, involve them in the planning as well as the execution.”
Do the work
“You should do the heavy lifting and treat the employee networks as consultants. Offer them choices and ask which works best, rather than expecting them to invent on your behalf.”
Research and come up with your own ideas first before asking for feedback.
Treat employee networks as sounding boards and don’t make them responsible for reaching your inclusion goals.
“You should do the heavy lifting and treat the employee networks as consultants. Offer them choices and ask which works best, rather than expecting them to invent on your behalf.”
Respect their time
“The most important tip is to remember that it’s not the day job of the members of the group.
While you can gain a lot from engaging with employee networks and the members will usually be very enthusiastic about supporting you, they are typically volunteering in their own time.”
Employee networks are driven by passionate employees that are willing to do the work on top of their day job. Make it as easy as possible for them to help you.
“The most important tip is to remember that it’s not the day job of the members of the group.
While you can gain a lot from engaging with employee networks and the members will usually be very enthusiastic about supporting you, they are typically volunteering in their own time.”
