The Ripple Effect: How Employee Experience Shapes Customer Relations

“ The employee experience here is built in the foundation and really a philosophy that if you take care of your employees, they’re going to take care of the company and take care of the customers.  What we mean by that, in a daily basis, is treating people with dignity and respect. Trying to enter into a relationship with our employees, which we know is foundational to communication and trust and engagement. We want the same type of relationship with our consumers. So we are overtly focused on our employees’ experience as well as how they feel about the workplace.”

Matthew Owenby is the Chief Strategy Officer and Corporate Services Executive at Aflac. Matthew and host Nicole Alvino discuss Aflac’s commitment to fostering a supportive and respectful workplace culture, which translates into authentic and empathetic customer interactions. The discussion covers Aflac’s hiring processes, their focus on dignity and respect, and how AI can enhance the employee experience.

“ We customize our development based upon the roles that you’re in. So we have continuing ed, we have leadership development, we have new employee orientation, new leader orientation. And that is all sort of foundationally kept within our annual ethics training, our annual awareness training around engagement activities. And so it really is a system rather than an activity that happens once or twice a year. We have a systematic integrated talent management program that’s been operating here continuously for three decades, if not more.”

• Employee-centric culture leads to better customer experiences
• Proactive engagement and development initiatives
• The role of AI in enhancing human connections

“ We see AI as enhancing an employee’s experience, reducing the level of anxiety around a special project, or I need to go do this specialized research on this. Or when a consumer calls, what would it be like if you had all of their claims history, all of the times that they’ve called, some of the issues they’ve had as a customer support specialist. If you had all that, how would that change your interaction with that person if you had all of that at hand?”