Customer Benefits: Organizations That Offer EWA Add Value

The most important voices around business governance include The World Economic Forum[1] (WEF), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board[2] (SASB), and the Business Roundtable[3], among other notable organizations. These institutions agree that sound business practices should focus not only on the shareholder (investor) but on other stakeholders, i.e. customer benefits. The “New Purpose of the Corporation” calls for organizations to include other stakeholders when conducting their businesses and to strive to:

• Deliver value to customers
• Invest in employees
• Deal fairly and ethnically with suppliers
• Support the local community
• Generate long-term value for investors

In our previous post, we addressed how communities benefit from employees who are provided Employer-sponsored EWA. Here’s how customers benefit when organizations offer this benefit to employees.

Customer Benefits

It is a universally accepted fact that the top three values customers look for in products or services are: customer service experience, functionality; and price:

1. Customer Service Experience: What does it take to provide great customer service experiences for customers? Employees who are happy and focused on their work. Organizations that offer EWA report higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction. This means that employees can provide those important customer experiences because they’re not worried about not having cash in their bank accounts to pay for basic necessities, such as groceries, gas, and bills.
2. Functionality: Customers want products and services that meet their needs. This requires that the employees are engaged in their work. It’s not just the direct customer experience that is impacted by engaged employees — it’s the entire business process that is positively impacted with higher levels of employee focus and engagement — from the product or services designer/innovator to the people manufacturing products with fewer errors so products are higher quality. It starts with the employees as everyone that touches a product or the delivery of service contributes to higher levels of customer satisfaction, and employer-sponsored EWA helps the employee feel that the organization cares for them, thus generating happier employees.
3. Price: Nothing impacts prices more than the inherent cost of producing a product or delivering a service, and for most consumer offerings, labor is often the highest proportion of costs to manufacture, and certainly the highest cost for delivering services. When organizations have high levels of attrition or absenteeism, have a hard time filling open positions, or have employees that are not productive, this adds to the cost of the product, and HR expenses go up. When expenses are difficult to manage, it gives the organization less flexibility in their strategic pricing options. Organizations offering EWA report less attrition, lower levels of absenteeism, and higher levels of employee productivity as employees spend less time worrying about cash flow, and shorter time to fill open positions as more candidates apply for jobs at organizations offering this benefit.

A Call to Action

It is time for a major change to occur — and that is for corporations to allow their employees access to their pay when employees need it, rather than when they dictate it. Offering EWA to employees ultimately benefits customers, which in turn benefits organizations as companies with high levels of customer satisfaction have increased repeat sales and overall levels of revenue. Eighty percent of consumers report that they would recommend a company where they had a good experience to friends and family, and 40% would share their positive experiences on social media[4]. This means higher net promoter scores, more customers, and ultimately, more success. Offering EWA has a de minimis cost to companies, does not increase the company’s financial risk exposure (as the risk taken up by the EWA provider), and can positively impact the customer experience. Everyone wins — employees, customers, and the company. [1] World Economic Forum: Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism Toward Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation [2] SASB: CEOs Back Convergence of Corporate Reporting [3] Business Roundtable: Business Roundtable Redefines the Purpose of the Corporations to Promote an Economy that Serves all Americans [4] Forbes.com: What Customers Want and Expect