Employers everywhere want to engage workers, when you can build business at the same time that you drive employee engagement, then you have a win-win.

Facebook boasts some 640 million users worldwide; Twitter receives over 95 million Tweets every day, and Yelp, a website featuring feedback on service providers, has surpassed 50 million unique monthly users. Social media, in one form or another, is undoubtedly here to stay. In fact, 90 percent of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know and 70 percent trust opinions of unknown users.

In the recent past, brands---especially those in the hospitality industry--- had to rely on "small sample size" shopper reports, dated surveys, and/or inconsistent comments cards to evaluate customer perspectives. Now, with all of the websites devoted to reviews and comments from customers, everyone is a critic. Furthermore, the reach and influence of these consumer critics is skyrocketing---through social media. Capitalizing on all of that instant information by presenting it in a way that is understandable and actionable is critical.

At the same time stories of the effects of employee motivation, engagement, and overall attitude on customer service abound. However, one company found, linking employees directly to what customers are saying online has dramatically increased staff ownership of the employee/customer relationship. Enter Minnesota-based Parasole Restaurant Holdings, founders of eclectic, leading-edge concept restaurants, including Buca Di Beppo.

Partnering with newBrandAnaltyics, Parasole effectively captures a complete, real-time view of their customer feedback online, synthesizes it, and generates actionable insights that can immediately improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue.

"Many companies like Parasole are also seeing that sharing online customer feedback from social media channels with their employees gives them a renewed and sustained sense of motivation for and ownership of customer service and the overall customer experience," explains Ashish Gambhir, Co-Founder of newBrandAnalytics.

Armed with this type of customer feedback data, Parasole employees now understand every customer experience counts, because they read about it on the Internet.

Wise employers especially in the service industries will harness the power of online customer feedback to engage their employees in making things better, adding the incentive of cash reward.

© Copyright 1998-2011 by The Herman Group of Companies, Inc., all rights reserved.  From 'The Herman Trend Alert,' by Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurist. (800) 227-3566 or www.hermangroup.com.

The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group of Companies, Inc.