Posts Tagged ‘Brand Evolutionary’
What Stop Signs Tell Us About Communication
Tags: Brand Evolutionary, Brand Promise, Communication, Customer Service, Employee Relations
Posted in Employer Branding on February 23rd, 2009
With the exception of a few drivers, most people obey stop signs. Responsible drivers understand that stop signs are a signal to act in a certain way. While waiting my turn at a four way stop, I wondered what signs we should use to get employees to act in a way that supports our brands.
Many companies overlook the importance of internal brand communication. How much more effective would an organization be if the employee and their families fully understood the brand promise, sales strategy and customer service standards?
Today’s employees are the product of an evolutionary change in the sophistication of media and production values. While the old company newsletter still stands as a stalwart of communication in many organizations, intranets and internal blogging are now valuable real-time tools.
Eli Lilly and Company uses digital signage in the form of TV screens (LillyTV) that feature company news in the places their employees linger. While waiting for coffee, the elevator or an ATM, employees turn to LillyTV for the latest headlines, pictures and videos of company news and local or international events.
Not only is LillyTV an instant way to distribute company news, it reaches employees who don’t sit in front of a computer. “In manufacturing, people don’t have their own computer, they don’t sit at a desk often, so they don’t see the company website, e-mails or newsletters,” says Chris Bias, senior internal communications associate at Lilly. “But [now] they can get the information too, because it’s in their break room.”
Eli Lilly is using a cellular TV system from MediaTile, which has been around since 2002. Its website claims to offer “Digital Signs in a Box” that are easy to install and connect to a cellular network.
Internal communication needs to reach beyond just the desk or the break room. Repetition of the message should be delivered at home and to the family. Expanding your brand message to the circle of influence, or as Seth Godin calls it the Tribe. When done successfully, the entire family communicates your brand attributes in their social circle, thus expanding your sphere of influence.
Ideas to create a family of brand ambassadors include:
- Communication sent to the employee’s home that engages the entire family
- Text messaging or posting on an employee’s Facebook page to acknowledge a job well done or an anniversary date
- Posting a YouTube message to the employee and their family, again acknowledging the role they played in the company’s success
- Encouraging employees to bring family members to the office so as to engage further with your brand
- Sponsorship of employee softball teams, charitable events or other social activities sends a clear message that your brand is human
Western civilization craves information. Communicating the company brand promise, new initiative or sales goal, keeps everyone engaged and involved. Keeping the employee’s family engaged creates a supportive home environment. How you communicate is as important as what you communicate. And like the four way stop sign, when understood, it keeps everyone moving forward.
Tripping In The Dark
Tags: Brand Evolutionary, Brand Promise, Internal Communication, Vendor Relations
Posted in Customer Service, Internal Communication on February 16th, 2009
I had an interesting discussion over coffee with an executive in the waste management industry. We were talking about brand promises. Specifically, how do we ensure our front line people faithfully deliver the brand promise everyday?
He shared with me a story about how his wife had tripped in dimly lit hallway of a local restaurant. Her fall resulted in broken bones and a period of unconsciousness. (Since her husband is a reader of Mind Share, I’ll take this moment to wish her a speedy recovery.)
The restaurant manager sprung into action, calling an ambulance and assisting in everyway he knew how. He gave the husband his business card and said the restaurant will take care of everything. If the story had ended here I would be writing to tell you how this restaurant manager epitomized customer service and ultimately the delivery of the brand promise.
Unfortunately, and perhaps unknowingly, the restaurant brand took a decided turn for the worse. After the trip to the emergency room, doctor visits and follow-up care, a representative of the restaurant’s corporate office/insurance company contacted the executive. The first words out of the representative’s mouth were, and I paraphrase here, “Sir you must have misunderstood the manager. He did not say that we would take care of everything.”
With one phone conversation the brand perception of this restaurant changed. This brand damaging event did not need to happen. Failure to provide brand education to everyone in your organization and your contract suppliers can wreak havoc on your reputation.
Training every employee in the proper way to treat a customer is essential. Training your vendors to deliver your brand promise is a completely different challenge. When we partner with a third party supplier it is critical that we have the brand promise discussion as a component of the overall deliverables. Here are few a thoughts that can help reduce the odds of getting that angry call from a loyal customer.
- Make sure project managers, supervisors and all front line people understand the brand promise.
- Empower your team to make decisions quickly and remedy mistakes before they escalate.
- Coach staff on how to be empathetic to a customer’s pain.
- Timely and regular communication, internally and externally, can actually turn a negative situation into a positive experience for your customer.
- Senior involvement tells your customer that they are important.
- Secret shopping your vendors is a great way to audit the delivery of your expected products and services.
We all spend a great deal of time, thought and resources to ensure that our brand is communicated. Sometimes we forget customer touch points extend far beyond the sales, marketing and project managers. The last thing we need is for one of our customers to trip over failed communication because we kept a department or vendor in the dark about our brand promise.
