Tag: corporate culture

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing’s Critical Connections (Part 3)

So far this posting series has focused on connecting employees to their organizations as well as within their organizations.  This week I’ll address the last of Internal Marketing’s Critical Connections — connecting employees with customers.

Customer-Focus is Key

It’s no secret that customers judge an organization and its brand by how well they’re treated by everyone in the organization they come in contact with.  When asked why consumers switched companies, one study found that nearly 70% left because they felt the attention they got from the company was poor or they hardly got any attention at all!

Connecting employees with customers — ensuring employees are customer-focused — is a key component of internal marketing.

What does being customer-focused really mean?

It’s understanding your customers (including knowing who they are and what they want from your company), and it’s being attentive and responsive to their needs.  To achieve even a basic level of customer-focus, employees need to be educated about your customers.  They need to know:

  • Who your customers are
  • Why they come to your organization in the first place
  • How they feel about your organization — from customer complaints, feedback, and satisfaction surveys.  (See Pop Quiz: Customers 101.)

The more your employees know about your customers, they better they can serve them.  So don’t forget to get employee input on how to improve customer satisfaction.

Here’s a thought-provoking starter question you can use in staff meetings.  Ask employees: If you were head of this organization, what are the three things you would do to improve customer service or satisfaction?

Some other ways to connect employees with customers:

  • Host an “Open House” where you invite customers to your place of business to meet & mingle with staff.  I remember hearing about a small company that would host small groups of clients on Friday afternoons (tied-in with the firm’s casual day) for a social hour.
  • On a much larger scale, General Motors Saturn car division hosts an annual get together of Saturn car owners.
  • One of my favorite examples is QuadGraphics, a Wisconsin-based printing firm that hosts a three-day “camp” where customers attend educational seminars and fun events to learn about printing processes… they also learn more about the company and connect with its staff.
  • At some catalog companies, employees will “mystery shop” the competition.  They actually shop their competitors to learn what it’s like to call & place an order (either by phone or online), check out merchandise quality, or see what’s involved in handling a return.  The value of this exercise (where appropriate & applicable) is that employees develop empathy for the customer experience + gain insight on how to improve their company’s own operations.

These internal marketing tools can be used with all employees, not just those with customer contact.  But non-contact staff pose a unique challenge — in what additional ways can you connect them to customers?

I’ll cover that in the last post of this series.

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Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing’s Critical Connections (Part 2 – continued)

Building relationships among employees throughout the workplace enables them to feel connected within the organization.  Communication is a key ingredient in this process – sharing information within and across departmental silos to let people know what others are doing in the organization to help it move forward.

Trading Places

Role switching is another effective way to build internal relationships and appreciation for other employees. 

  • UPS sales reps accompany drivers on delivery runs, and drivers will go out on sales calls with the reps.  Sales reps gain appreciation on the experience of package delivery (and brand promise fulfillment), while drivers gain insight on what new accounts are looking for (including what it takes to land a new account).
  • Once a year, corporate employees from Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar work a shift at one of their restaurants.
  • I don’t know if they still do this, but Hyatt Hotels used to observe an “In Touch” Day where corporate staff went into the field to work in one of their hotel facilities – working alongside housekeeping, bell staff, catering, check-in or check-out.

The value of these programs is that they help build empathy for other staff, reinforcing teamwork and a sense of common purpose.  The combination of any such initiative to create a sense of appreciation and respect among co-workers, along with internal communications, helps strengthen employee relationships.  That’s what connecting employees within their organizations is all about.

Coming soon: the last in this series of Internal Marketing’s Critical Connections — connecting employees with customers.

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Engagement Marketing

Art Imitating Life

Check out AirTran Airways ad: “Fired” created by Cramer-Krasselt advertising about an employee who gets a phone call from his boss telling him he’s fired. The boss is living it up at a conference when he makes the call. Then you see the fired-employee getting on an AirTran flight to the conference. Just as the boss is making his speech about how important employees are and how profits are up (yadda … yadda … ), the employee rushes across the stage to tackle the guy. (Right on!)

Unfortunately, too many organizations claim employees as their number one asset, but it’s only lip service.

According to Dilbert creator Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle, guess what line holds the #1 spot on the list of “Great Lies of Management?” It’s none other than “Our employees are our most valuable asset.”

Human capital … don’t you just love that term? Living, breathing “assets” or pure overhead? … What’s more important than what an organization calls its people is how it treats them. The truly smart, successful organizations are those who value both their customers AND their employees, and they demonstrate their commitment to both groups in their culture and operations. It’s what internal marketing is all about.

 

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Engagement Marketing Musings

Warm & Fuzzy Marketing? Get Real!

Since this is my first post on the new Quality Service Marketing blog, I wanted to tell you about my concept of internal marketing.  It can best be summed up by this quote from hotelier J. W. Marriott: “Take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your customers.”

It’s a philosophy and corporate culture espoused by Marriott and many others (whom I’ll be citing over time in this blog). And it’s based on the premise that the way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel.

What’s amazing to me is the reaction I get from some executives when I talk about internal marketing. You can see their eyes glaze over as they say to themselves, “Here it comes, the old ‘warm & fuzzy’ stuff.”

On the contrary, it’s not ‘warm & fuzzy’ but crystal clear in that customer relations mirrors employee relations. Here’s the bottom line: if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers!

Unfortunately, too many organizations claim employees as their number one asset, but don’t walk the talk. In this day and age where employees are expected to create a positive experience for customers and deliver on the brand promise, managers can no longer afford to pay lip service to employees. Employees can tell the difference and so can customers!

I’ll have more to share in future posts …