recognition & appreciation – Page 7 – Quality Service Marketing

Internal Marketing Fundamentals – Gaining Employee Commitment (Part 3 of 3)

Welcome to the last in this series on the 3 Rs of gaining employee commitment as the foundation of internal marketing:

Respect – give people the tools to do their jobs [see post 3-14-05]
Recognition – catch them doing something right [see last post]
Reinforcement – continually support a customer-focused culture.

3rd R: Reinforcement

This involves supporting the importance of customer-care in both word & deed. Consider the opportunities you have to share this message in verbal, print, and electronic communications — internal memos, staff meetings, intranet, special events, etc. For example, you can publish success stories of staff who go “above & beyond” when it comes to taking care of customers, recognizing employees as roles models or organizational heroes.

Unlikely media

Financial services giant MBNA has the words “Think like the customer” printed above the doorways in its offices to reinforce customer empathy.

QVC, the shopping channel, has an expression of its values inlaid in the floor of its headquarters: “Customer focus: exceeding the expectations of every customer.”

And a growing number of companies now include their mission statements and/or corporate values on the back of employee ID badges.

Special events

You can also reinforce customer importance through customer appreciation-type events. Such activities aren’t limited to for-profits — the U.S. Census Bureau celebrates Customer Service Week each October. Census Bureau marketing staff & employee committees explore creative ways to honor the Customer Service Week event with special activities. For example, field offices participate by creating customer-focused displays that are peer-judged on the Bureau’s intranet. Customer Service Week program books are published & distributed featuring service success stories submitted by customers and staff.

It just keeps going & going …

Organizations that successfully cultivate a customer-focused culture know it takes continual effort beyond just using internal media or special events. It also means management’s actions need to be consistent with its customer-focused message, whether on a daily basis or during extraordinary times.

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How does your organization reinforce a customer-focused culture? Let me know.

Gaining & maintaining employee commitment to serving customers involves an ongoing demonstration of respecting employees, recognizing their efforts, and continually reinforcement a customer-care orientation. This is the foundation of internal marketing.

Internal Marketing Fundamentals – Gaining Employee Commitment (Part 1 of 3)

In my initial post, I promised to share what’s involved in internal marketing, a concept focused on employee & customer care. Remember, if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.

The foundation of internal marketing is based on what I call the ‘3 Rs’ of gaining employee commitment:

Respect – give people the tools to do their jobs
Recognition – catch them do something right
Reinforcement – continually support a customer-focused culture.

This week I’ll start a series on each of the 3 Rs & how they underscore internal marketing.

1st R: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

An organization respects its employees when it gives them the tools & info they need to do their jobs. This involves communication, training, and empowerment.

Communication – people need to know what their organization stands for & what it’s all about (= mission), what its goals & objectives area, and what’s expected of them in helping to achieve these goals; i.e., how they fit in “the big picture.”

How can people be expected to contribute to an organization if they don’t know where it’s going and what’s expected of them in helping it get there?

Unfortunately, this type of communication is overlooked — it gets mentioned a few times and is assumed to be understood. So managers need to find ways to constantly reinforce employees’ fit in the organization, including explaining how their works contributes to customer satisfaction & the bottom line. (Substitute “stakeholder satisfaction & mission fulfillment” here for nonprofits.)

Training – respect also means helping employees develop/enhance relevant job skills. This includes:

training on how to do a specific job;
orientation to your organization and industry (it’s surprising how often the latter is ignored);
product knowledge training (features & benefits of your firm’s offerings);
interpersonal communications skills + customer relations skills training (also assumed);
and other ‘soft’ but important training like supervisory & management development.

And finally, respect means Empowerment – giving staff the latitude & authority to take care of customers (as well as other employees) without having to stop to ask permission every step of the way.

An easy way to remember Respect in this context is “explaining, training, and refraining” — explaining where employees fit in the organization & what’s expected of them … training them to do their jobs … then refraining from getting in their way.

It’s a no-brainer: employees who are properly equipped to do their jobs can better serve customers.

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How does your organization demonstrate respect for employees? Feel free to share your comments in response to this post.

And stay tuned for my next post on Recognition.