Category: Marketing

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Marketing

Blog Anniversary & Interview with Toby Bloomberg

This post marks the beginning of my 8th year of blogging. To celebrate this milestone, I’m delighted to interview Toby Bloomberg, who inspired me to start this blog in 2005 and continues to be my inspiration in social media. Toby is a strategic social media consultant & trainer, author of Diva Marketing and Social Media Marketing GPS, and founder of All The Single Girlfriends.

QSM: Let’s start with how business blogging has evolved over the past eight years. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen during this time period?

Toby: One of the current challenges I’m seeing is that with the ease and ubiquity of social networks, people are concerned if blogs are still a valid initiative in terms of longevity of the tool. In other words, are blogs on their way out? No marketer wants to invest time in a tactic that will be here today and gone tomorrow.

With blogs the challenges that we faced when businesses first stepped into the blogosphere are still the challenges that many face today. Blogs and social media frequently impact the dynamics of an organization and its culture. We’ve learned that creating an internal structure that supports and integrates social media is not nice to have but critical. How that is developed depends on the enterprise, but the first step should be creating company-wide “bumper” guidelines. (These are guidelines for simplicity that help people to not fall over the edge when creating content or responding to comments.)

How to create and manage communications that are based on what I call “selfless content,” instead of marketing messaging, is often a new direction for traditional marketers. The challenge is how to tell the story of the brand – including the people who are the brand (employees and customers) – through relevant, value-added content.

QSM: With all the content competing for attention in social media space, does business blogging still make sense?

Toby: Here’s the marketer’s response: it depends. It depends on several factors, starting with can a blog support your business/marketing goals and objectives?

Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even LinkedIn have capitalized on our society’s short attention span. While “short” posts and updates are fast to write (and to read), blogs offer an opportunity to explore issues in more depth. There is no better way to establish, reinforce and sustain thought-leadership positioning.

Keep in mind that with social networks you don’t “own” the platform … you’re a “renter” which means you must abide by the rules of the network. Although Facebook allows for branded pages, with the others following suit, you are still at the mercy of another company’s vision. If you own the blog software, however, you have full control of branding, content guidelines and how you’ll manage customer relationships.

QSM: Since this blog is about internal marketing & communications, please share your thoughts on how blogging, tweeting and other forms of social media have affected organizational communications and engagement.

Toby: As I mentioned before, blogs and social media are catalysts for internal organizational change. The new open communication among people in the enterprise demands that new cross-functional communication systems are established among departments and business units. The exciting result is that social media can be a great team builder.

Social media opens the door for all employees, not just those in marketing, to understand the brand values and promise at a “DNA” level. In order to make that happen takes commitment from management, training and continuous sharing of strategic direction. At the end of the day people know each other better, know the company better and go out into the social world with confidence as brand champions.

QSM: And who doesn’t want to foster brand champions these days? Thank you, Toby, for reinforcing the value of business blogging. As my blog & social media mentor, you get the first slice of my blog anniversary cake!

 

 

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Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Just Born

Although I work primarily in the services sector, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to showcase Just Born, manufacturer of “quality confections” including well known brands Peeps®, Mike & Ike®, Hot Tamales®, and Peanut Chews®. The company made headlines in the business press and blogosphere last year when it sent one of its sales teams to Fargo ND for falling just short of its sales goals.

Just Born is based in the Lehigh Valley, PA area where I reside, so I’m familiar with the company and its commitment to the local community. The business was founded in 1923 and now employs more than 500 associates. In response to the growing popularity of its brands, including the cult status of its marshmallow Peeps®, the company will soon open its second branded retail store.

The more I learn about Just Born from a business perspective, the more I continue to be impressed. So I sat down with co-CEO Ross Born to gain more insight into the company’s operating philosophy and culture.

QSM:  Just Born’s vision is “Continuing as a family-owned confectionery company, our commitment is to be a market-driven, quality business enhancing our reputation as a progressive, ethical and respected employer, manufacturer, marketer, and member of the community.” I notice that you list your role as an employer first.

Ross Born: If you have the right people, they’re number one. You take care of them, they’ll take care of your customers. They’ll make sure the product is right; they’ll make sure they’re treating the customers right. We look for people that really care about what we do, that care about our brands. Just Born’s two most important assets are our brands and our people who nurture the brands.

QSM: When I read your company’s philosophy, I was struck by the frequent mention of employee engagement-related statements such as:

  • We believe vision, compassion, courage, and integrity are the cornerstones upon which we build each day and each endeavor.
  • We believe in building and sustaining an environment where people, ideas, and creativity can flourish.
  • We believe in promoting a healthy and safe work environment.
  • We believe trust is the foundation of all personal, interpersonal, and organizational achievement, and the building and maintaining of trust is our top priority.
  • We believe great things happen when everyday courtesy, kindness, and humor are woven into all our personal and professional interactions.
  • We believe in treating others as we would like to be treated, creating a common connection from co-worker to customer to consumer to community.
  • We believe in nurturing respectful relationships with one another and encouraging the best in each other.

Caring about people is really important at Just Born, isn’t it?

Ross: Let me respond first by sharing an experience I had when talking to a group of middle school students. They asked me what I do at work, what are the important things I do. They were surprised when I told them ‘I say hello to people. I know people’s names.’ They were expecting me to talk about the reports I read, the meetings I go to, and the decisions that needed to be made. I do all those things, but the most important is I care about people.

It’s not enough to say ‘we care about our people,’ they have to know that they’re cared about. I remember visiting a company that was decorated with motivational posters. As I was reading some of them, an employee walking past me whispered, ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’

Part of caring is giving people the right tools and in the right environment. It’s also about doing the right thing. For example, we had a situation with a water main break that occurred as a result of construction on someone else’s property nearby. We had to send people home and lost two days of production, but we paid those scheduled to work those days. It wasn’t a matter of ‘let’s check out our insurance coverage first.’ I didn’t want our people to wait until we got paid by the insurance company. Even though the situation was out of our control, it was our responsibility to ensure our people were taken care of. That’s an example of putting actions to our words that we care about our people. If we had waited to see what the insurance company would do, that would have sent a message that we care more about money than our people.

QSM: Another part of your philosophy states, “We believe there is much to learn from one another and much to teach one another.” Tell us more about how you live this philosophy.

Ross: We provide a lot of training and cross-training. One of our ongoing in-house programs is our High Performance Leadership Development training that emphasizes effective decision making, problem-solving, communication and coaching skills, along with continuous improvement tools. More than 140 people have gone through the program so far. We’ll soon be introducing the program for everyone, including all our production people. Participants in this training apply what they learn in individual and group projects that they come up with, and the projects have to be of measurable benefit.

QSM: I know Just Born is also committed to the local community.

Ross: We care about our community; having a strong community is essential for a strong business. We encourage volunteerism – giving back to the community. Volunteering builds character in addition to promoting camaraderie among our associates. More than half of our associates are active, regular volunteers in projects ranging from packing meals at the food bank (very popular) to cleaning the kennels at an animal rescue shelter. Community projects involve associates from all parts of our business, and some are team based.  Everyone of our associates is given 24 hours per year of paid time to volunteer, and a significant majority of our associates also volunteer on their own time.

At Just Born we believe it’s possible to be socially responsible while maintaining a growing, profitable candy business. We’re doing it!

QSM: Now that’s what I call a sweet approach where everyone benefits. Thanks for sharing, Ross!

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Tribute to Bob Wood

This weekend, I lost a hero. I share my sorrow with the Lehigh Valley PA community in the loss of a beloved friend and philanthropist: Bob Wood.

Bob was the former Chairman of Wood Dining Services, a large regional food service management company based in Allentown PA.  Prior to becoming part of Sodexho, Wood Dining Services employed more than 15,000 people serving more than 500 accounts in 28 states – with an impressive 99% client retention rate!

I had the privilege of working for The Wood Company many years ago as a training consultant and learned of the company’s people-first commitment. Bob was the epitome of an engaged and engaging leader who truly cared about his employees and customers. He maintained a corporate culture that was best described on the back of one of the birthday cards it sent to employees:

“The Wood Company’s recipe for success is developing and nurturing its people. We value and understand the difference they can make in pleasing our customers. We believe in celebrating our people’s success and important events in their lives.”

Making people feel valued

I interviewed Bob for my first book, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care.  Bob & company were featured in a chapter on how internal marketing could be woven through “ordinary, everyday activities rather than extraordinary events.” Internal marketing wasn’t a distinctive approach practiced at The Wood Company – it was something Bob did intuitively.

Here is one of my favorite stories about Bob and the power of employee recognition. Bob spent a lot of time in the field visiting clients and staff. In his pocket he carried a handful of small gold plastic pins in the shape of pineapples, the international symbol for hospitality that was also part of the Wood Company’s brand. Whenever he saw an employee doing something right, he gave that person a gold pineapple pin. Bob said he never ceased to be amazed at the employees’ reaction when he gave out the pineapple pins.

“I think these pins cost 47 cents … but these people think you gave them a pile of gold. Everyone wants to be part of something … everyone wants to feel that they are valued, that they made a difference. To the degree we can celebrate our people, that’s our greatest tool.”

In making people feel that they mattered, Bob, you made an incredible difference. I am honored to have known you and will continue to celebrate your memory in my book and workshops.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

What I Did on My Summer (Blog) Vacation

Thank you for your patience during my blog break. What did I accomplish this summer?

Most of my time was spent researching and writing several chapters for my new book on how nonprofits can use internal marketing to engage employees and volunteers. I interviewed colleagues and experts in the field and will connect with more of them this fall.

As part of my research, I read the following books (and I highly recommend them):

In addition to keeping up with my client work, I managed to get in a few days of vacation and enjoyed spending time with friends and family.

Hope you had a great summer!

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Engagement Marketing

Special Request Over My Summer Blog Break

Note to my loyal blog followers:

It’s time for my annual break since blog traffic is typically slower in summer. What’s special about this year’s break is that I’ll be using the time to research and write my new book for nonprofits: Engaging Nonprofit Employees, Volunteers, and Consumers: A Manager’s Guide to Inside-Out Marketing (the “working title” at this stage).

Please let me know if you want to share any good or bad examples of internal marketing in nonprofit organizations. The “good” examples of nonprofits that effectively engage staff and volunteers (including board members) I choose to use in this book may include the organizations’ names, pending their permission. However, I won’t name nonprofits with “bad” examples of what not to do when it comes to engagement or, conversely, how to alienate staff, volunteers, and (ultimately) consumers.

Note to new readers:

Welcome! I hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore my blog that offers an abundance of thoughtful content – more than six years worth! I also invite you to share good and/or bad examples of nonprofit engagement.

See you in September

I’ll return to posting this fall with new content – including updates on my new book. In the meantime, enjoy the summer!

 

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Engagement Marketing

Tribute to a Services Marketing Leader

This is a special post that pays public tribute to one of my mentors, Dr. Stephen W. Brown. Steve recently retired from Arizona State University as a well-respected marketing professor, researcher, and founder of the Center for Services Leadership in ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

Before I tell you how I met Steve, here’s a bit of background. Steve Brown is internationally known for his pioneering research and thought leadership in services marketing and management, service recovery, and building a service mindset in product-dominated companies. He is a founder of the Center for Services Leadership (CSL) which he helped grow to become one of the premier centers of research and education in services marketing and management. (I highly recommend CSL’s annual Compete Through Service Symposium and Services Leadership Institute. ) As a result of his research and leadership contributions to the field, Steve received numerous international and university-wide recognition, including honorary doctorates from Finland’s HANKEN School of Economics and Sweden’s Karlstad University.

Mentor, Advisor, and Sounding Board

I feel privileged to have learned so much from Steve even though I was never in one of his classrooms. I first met Steve in 1983 when he was President-Elect of the American Marketing Association. I was newly elected to the AMA Board of Directors and learned a lot from Steve’s leadership style. He laid out an inspiring vision for the marketing association based on the profession’s growth and its role in the emerging field of services marketing and customer satisfaction. Shortly before I took office as AMA Chair-Elect in 1996, I met with Steve to gain insight on leading the association.

My career path closely followed the growth of services marketing as a new field, and Steve was most generous in sharing his research and helping me learn about this new discipline. I also reached out to Steve for advice before I launched my business as a services marketing consultant (more than 20 years ago) and when I wrote my first book on internal marketing.

I am fortunate to have benefited from his guidance and friendship. And I am only one of many students and marketing professionals who have been helped by this man throughout his distinguished career. How lucky for us that in your new role as Emeritus Professor, you’ll continue to be involved with the Center for Services Leadership.

Thank you, Dr. Stephen W. Brown, for giving so much of your time to teach, guide, and inspire. Best wishes in your well-deserved retirement!

Categories
Marketing

“Small Message, Big Impact” – A Helpful Guide to the Elevator Speech

A major challenge for most business professionals is mastering the art of the elevator speech – a three minute (or less) introduction that tells people who you are, what you do, and why they should consider doing business with you. I’ve spent many years trying to craft the perfect elevator speech; for me it’s become an ongoing work-in-progress.

That’s why I was interested in Terri L. Sjodin’s new book Small Message, Big Impact that will be released in June 2011. [Disclosure: I received a free advance copy of this book for review.]

Of all the “how-to” books and blog posts I’ve read on this topic to date, Sjodin’s book is one of the most helpful. She describes different types of elevator speeches and the different ways you can use them. She then outlines a practical process to help people craft their own concise messages, including language mechanics such as “speech supports” and “rhetoric devices.” While Sjodin’s explains each step with examples and sample worksheets, it all came together for me at the end of the book where she illustrates the complete process. I also found value in the last chapter entitled “Nuggets of Advice and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.”

So, have I perfected my elevator speech as a result of reading this book? Not quite yet … but I will get there using the insight and tools shared in Small Message, Big Impact.

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Marketing

Marketing’s 4 P’s: Then & Now

As I refreshed my training material in preparation for my next AMA Marketing Boot Camp, I got to thinking about the ways marketing has changed since I started teaching this program more than ten years ago.

Marketing’s traditional “4 Ps” framework – Product (what you offer), Price (what you charge), Promotion (how you communicate it) and Place (where the customer obtains the product/service) – has changed significantly over the past 10+ years with the rapid growth of social media. Here are a few highlights of these changes.

Product
Then: consumers depended on product information primarily from the manufacturer. Satisfied and dissatisfied consumers shared their joy or frustration with traditional word-of-mouth – influencing dozens, maybe even hundreds of people in their local network.

Now: consumers rely on word-of-mouse to obtain product info and instantaneously share their experiences with millions of people in community-based and global networks.

Price
Then: comparison price shopping took serious time and effort.

Now: it’s much faster and easier to obtain pricing info with online research and mobile apps.

Place
Then: consumers enjoyed new-found convenience as shopping opportunities grew from bricks-and-mortar to clicks-and-mortar.

Now: consumers enjoy the any time/any place convenience of shopping and entertainment, including downloading music, movies, and books. They can also acquire knowledge via an infinite number of podcasts, webinars, and (my new favorite) TedTalks.

Promotion
Then: consumers were no longer passive recipients of promotional messages as they enjoyed skipping over commercials using technology offered by digital video recorders.

Now: some consumers are increasingly immune to marketing messages, although some enjoy participating in message development (“make-your-own-commercials”) and brand advocacy (fan pages).

Beyond CRM
Technology and social media have enabled customer relationship management (CRM) to evolve from “What more can we sell to consumers?” to “How can we more effectively engage them?” Hence, the new 5th P of marketing: Participation.

I welcome your thoughts on how marketing has changed in the past 10+ years.

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Mohonk Mountain House (Part 2)

This post continues my interview with Jackie Appeldorn, General Manager of Mohonk Mountain House, a family owned resort and historic property in New Paltz, NY. Mohonk is known for outstanding guest service, and I can personally attest to its warm and welcoming hospitality. My husband and I have enjoyed staying at Mohonk for the past several years and plan to continue our annual visits there.

QSM: Jackie, in our previous interview you described employee involvement in perpetuating a guest service culture. Please share one of your favorite Mohonk stories of employee-customer care.

Jackie: Earlier, I referred to a quarterly publication titled Mohonk Bits that is produced by employees for employees. One of the regular features of the publication singles out an employee who provided exemplary service. (We provide a $50 award to the individual who is singled out in the article.) Rather than repeat the story in my words, I’ll share the entire article from our current issue. It not only provides a wonderful example of one of our employees taking the initiative to “Save the Situation” (one of our 14 Service Steps), it also offers some insight into the way our employees view one another and what we do here. The individual cited here for exemplary service is a Mohonk valet.

About Legendary Service
by Alex Sherwood, Mohonk Director of Recreation

It was a Saturday in late November and I had pulled the MOD [Manager on Duty] card. Prepared with a fresh from the cleaner’s shirt, tie, and awesome staff, I was ready to take on the day. The shift had started smoothly, and the Mohonk operation was up and running like a well-oiled machine. Guests were having a great time, and staff were meeting or exceeding their expectations … then I received the call from Guests Services!

“93, Manager on Duty? Could you please call Guest Services?”

With cat-like reflexes, like all our MODs, I was already dialing the 2015 extension before the radio transmission was complete. What I heard on the other end was a fellow employee putting into motion the action team we have in place to take care of challenging situations, and by the tone of this request a challenge this was going to be.

As I gathered what information I could, I armed myself with the LEARN defense system [“Listen – Empathize – Apologize – Resolve – And Never prove a guest wrong”] and made my way to Guests Services, where I was told the guest needing assistance would be. The background to this point was there were two Fed Ex packages which this guest had shipped out the day prior that had not been delivered to their respective parties. As I arrived to the desk, there stood a guest, who by her body language was easy to identify as the earlier mentioned challenge. Immediately this person turned and, with a small chuckle, remarked: “Looks like you’re the one they sent to take care of this… good luck!”

As soon as this guest had been turned over to me, you could quickly see many others scattering for something else to do, as the guest explained how, upon arrival the day before, she had dropped two Next Day Fed Ex packages at Guest Services to be delivered that morning, and according to her, one of these recipients had called to inform her the package had not arrived. This guest had come to Guest Services to find that both packages were indeed still in our possession. It quickly was apparent that why this happened was of little importance; what we were going to do to fix it was all that mattered.

Through a little further conversation this guest revealed the contents of the first package contained New York Knicks tickets for Saturday’s game which tipped off at 1:05 pm. It was now 12:15 pm, and I was pretty sure I was doomed on this one and prepared myself for the guest’s whipping. As the sense of defeat overwhelmed me, in walked David Kelso from Guest Services, with his hand raised in the air to get my attention.

What follows may be one of the all-time greatest “Save the Situations” ever conceived. Dave pulled me aside and informed me that he had taken it upon himself to open the package, retrieve the two game tickets, place a call to Madison Square Garden’s ticket office, introduce himself, and explain the situation he was trying to resolve. He then faxed copies of the tickets to the ticket office and received confirmation the tickets could now be redeemed by the person who was to receive the tickets in the first place.

Armed with this bit of information I was able to inform the guest that a resolution to the first part of the problem had been found. In disbelief the guest questioned, “How could this be?” I explained to her what David had done and said she could inform her client they could still make the 1:05 tip off. With a phone call, the client was on the way to the game. David’s fast thinking and willingness to create a solution to the problem turned a complete loss around to a positive resolution … which may be talked about for many years to come. It was amazing to have a staff member who was willing to assist in resolving the challenge.

Great job, Dave!

QSM: Thank you, Jackie, for your time in sharing a bit of what makes Mohonk such an exceptional place. I look forward to seeing you and your wonderful staff on my next visit!

Categories
Customer service Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Mohonk Mountain House (Part 1)

One of my favorite vacation spots is a sprawling castle that sits amid thousands of acres of beautiful land nestled in upstate New York. Mohonk Mountain House is a family owned resort facility that was founded in 1869 by Albert Smiley and is recognized as a National Historic Landmark. In its fourth generation of family leadership, Mohonk maintains “19th century charm” while offering 21st century amenities (including a fabulous spa). Mohonk provides its guests with exceptional service and hospitality and has received numerous industry accolades, including recognition by Conde Nast Traveler’s  Readers’ Choice Awards and Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards.

My husband and I have enjoyed visiting Mohonk as returning guests for several years now, and we continue to be impressed with the its commitment to service excellence and hospitality. After our last visit, I contacted Jacquelyn Appeldorn, Mohonk Mountain House General Manager, and she graciously agreed to a blog interview. Jackie has served in this position for 11 years and oversees a staff of up to 750 full-time and part-time employees. (The total number of employees fluctuates seasonally in this year round operation.)

Part 1 of this interview provides insight into Mohonk’s service culture and how the organization engages employees in maintaining this culture. Part 2 will feature a special follow up.

QSM: Jackie, please tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be at Mohonk Mountain House (MMH).


Jackie: I’ve had two tenures at MMH. While I was in college, I started working in the Mohonk Mountain House dining room for what I then expected would be a summer job. I worked there for a few summers while in college, and then stayed for another 15 years, as I progressed through the organization. I was a vice president when I left to take a position on the faculty in the business department of a nearby community college (teaching had long been my career aspiration), where I remained for 9 years. During this time, I joined the Board of Directors at Mohonk, and then was offered the General Manager position. Although I enjoyed college teaching, the offer represented a unique opportunity, and I still am honored to be here.

QSM: Mohonk has been serving guests for more than 140 years. How do you apply this tradition of service in current times?

Jackie: We have a long tradition of serving guests. When we were designing our Service Program in 2003, we determined we needed to create a Service Statement: a brief but inclusive message that all employees could recite and understand that accurately articulated our vision of service at Mohonk; almost a mission statement for our service program. We spent many hours struggling over what it should say and really needed and wanted it to be perfect.

One day, our archivist presented our Executive Group with a document dated June 19, 1916, and signed AK Smiley (the nephew of the first AK Smiley who founded the resort in 1869). At the top was the phrase “MEMORANDUM IN EFFECT UNTIL FUTHER NOTICE …” In the body of the memo, we found our Service Statement: “The cardinal aim of our business is the comfort and contentment of guests.” Mr. Smiley’s memo provided a blue print for the right way for employees to behave in the workplace and to treat guests, which is just what we intended our Service Program to do. The behaviors addressed in his memo are some of the same behaviors our program addresses almost 90 years later.

QSM: The hospitality industry employs people around the clock. What are the key challenges of engaging staff in a 24/7 operation? And how do you prepare to meet these challenges?

Jackie: The biggest challenge in this regard is communication. I feel all of us spend so much of our time in meetings, and we still don’t convey everything we want our staff to know – and what they want to know — on a timely basis. One element of our Service Program was the introduction of Daily Shift Briefings, a brief activity intended to take place at the start of every employee’s work shift that provides key information about that day’s events, activities to reinforce specific service practices (we have 14 Service Steps and 3 Service Standards) and trivia about Mohonk history.

As our Service Program evolved, we added a quarterly employee publication called Mohonk Bits (initiated and produced by non-managerial employees) and a weekly cafeteria tabletop flyer, known as Tidbits. These publications do more than relay information; they emphasize our traditions and service commitment, highlight successes (individual and organizational), convey historical anecdotes (as a 142- year-old family-owned business, history is important to us) and reinforce our pride in what all of us do at Mohonk.

QSM: Tell us more your Service Program and Service Committee: why it was formed … its purpose … who is involved … what are some typical activities … and its overall impact.

Jackie: Mohonk’s Service Program was the result of a well-planned, thoughtfully considered, comprehensive initiative to change the culture that existed at that time to one that values and exhibits a high standard of service to guests as well as co-workers. Developing and launching the plan took about two years and involved many employees throughout the organization. Once the program was launched, a newly created Service Committee took on organizational responsibility for maintaining and nurturing the service culture.

We all recognize our individual roles in perpetuating our service culture, but this committee is charged with developing and executing activities on a regular basis that provide on-going, consistent reinforcement of good service behavior. Our Training Manager, who works in the HR department, now chairs the committee. Most departments have a representative who volunteered or may have been invited by other committee members to join. Members can rotate off, which exposes a greater number of employees to the function of the committee. The committee is composed of supervisory or management staff, although not senior management, and the occasional hourly employee.

Members meet weekly and plan monthly programs, holiday events, and on-going activities. For example, they create two annual all-employee events. The one in November has evolved into The Parlor Games; past themes have been Jeopardy, professional wrestling, and the Dating Game. These games feature contests involving volunteers and members of the audience that reinforce our Service Steps and Standards. Every May, the committee produces the annual Albert Awards, the Mohonk version of the Oscars, where individual employees receive awards (an Albert statue, cash and prizes) for Best Performance in each of our 14 Service Steps. We award two for each category – one to “front of the house” employees, those that regularly deal with guests; and one to back-of-the-house employees, who work behind the scenes and are more apt to serve co-workers. We run each of these events once in the morning and again in the afternoon to allow employees working both shifts to attend. These two annual events are elaborate productions, much enjoyed and anticipated by the staff.

An example of a monthly service program is Cash Cab. This program reinforces the service step of “Escort Guests to their Destination.” Throughout the month, a member of the Service Committee drives around picking up employees in the parking lot to drive them to the entrance. (The parking lots are a long downhill walk from the entrance.) On the trip, employees have a chance to win prizes by answering questions about Mohonk (reinforcing the Service Step “Be Knowledgeable About House History.”)

Another popular monthly program is when management staff replaces the cafeteria servers at meals. An additional ongoing activity is the awarding of “Summerhouse Tickets” (Mohonk’s logo is a summerhouse). Managers receive tickets each month to award to employees they catch in the act of providing good service. Ticket recipients are entered into a monthly raffle for prizes.

We have 15 people on the Service Committee who perform their regular jobs in addition to the work they do for the Service Committee (unlike academia, we don’t offer release time for work outside of one’s job description). The committee and the individual members are highly regarded. We are very, very fortunate to have such creative, motivated, dedicated and hardworking staff members who are eager to serve on the committee. The programs and activities that they develop, and that we as a company support, do much to create an energized, positive work atmosphere.

QSM: Impressive! Thanks, Jackie, for sharing how Mohonk engages employees in reinforcing its culture of guest service. We look forward to learning more.

Note: Stayed tuned for Part 2 of this interview in which Jackie shares an employee story of service recovery.