Quality Service Marketing

As discussed in my last post, there’s no getting around the reality that all employees are marketers in the sense that they all impact the brand.

The challenge for marketers involves managing this “expanded” marketing staff when you have no authority over them. Specifically, how do you overcome resistance to marketing when, in truth, it creates extra work for employees? Here’s what I recommend.

Getting ready

Before launching any marketing initiative, you need to:

• share the rationale behind your marketing programs, including communicating what you’re trying to do & why; i.e., no sugar-coating or BS allowed
• align marketing efforts with the big strategic picture to send the message “we’re all in this together”
• get employee input … and be sensitive & responsive to how their work will be affected by marketing
• provide the appropriate training (and perhaps incentives) so staff can effectively support marketing’s efforts.

While underway

Once your marketing program is implemented, you can’t just walk away. As part of your monitoring efforts:

• stay in touch with what employees need to keep the momentum going
• share the program’s success and any interim fine-tuning that needs to be done (and why)
• recognize & reinforce employee support of the program.

And when all is said and done

• share the final results, including what worked & why … what didn’t work & why … (another reason to stay in touch with employees, as previously mentioned)
• solicit employee feedback on ways to improve future initiatives
• acknowledge employee efforts and their collective contribution to serving customers in support of corporate strategy, not just marketing.

It’s all about marketing to non-marketing employees – another critical aspect of internal marketing.

It’s both a blessing and a curse: everyone in an organization has an impact on marketing. Especially when you consider how many brand contact points (aka “moments of truth” when customers interact with a company) are outside marketing’s control. For example, the customer who calls with a billing question and gets transferred to the wrong department or is treated rudely.

The Challenge of Marketing’s Expanded Reach

Because marketing ultimately serves as the customer’s advocate, it has to find ways to ensure everyone in the organization is customer-focused.

I find most marketers are good at this. However, where they sometimes fall short is a lack of sensitivity to employees who consider their brand-ambassador role as “other duties as assigned” (i.e., low on their list of priorities). In this case, marketers may fail to recognize that marketing is perceived as creating extra work for employees.

Head for the hills, here comes Marketing!

Here’s an example from my early bank career. Whenever the bank would launch a new deposit promotion (offering gifts to customers for opening a new account or adding to an existing one), most of the branch people were less than receptive.

Who could blame them? They had to meet daily operational standards for processing transactions, cross-selling goals for growth, customer-friendly guidelines for serving customers, etc., AND THEN they had to display, process, distribute & control inventory of whatever promotional items the Marketing Department sent their way: blankets, watches, umbrellas, toasters, etc. (At one bank, we even gave away a new car!  But that’s another story.)

Eventually, we learned how to deal with this so employees didn’t bar the doors & windows when they saw Marketing coming. And I’ll tell you how in my next post.

Thanks to research conducted by Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement, we have a new definition for internal marketing and insight on the values shared by companies with effective internal marketing programs..

The 2006 Internal Marketing Best Practices study also identified the following six key characteristics of internal marketing success:

• Senior management participation and buy-in is vital for any internal marketing initiative.
• An integrated organizational structure is needed for internal marketing to “encompass all employees in a company.”
• Internal marketing involves a deliberate strategic marketing approach similar to that used in external marketing.
• Internal marketing calls for a partnership with Human Resources.
• A focus on employee engagement helps create a “collaborative work environment where employees feel involved and motivated.”
• Internal brand communication is needed to convey the brand promise to employees and motivate them to deliver on the promise.

I encourage you to check out the Forum’s research on internal marketing and its critical impact on business success and profitability.

As promised in my last post, here are some of the key findings from the Internal Marketing Best Practice Study sponsored by the Forum for People Performance Management & Measurement.

The study was based on understanding effective internal marketing initiatives in U.S. companies in a variety of industries.  These companies all recognize and reinforce the critical role employees play in achieving organizational success.  As such, they share the following values:

• “People matter” – beyond the usual lip service, people really are important.  So these companies focus on creating a work environment “where people feel excited & rewarded” in their daily tasks.
• “Internal Marketing drives performance” – recognizing employees are extensions of the brand, the companies focus on maximizing the employee-customer satisfaction link.
• Anyone can make a difference – all employees count and should be recognized, not just senior management.
• “Employee loyalty is critical” – companies who are “transparent” about their challenges and strategic direction can maintain employee loyalty in difficult times.
• “Culture can be a competitive advantage” – internal marketing helps preserve a strong corporate culture.

I’ll share more of this internal marketing best practice study in my next post.