Employees as Brand Ambassadors

In my earlier article on Unappointed Brand Ambassadors, I had writen about how people who are external to the company act as Brand Ambassadors and how they affect the company brand value.

In a service organization - like the one I am working right now, the biggest brand ambassadors are employees who interact with customers on day-to-day basis. The common trade term for these people is "On-site Employees". Brand building via front-end employees has been a widely discussed subject. There are a great deal of books on Brand building. A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the Twenty-First Century by Scott Bedbury is my personal recommendation.

In this article I want to share my thoughts as a marketer. I think that in a services firm, a brand value is not a measure of how the marketing team wants to present the company but as actually consumers perceive it via their interaction with the employees of the service providers.

Especially for falling brands - nobody in the marketing teams of these companies implied to damage the brand. If a company experiences tough times, it is easy to blame the management but not always trivial to suggest a breaking out solution. However, the brand image is not always undermined by the lack of money. At least not always by money invested in tangible assets. Company culture, especially culture of company ambassadors, is the most influencing factor for the brand image.

Employees are the main Brand Ambassadors

Every employee in a company should understand, believe, and know that servicing customers and building positive perception is the most important factor gaining new or retaining existing customers - not a price of the product or service. The customers already have picked up the company when they compared prices and quality or analyzed other "dry" conditions of the deal. Even if they're still evaluating all this factors an average employee can't make many changes here. What he/she can still change to better or worse is its perception. Perception will remain with the customer or the prospect regardless of the momentary decision of getting the service or product.

Customer perception is something that ultimately defines the role of their recommendation - positive or negative - it's very discrete and rarely neutral. A phenomenon here is that the customers answer the recommendation question instantly but for the company it takes years to shape that image.

I believe that to build a positive image; an image for a company, It must take care for its customers. This is possible only when customer care is declared in its mission and the employees are well aware of its importance and well rewarded for extra steps and initiatives they undertake to pursue the mission. I'm sure in many cases it's not a question of additional money but additional steps that can be only invented by employees.

In case of Indian IT services companies, on-site employees have to play the role of company ambassadors. These employees must be presentable to the cutomer, have excepetionally good communication skills and importantly must have a service mentality. I encourage these on-site engineers to ask questions and understand the customer's intentions and objectives before starting full time on the project. Understanding customer's objectives will help the company do a better job, recommend superior solutions, avoid costly mistakes and win customer's loyality.

The following are a few examples what I've personally met in recent times.

Lufthansa senators (the highest frequent flier status) flying even in an economy are greeted by the chief attendant and thanked for flying Lufthansa personally. Of course, it's part of the policy but it costs to Lufthansa almost nothing and adds to the image of personal attention a lot. Why Delta doesn't do it to its platinum flyers?

Clerks at Marriott after checking-in go out of the stand, approach the guest, and hand the key personally, explaining locations the hotel services. 10 minutes later they give a call to the room offering additional help. Again, a small extra step to demonstrate the care that costs nothing but makes the customer feel special.

Delta customer service are usually very kind and willing to help. If the requested flight is not available they'll try to offer you so many options taking into account your needs that you'll feel not comfortable after a while of keeping them on line so long and not taking anything. If you call the service and it doesn't happen to you simply try another one - it's not part of the instructions but 90% of the agents do it as part of their job. Isn't it strange that Delta customer service has such a good name but Delta itself is in trouble?

A travel agency answered a ticket price question (asked via e-mail) formally correct - by providing the price. It didn't mention that there are no seats available for the requested date - the customer found it in the next e-mail (answered another day). Why couldn't the clerk, answering the e-mail, demonstrate a bit of initiative, mention that there is no seats for the requested flight, and offer a couple of available options? She didn't have it in the instructions...

Company ambassadors

People directly interacting with customers must have the mission of leaving the customers pleased (if not always satisfied) in their blood. They're the ones who only can suggest small but very valuable improvements. They should treat every customer as if she were their best friend - not giving a discount but providing the best advice and care they ever can give. Having direction instructions handy instead of getting a formal location's address, offering to return a call (instead of asking customer to call back), finding a zip code in the Internet (instead of asking to complete forms and come again) - all these simple additional steps can be undertaken by employees themselves without special policies or permission from the boss. It doesn't take too much time but adds a great value to the word of mouth about the company.

Closing Thoughts

Customers drive to a facility of FedEx (even if a competitor is across the street), they take a Lufthansa flight with connections (even if a competitor has a direct one), they select trusted IT service provider (even if a competitor one is cheaper). Brands are built by trust and care. If the former is mostly up to the company's policy and strategy, the later is mostly up to the ambassadors i.e. up to each employee to create the right perceptions.