The Branding Process Pt. 3: Employees are a Key Factor

The Branding Process

Employees – The Kiss of Death to Brand

Your brand is the sum of all its parts. It is not just your logo, brochures, colors or the typical thoughts we have about you. It is everything your company does from answering the phone, to on hold messages, to the letter you send to get a lost client back. Brand is mind space compared to actual experiences. If the experience supports the brand – home run (Starbucks) if it does not support the brand – flop (America West/US Airways)

  • Develop an organization culture/philosophy: What are your five “Gold Standards” of service? How are they delivered, supported and reinforced?
  • Build and maintain brand consistency: How does each employee react at each touch point? What are the rules? Who reviews changes? Is everything you do communicating the brand? How about your invoice, statement and its outbound envelope? How about your paycheck?
  • Perfect practice makes perfect improvement:  Change takes time and small improvements should be rewarded. Don’t accept less than perfect. Make small things big deals and you will achieve lots of small changes. Small changes add up to major success. Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Set the standards and don’t compromise them: What are the standards for your clients as they serve their clients? What messages and brand are they using for you or against you? Teams have coaches to help their skills and create the right environment. Who is your coach and who is the brand compliance owner?
Your Employees can Hurt or Help your Branding Efforts.

Your Employees can Hurt or Help your Branding Efforts.

The Receptionist

Quite Possibly the Most Important Member of the Marketing Team

Here is a list of tips to make sure that answering the phone is a key marketing element.

  1. The voice on the phone is often the opportunity your business has to make a first impression. Don’t miss the opportunity.
  2. Make sure your voice has a smile in it. Keep a mirror on the desk. When you answer the phone, intentionally smile. It really is difficult to sound short, gruff, detached, etc. when you are smiling. Let that smile reach through the phone and truly welcome every person that calls. It takes some practice, but it works. Soon, you can put the mirror back in the drawer because once you cultivate the habit, it becomes second nature. The bonus with this is that you may actually find yourself smiling more all the time.
  3. If you need to use a script to start with when a new program is offered or you are featuring a new promotion use it, but try to get away from the scripted feel of it as soon as you can. Be natural, be yourself and yet still convey the information.
  4. Be especially aware when you use the words, “Thank You”, “Please” and “You’re Welcome” as well as “Thank you for calling”, “Good Morning”, “Good Afternoon” etc. These are the kinds of words and phrases that we use so frequently it is easy to let a bored tone slip into your speech. Intentionally speak these words with meaning. Let your personality shine through. Things that sound small and insignificant are not small or insignificant when we are talking about relationship marketing. It can be a cold world out there. A friendly, enthusiastic voice attracts. A bored, distracted, tired voice creates an immediate negative impression.
  5. When making outgoing calls always leave a message if you do not get an answer. It is extremely unprofessional to call someone and just hang up.
  6. 6. When we are talking about relationship marketing we are talking about every contact with every person at any and every point during the day. Customers, clients, vendors, competitors….everybody.

Each and every person can make their position significant by adding their own unique stamp on it and performing the daily tasks with energy and enthusiasm.

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