Your brand and your staff
All of your employees will play a crucial part in managing your brand because they can affect what customers and colleagues think of your business. Therefore, it is important to ensure that they understand your brand and believe in what it stands for. If they do, their actions will communicate this to other colleagues and customers.
Employees can become emotionally attached to brands, allowing for strong loyalties and even a sense of ownership. This can help maintain employee motivation and increase your sales, but it can also cause problems if you don’t consult them as your business grows.
For example, a jewellery company’s ‘Elegant’ range may be beautifully produced, stylishly packaged and glamorously advertised in glossy magazines. Its brand values could be ‘classy, special, and elegant’. However, if their staff are rude or unprofessional on the phone, customers won’t think about that jeweller’s elegance – they’ll think about their staff’s rudeness. As a result the brand – and possibly the business – will be undermined.
Keep your employees involved by setting up a suggestion scheme, or regularly taking the time to discuss your brand and how your business is performing.
Everytime an inbound call is received and everytime an outbound call is made your brand is exposed positively or negatively depending on the way that the call is made but how many companies provide training and guidance on such matters?
“This is pretty basic stuff, but as it is not visual, but largely hidden as what is being said at the other end isn’t known, it is an often overlooked area as the assumption is made that anybody can use the phone. True , but using it and using well reinforcing brand values are completely different” said Roderick Morgan
Continually reinforce the message that what they do is important and explain why. Make sure they know that if they break the promises your brand makes to customers – even just once – this can damage the brand and your business.