We all hope that your associates embody your brand. However, do you sometimes fear that employees don’t quite measure up to your brand’s image? When you achieve parity between brand and how your employees interact with customers, it pays off. When associates don’t mirror your brand, it costs companies plenty.
Social media customer interactions constantly evolve and serve to build the brand. According to Invesp’s State of Social Media Consumer – Statistics & Trends, 59% of Americans believe that social media has made customer service easier. Additionally, 33% of Americans prefer to utilize social media than to call a company about customer service issues. Although social media creates impact, one fact remains the same: retail level associates remain a large part of the brand experience. In increasingly competitive environments with fast service expectations and sweeping technological changes, the store continues to be a mainstay.
Monitoring a brand’s social media can be a complicated daily affair for managers. Confero now offers a time saving social media monitoring program along with social media customer experience brand evaluations. We all know that a customer’s experience begins long before they arrive at your retail location via your website and social media, right? Does that all align with your branding experience expectations?
Examples of Brands Incorporating Branding Into Customer Service
In the restaurant industry, there is a strong trend toward building a restaurant’s brand identity and defining the expected customer experience. Recently in Nation’s Restaurant News, they shared a detailed article about developing your customer’s experience with your restaurant locations. One restaurant chain that has worked to develop their brand experience Quaker Steak & Lube, employees “blend in” with diners and exemplify the company brand. When you dine there, you won’t see servers in uniforms but you will see kitchen doors that remain open in the restaurants.
In the banking industry, employees who offer coffee embody the brand by providing a personalized and small community feel. Capital One has certainly capitalized on this with their cafes.
For a healthcare provider, employees who go the extra mile in providing personal and compassionate care may be considered the company’s top brand ambassadors. In fact, LinkedIn now shares a primer on how to and the importance of customer service. Their page “How can you provide better customer support by being more empathetic and compassionate?” speaks to the importance of this aspect of customer service, doesn’t it?
Customers Experience Your Brand through Employees
Regardless of the type of brand expectation, the goal is making customer interactions as consistent with the brand and as memorable as possible. Managers can’t achieve this without viewing the experience from the customer’s eyes. They need to observe retail employees in action. This back to basics strategy remains important, even in today’s multi-channel environment.
When managers lack time to visit stores regularly, onsite mystery shops and telephone mystery shopping offer solutions. Mystery shops help companies focus on the key ways that employees represent your brand. Honing in on essential requirements and evaluating them. For example, a sincere greeting, uncovering needs as opposed to relaying every single product feature, and asking for permission to follow up with a prospect are all areas that mystery shoppers may observe and report.
Examples of Mystery Shop Assessment Elements:
Through our work with clients over the years, we have learned to incorporate mystery shop evaluation elements that assess how well employees mirror their company’s brand.
Personalized and courteous attention:
- Did the associate use your name at least twice?
- Did the associate use the words “May I ask” and address you with your last name?
- Did the employee convey benefits that meet your specific needs?
Attentive service:
- Did the associate offer you coffee or a beverage?
- Was management present within the dining area?
- Did the associate use positive words, such as absolutely, of course and yes?
- Did the associate offer you a tour of the branch and introduce you to others?
Atmosphere:
- Did associates play music at appropriate levels?
- Was the store temperature comfortable?
- Were staff members dressed neatly?
These closed ended questions, combined with the shopper’s overall comments, provide insights on how well your employees exemplify your brand.
For other posts about this topic, check out:
Frontline Employees–Advocate or Adversary for your Brand?
Employee Dress Codes and Brand Image
What Happens When Employee Dress Does Not Mirror Your Brand?
