Do Your Employees Live Your Brand

I recently visited a bank that has signs all over about their “Exceptional Service”. I read these signs in great detail as I waited 10 minutes for someone to help me at the customer service area. Then I read more signs while I waited at the teller line. When this line didn’t move, I walked outside to the ATM machine, and read more signs. The ATM machine was not working, so I walked to the drive-through window. The teller at the drive-through asked me to use the ATM machine, as she was the only teller working at the time. This story doesn’t have a great ending and I am sure you can imagine just how pleased I was with their “exceptional service”.

So, what is the morale of the story? Make sure the actions, behaviors and skills of you and/or your employees align completely with the features/benefits you advertise as part of your brand.

Companies spend a lot of money working with advertising agencies and marketing firms to develop their brand and to develop the tag-lines/benefits they should communicate to their customers that correspond with the brand. Unfortunately, not as much attention is spent on ensuring that every employee in the business knows how to “live” the brand.

If you promise quality service, do you and your employees have the skills and training to deliver quality service? Does everyone know why quality service is important? Can everyone make decisions, when working with customers in difficult situations, that demonstrate your tag-line of quality service? Do they make your quality service feel like the best service available in the industry?

There were so many opportunities for the employees in the bank example in the beginning of this article to demonstrate the “Exceptional Service” they promise, yet they didn’t. Send us your thoughts on when and how the employees could have “lived” their tag-line of “Exceptional Service” and we will post the best responses in our next newsletter.