Customer service - Death of a salesman

I received an interesting phone call from a fellow this week. He wanted training in communications for the purpose of getting a job in a store. In his interpretation, the majority of people working in retail customer service don't have any idea about proper language and the ethics of selling.

With my experience as a shopper, I unfortunately have to agree with him. Customer service clerks, or associates as some big box stores like to call them, bring their own personalities into work rather than the personality of the brand for which they work. Or at least it seems that way.

When I go into a clothing shop and see the clerk behind the counter talking on her cell phone and chawing gum (yes, chawing, not chewing - there's a difference), I immediately know I'm not the most important thing in the store. And guess what? Whether it's me or someone else, the customer is the most important thing in the store. Not the cell phone, not your friends, not the gum, not even your lunch (regardless of whether your stomach is growling).

This is the piece that many retailers have forgetten. They may talk it up at staff meetings, but the follow-through is weak at best. And for those businesses that do understand and reward their staff for upholding the brand personality, you can feel the difference the minute you walk in the store. I'm not talking about the retailers that reward their staff with 'commission' on their sales (that just creates an attack mentality - see a customer and jump on them before any of the other predators who want the commission as badly as you do); I'm talking about retailers who hire the best, train them well and frequently, and reward them by letting them keep their job with some additional perks for a job well done.

Communication is the key element to this, both on the side of the employer and for the sales clerk (associate) who is the front line contact with the customer. If your communication is not respectful then you lose the opportunity to create a loyal employee or a loyal customer. I don't just mean just proper English (although I must say that this too is becoming a lost art) but also being respectful of how people want to hear you.

Training in how people process information and the elements they need in communication to really engage with each other can move employer/employee relations to a new level and can take your customer service and sales reputation to a whole new realm. And never forget, how you treat your employees and how they treat your customers is a direct reflection of your brand.

Training is an investment, not an expense.

What happened to your passion?

When you lose your passion, the effect goes much deeper than just your energy level. If you are a team leader, a business owner or even a coach, your passion informs how you do your job and how you define the value you bring to your customer, staff or players.

Your passion also informs your personal brand and your business brand. As a business owner, the business idea was yours and your passion for it took you into business. If you're wondering where your success is hiding, maybe it's disappeared because you've forgotten your passion.

At some point, you believed you could do it better, faster, cheaper, more creatively. There was something that inspired you to take the leap into being a leader, a business owner or coach. You've got to find that inspiration, that passion, and bring it back to life.

When times are tough, it's easy to lose your passion in amongst worrying about paying bills, keeping staff or whether there'll be another customer. But if you lose your passion, those customers will never appear - or at least fewer of them will.

Your personal passion inspires your staff and your customers. Your knowledge and enthusiasm, delivered with passion, inform the behaviours of your staff and customers. Will your staff go the extra mile? Will your customers happily return? And more importantly, will they tell others about your passion for what you do and the value that brings to the sales experience?

Get out of the doldrums and rediscover why you made the choices you did to become a leader, coach or business owner. Revisit the elements of whatever it is you do - those things that inspired you, engaged you, lifted you up. They haven't abandoned you - you just stopped letting them be part of your day.

Part II - Be careful how you say hello

Last week, I took a look at the dangers to your brand that a badly handled dismissal or layoff can create. This week, I'd like to spend a moment with how ignoring the importance of your brand when hiring new staff can have long term effects.

The brand outline is rarely one of the things that is contained in the welcome package for an employee (and some companies don't even have a welcome package and, okay, they don't have a brand outline either). New staff learn about the human resources policies, benefits packages and history of the company. But there is an absence of indoctrination into the brand and the importance of upholding it.

Lots of senior management believe that upholding the brand is the duty of the marketing department but in reality it's the responsibility of everyone who works at the company.

Basic brand ideas, such as the appropriate font for emails, can be shared with new staff easily. I've lost count of the number of emails I have received from customer service staff using wonky fonts. And the language in emails needs a certain tone depending on your business and your brand. There's a big difference in how the staff talks and writes at Virgin Mobile compared to a stuffy insurance company.

And then there's the evil creature - the PowerPoint presentation. When staff outside the marketing department are called on to do a presentation, their imaginations run wild. Colours, images and language that have nothing to do with the brand creep in; no one stops them because, as I mentioned, there is a belief that brand protection is the job of the marketing department. Heaven forbid one of these presentations gets out of the building and in front of the customer. Any strong brand presence is whittled away.

Your staff needs to be engaged with the brand and have enough knowledge of what it represents to uphold it. This includes not just the visual and verbal entities mentioned above, but the philosophy of the brand as well. Companies who have brand support throughout their staff are strong companies. And they're believable companies because their message never falters.

Customer service - the face of your brand

This week was an interesting experience for me in the world of customer service. Some people came out of it with accolades and others should be ashamed of themselves. And even more interestingly, small business owners dropped the ball the most.

The staff at Mormac had cause to be on the phone with customer service departments from five large companies this week. By name, they are: Hewlitt Packard, Amtelecom, Black Sun, Ministry of Revenue for the Province of Ontario and the Department of Immigration and Employment for Canada. Yes, there are two government agencies on this list.

In every case, the customer service staff were helpful, attentive and knowledgeable. Good heavens, the guy from the Ministry of Revenue even had me laughing uproariously while he worked through my questions.

I make a point of including the names of the companies here because good customer service is hard to find. People are mainly self-involved, too busy and just don't care. And when that spreads into the delivery of customer service, it says a lot about your brand.

The front-line people are the real owners of delivering the brand experience. So whether it is salespeople, customer service folks or the owner of the company, everyone needs to buy into the brand definition and deliver that experience. The companies mentioned above have instilled enough pride in the brand and enjoyment of the job that the customer service people are trusted to be the face of the company. (Here's the spot to say - you get what you pay for...make sure your front-line people are paid well enough to enjoy their job and want to stay.)

And now for the ball-droppers. I won't name them here because this message is no doubt broadly true. And you know who you are - the small business owner that is just too busy running the business to pay particular attention to being on the front-line.

These are the people who don't return emails and phone calls. They are the ones who are negatively vocal about their competition, rather than identifying the positives in their own business. And they are the ones who don't care about how they are perceived by their suppliers.

Yes, suppliers. Your customers are not the only people that can destroy your brand for you. Your suppliers interact with you on a regular basis and have the biggest opportunity to develop an opinion about your business. Just because they are a supplier doesn't mean they don't have the power to recommend you to others, or tell others not to do business with you.

Make it a point to return emails in 24 hours. Even if it is just a note that says you are busy and will get back to them in a day or so. (Or make sure to have an auto-reply saying when you will be back to your emails)

Acknowledgment is one of the driving forces of humanity. Acknowledge your customers and your suppliers. Always remember that everything you do reflects on your brand and on your business. If you don't return emails, people will soon question your reliability and organization skills. And when I say "your", I don't just mean you, I mean your business as well.

Get into the habit of talking about the uniqueness of your business rather than the negative things about your competition. By talking about your competition, you are giving them mind-time they wouldn't otherwise get.

Many small business owners are also the customer service department. You need to think like a customer service representative. It is easy these days to bring to mind a negative customer service experience, not so easy to remember a good one. That alone will make you stand out from the crowd and will help you grow your business.

Burger King versus Wendy's - who has made the biggest mistakes

Only two fast food franchises actually stand out as knowing what they are doing. McDonald's and Tim Horton's. Even when McDonald's changed their slogan and poor Ronald disappeared, you still knew it was a McDonald's ad. And they've stuck by their new branding for a long time, even in the face of criticism. Tim Horton's has handled their brand so well that you know you're watching or listening to a Tim Horton's ad by some magic combination of music, tone and relationships without really being able to define how you knew.

And then there are Burger King and Wendy's. Two very different, dreadful accidents of marketing.

Wendy's fell prey to a lack of planning (at least that is my assumption since I really can't see Dave Thomas approving the messes that have been produced in the last few years) and to hitching their brand to the all too delicate thing that is a human being. I had great respect for Wendy's marketing when Dave Thomas was at the helm. He was personable. He looked and spoke like everyone's favourite uncle. But since Dave's passing, Wendy's has been a curious mix.

This is not necessarily the fault of the advertising agency handling their work. Sometimes the creative can only be as good as the creative brief the client provides. I'll never know who holds responsibility for the current fearful campaign. But seriously, who is the audience they are trying to reach with ridiculous red braided wigs on unlikely candidates? Sure men in their early 20s love humiliation as a form of humour, but is this truly the audience? And while humiliation might be funny to some, it is only funny when it happens to someone else. So where is the connection the audience is supposed to make with the characters in the ads? And when I look at the patrons at Wendy's, I'm not seeing a lot of 20-something men.

Business brands need to be careful about hanging their hat on human beings. Humans are fragile machines that will eventually break down, sometimes beyond repair. If there is no other choice but to have the owner (or heaven forbid, his children) be the face of the brand, make sure there is a succession plan in place, not just for the business but the brand.

And then there is Burger King. If there is nothing else to measure the dysfunction of their marketing, there is certainly the impression that more Burger King's have closed in my adult life than have opened. And in the ones in my area that have survived, you could shoot a cannon into them and never hit anyone.

Again, I preface this with the disclaimer that it may not be the agency's fault. blah, blah, blah, see above.

Biggest question - what defines Burger King's brand? They have tried so many different tactics, personae and music riffs over the last decade. There has been no consistency, no staying power with any of the brand representations. Pick something for heaven's sake, and then stick to it. It would be nice if you didn't choose to frighten people (the King Mask character peaking in windows and suddenly being discovered in your bed was the stuff of horror films). And maybe stick by your marketing team, instead of ditching them when sales go down. Tim Horton's has that figured out. They've been working with the same people for over 10 years. And it shows in the calibre of their marketing and in the size of their audience.

I may be dating myself but "have it your way" had some legs. Still think it has some legs. Especially in this era of "what's in it for me".

So two brand lessons here, no matter what size your business may be. 1) Don't hang the brand on a human but if you need to, have a succession plan. 2) Make some good decisions about what your brand is, and then stick to it. Should sales go down, do some research to find out why before you blame the marketers and rush in to change everything.