Can employees be trusted to interact with customers online?

I believe employees should be trusted to interact with customers online.

Employees interact with customers in retail stores,  call centers and with friends and family at the pub – why then shouldn’t organisations allow employees to interact fully with customers online?  Toby Ward’s post on Twitter about the State of the Internet –  clearly shows that a lot of intelligent people spend time online, so why not pull back the corporate veil?

As an advocate of giving employees the space to interact with customers online you can imagine my disappointment when I found out a Vodafone employee had uploaded an obscene post on the official VodafoneUK Twitter site today.

It was such a random post, followers thought the Vodafone Twitter account had been hacked!

On a personal note, I know the guys in the web relations team at Vodafone and they were gutted this afternoon.

They’ve worked so hard to build a good online reputation for Vodafone and to have someone try to unravel their efforts is a real shame.

Their speed and genuine care about apologising to customers was impressive – they’re a real credit to the brand.

Ok, I accept I’m biased towards Vodafone but I’m sure customers would be forgiving and won’t let one person ruin the hard work of so many?

To see if this was the case,  I thought I’d scan some of the Vodafone followers who’d been contacted on Twitter to see how they responded to the apology and although this isn’t a thorough analysis I found some interesting tweets;

Claire was impressed with the quick response from Vodafone

Emma said ‘no worries’

Adam was pleased to see the human side of a corporate brand (that’s interesting!)

Jordan was thankful for letting him know what had happened and thought it was embarrassing for Vodafone

Rhys didn’t want Vodafone to worry about apologising to him and didn’t want the brands reputation being damaged

The followers posts I read accepted the apology and understood it wasn’t the ‘brand’ speaking but a single renegade voice.

Vodafone is pioneering the ‘employee/customer’ online interaction – it’s bold and brave and I truly believe it’s the way of the future.

I hope this incident doesn’t stop more organisations from doing the same.

If you want to read some articles on the story there’s already a lot of online coverage from the likes of Melcrum, cNet, New Media Age, Guardian and The Register.

Filed under: The Customer Interface, employee communication, trust, vodafone

Is brand transparency too risky?

I admire organisations that give their people the opportunity to experience the products they produce for their customers.

Taste it. Think about it. Share it.

Of course this isn’t anything new.

My wife once told me a story about a job she had as a student peeling potatoes in a chip factory. At lunchtime the canteen would serve free chips to all employees but she simply couldn’t bring herself to eat them. After peeling potatoes for hours on end, the last thing she wanted to see was another potato. Needless to say, she left the factory after her twelve hour shift never to return and to this day she still can’t understand how the ‘old timers’ were able to sit down and merrily eat their plate of chips?

Did they become immune to the smell of potatoes and chip oil or had they genuinely fallen in love with the product and would tell the world about it given half a chance?

Imagine if they did get the chance?

But really, would I want to hear about my chip from an employee while they were peeling the potatoes or eating them in the canteen? Things like; how they choose the best quality potatoes and their opinion on how potatoes should be grown to produce a more rounded shape that would be easier and faster to peel.

On first thought I think I’d prefer my relationship with the chip to be formed by an inspiring brand promise on TV and fresh looking packaging in a fresh feeling store.

Oh no, it looks like I’m a product of true ‘consumerism’!

I wonder if there’s a new ‘…ism’ on the horizon, something like, ‘transparencism?’

Take the employee advocacy programme from General Motors called The Company Vehicle Ambassador Program which lets employees take a loan car home – a great idea.

I’m sure the initiative has a robust feedback process in place to direct employee observations and ideas to the relevant team(s) within the organisation driving continuous improvement. But that would still keep the employee experience inside the walls of the organisation and it would only be friends and family of the employee that would get the benefit of his truthful opinion.

Imagine if…

The employee was able to share his experience online while driving the car home (safely of course) and give his genuine opinion of the vehicle – imagine the larger audience that could be reached!

It’s not sales. It’s not marketing. It’s just the opinion from a guy who helped make it.

He’ll  talk from his gut and we’d believe him (this is when you’re really glad you made the investment to create a branded employee experience!)

I wonder if this human and authentic, real life insight into the vehicle’s performance would shatter the image in my mind formed through millions of dollars of marketing budget.

Would I still want to buy the vehicle if the real employee didn’t fit the well researched segmentation customer image I’d come to expect?

Have I fallen in love with a promise that‘s fake but one that I’ve come to like?

Does that mean I’m fake?

In theory the true experience should be in harmony with the brand promise and I think brands might be willing to become more transparent, but I’m not sure if I could handle the transition to truth?

Maybe I’ve become so accustomed to believing in an unattainable brand promise and satisfied it it’s only partly met?

Maybe the truth of the real brand ‘inside’ will be too much for me to take – so should be hidden?

Maybe not.

As we search for more authenticity in everything we do and in everything we are, it won’t be long when the truth from ‘inside’ is what we’ll expect from the brands we love.

Only the brands that do as they say will do, will succeed when the veil final falls away.

Filed under: Employee Experience, Brand advocacy, brand transparency, Employee advocacy, Employee Experience, General Motors

Is the tone right?

In today’s economic climate being seen to over invest in employee experiences can do more harm than good.

Employees are more likely to question the value of an experience even though the intention was to genuinely increase their engagement with the organisation – it’s a real challenge the get the tone right for employee experiences.

So, how do get the tone right in tough times?

Here are a few simple principles I find useful to keep front of mind

• care – show your people you really care for them, make them feel valued, design with people in mind
• easy – if it’s easy to understand and act upon it shows you’ve thought about the previous principle!
• authentic – be real and honest, transparency is respected
• creative – try new things, don’t hide behind fear, be bold, think differently
• simple – be clear on the big idea, the core, stick to it

Sure, it’s easy enough to default all messages to the BAU (Business as usual) channels and focus on message effectiveness and efficiency but people still want to be surprised and delighted by the organisation they work for. People still want to feel an emotional connection to the brand they belong – why should the experiences slow down and stop?

I don’t believe they should.

What do you think?

Filed under: Uncategorized, employee communication, employee engagement

Do you poken?

This is poken – it’s very cool!

I love the idea of an easy link between my online and offline world but would rather have a poken embedded in my mobile than carry around another gadget in my pocket.

A mobile interface would also enable me to keep my poken up-to-date through my mobile internet which is so much easier than having to connect to a fixed internet connection.

I can really see this taking off as a nifty gizmo for the conference and exhibitions market.

Nice work.

Filed under: Uncategorized, gizmo, innovation, mobile, mobile internet, poken

The truth shall set us free

In the left corner is Social Graces and in the right corner, The Truth.

As the bell rings for the first round an elephant walks into the ring and sits squarley in the middle – it looks around. 

Social graces leaves his corner but can’t see beyond the half tonne beast. Still, he jibs and dances, left foot, right foot, he throws a comment here and a comment there.

He never mentions the elephant.

The crowd are open mouthed, unable to move, silently staring at an African elephant sitting in the middle of the ring.

Still, Social Graces does not say a thing.

The Truth walks confidently from his corner directly towards Social Graces, looks him squarley between the eyes and says, “There’s an elephant in the middle of the ring.”

Social graces is floored.

The crowd go wild.

The truth shall set us free…

 

Filed under: Uncategorized

Internal messaging – what’s important?

It’s an eye opener to get an insight into the number of internal messages customer facing employees are expected to take on board every day – as well as stay on top of giving the best service they can to our customers!

How do you ensure the most important messages get through to the front line? More importantly, what are the most important messages anyway?

The sender of the message will argue (‘till the cows come home) the message they’re sending is critical, it’s crucial…and if you listen to them for long enough you’ll be convinced!

I suggest asking a simple question find out how important a message is:

Will this message give the customer a better experience…right now?

If it does – clear the path and get it to the front line straight away.

If it doesn’t – it can wait until after the customer is happy.

I appreciate it’s a tough call but it’s gotta be a matter of customer priority – surely?

Filed under: internal communication, Customer experience, employee communication, internal communication, internal messages

Our working lives are changing

I came across an article about Vodafone empowering West Berkshire Council employees to work flexibly.

Apart from the obvious benefits of lower costs to run an organisation and increased employee satisfaction from better life work balance, I love the idea employees no longer have to ‘follow’ the corporation because the corporation can now ‘follow’ the employee.

So the days of relocating your home, family and life to bring your skills and experiences to an organisation might be numbered?

With flexible working it’s not that far fetched for me to live by the sea and work for an organisation located inland?

I love the idea of flexible working but my parents struggle with the concept, my grandparents think it’s simply wrong but my kids, well they see it as the way things are.

I wonder if I should start looking for that seaside house just yet?

Hmmm – just a thought.

Filed under: Uncategorized, 'employee satisfaction', vodafone

Efficiency runs deep

The impact of the global economic situation dawned on me this week.  I’m having more conversations around creating experiences (live and online)  which focus on delivering useful and effective experiences for the audience/user. Audiences expect  communications to be real, down to earth and by no means opulent. I remember less than a year ago delivering events with 3D imagery, grand sets and non stop big experiences, one after another – those days have gone. I’m doing more for less and making what I’ve got, work harder – it’s quite simply, a turn of events! There’s something quite refreshing about cutting through the crap.

Filed under: Uncategorized, "communications channel", employee communication, events, experiences, internal communication

Intranets enable competitiveness

I’m a comms guy at heart and having the opportunity to broaden my horizon to include the intranet is a welcomed road to walk. I’ve been researching, listening, learning, meeting, discussing  and dreaming all things intranet for a while now, so I thought I’d share what I’ve discovered…

The purpose of an intranet is to enable employees to spend the least amount of time getting tasks done. This makes sense – if an intranet allows employees to be effective and efficient they can spend more time on the customer.

Enterprise 2.0 – this is very interesting! There’s a general perceived need around ‘social media’ in organisations. I say ‘perceived’ because a large amount of intranet users are not social media savvy. They’re not convinced of it or understand its benefits and why they should get involved. Assuming the technology is in place, the cultural change of convincing employees to experiment with new ways of working and then wholeheartedly adopt these new ways is a big area of focus. The shift is inevitable, exciting and it’s just a matter of time.

My conclusion (to date) is the intranet is both a tool and a communications channel that has come of age.

For an organisation to be competitive it needs to be agile, adaptive and focus on the customer. If those responsible for the intranet truly embrace the role it can play in enabling these behaviours, they will add a huge amount of value to the organisation.

You’ve got to just throw yourself in there or simply be left behind!

If you’ve got further insights, case studies, etc to share please send them across, ’cause I am a sponge!

Filed under: Uncategorized, "communications channel", "social media in organisations", internal communication, intranet

Hello world!

Blog  to come soon…

Filed under: Uncategorized