Winning Brand experiences follow winning employee experiences

Dear Friend,

The customer experience and customer journey are now well used in the marketer's lexicon. But how often do you see Brand guardians use the employee experience and journey in their lexicons? 

Now that employees publish more and more on the blogosphere, (when did you last click on the employer link a friend on linkedin, for example?) and as many businesses depend increasingly on frontline employees to differentiate customer service provision, a Brands’ integrity and values become more accessible to consumers and stakeholders. Marketing priorities are evolving as marketers treat fellow employees almost on a par with their customers; seeing employees as more than Brand advocates, more as key parts of the marketing mix, more as part of the of their Brand equity. Internal Branding is a pre-requisite for successful external Branding.

Lack of employee alignment puts sustained Brand profitability at risk too. Organisations with high employee engagement levels have 12% higher customer advocacy, 18% higher productivity and 12% higher profitability than bottom quartile business units. (Source: Gallup 2009).

So what sort of experiences will help to change employee attitudes more positively towards their employers and their Brands?

Engaging employees with Service Change Experiences

LiveChange’s Lexus programme with employees helped to change the Brand’s average rated customer service experience into a memorable one - engaging all 1000 UK employees from car valeters, to receptionists, to Lexus Dealer Principals. Innovative role playing as customers, creating ideal Lexus customer experiences and LiveChange designed workshops for employees to live the Lexus story, resulted in Lexus’s customer service scores taking a step change and to Lexus outperforming all its’ rivals over the following year.

Inspiring employees with Sales Change Experiences

In pharmaceutical markets, loss of patent can mean rapid loss of business. A LiveChange programme for Astellas Medical Sales Representatives involved  re-energising a Brand at a vulnerable point in its lifecycle, with engaging workshop solutions and formats. These involved new experiences for the sales team, such as developing patients’ perspectives and selling the drugs in role plays based on new found understanding of the Brand and its benefits.

Last but not least, creating Memorable Leadership Change Experiences

WDS Global, a provider of managed services to the wireless market, saw growing inconsistencies amongst global leadership teams due to rapid business growth. By immersing 150 leaders in a LiveChange employee experience – The WDS Way - leaders became more aligned with the Corporate Brand, more focused and more consistent. The programme was then rolled out to all employees.

Effective internal Branding gets back to the basics of engaging people – it goes well beyond employee benefits solutions or corporate advertising campaigns. Employee experiences, carefully designed for employees to draw their own conclusions, innovatively implemented to stir the emotions as well as the intellect, change behaviours and create lasting advocacy and support for Brands.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss or brainstorm any of your own employee change challenges, do email us by reply or call 01428 684045.

Best wishes,

Jonny 

LiveChange