Published by Econsultancy in association with Offerpop

Empower your Employees to Power your Customer Experience

By Ted RubinSocial Media Strategist

Masters of CX

Brands have it tough these days...

Empower your Employees / Ted Rubin

Many are trying to make the “social leap,” but are still stuck in the traditional marketing thought process of “controlling the message.”

It can be hard to switch gears, especially when Madison Avenue still feeds us the same old lines; but Madison Avenue doesn’t get it either. The days of handing your marketing over to a bunch of agency wonks without getting and staying involved are over, at least if you want real results.

Companies must be hands-on, and be willing to jump into the conversation and participate, because that’s what their customers demand. Social is where your audience lives. It’s how they want to communicate with each other and where they share brand experience - your brand experience.

So what’s the fastest way to evolve from the old “agency” way of thinking to social communication? Empower those who work for you to create conversation and represent your brand—especially those who have a customer service or customer-facing role. If they build it, service it or sell it, they’re in a perfect position to communicate with your audience in a way that humanizes your brand.

Many companies are fearful of social media backlash, and muzzle their employees in an effort to control the social conversation. However, for brands to have an effective social presence, just the opposite needs to happen.

In a Networking Exchange Blog post ‘Brands Under Pressure,’ digital and social strategist Cheryl Burgess highlights Apple’s “Genius Bar,” which is the ultimate in employee branding for retail. She notes that the genius bar is “…a lynchpin of the most successful retail concepts and innovative employee brand relationships of our time. Apple simply gets it,” she writes, “employee branding matters.”

Check it out for yourself. Go into any Apple store and count the number of blue shirts milling about in the retail space. It’s astonishing—and each one is an Apple genius whose sole purpose is to communicate with customers, answer questions and share knowledge one-on-one.

However, you don’t get a hard sell. The emphasis is on providing helpful information. In doing so, each employee puts a “face” on the Apple brand, and turns a shopping excursion into a human experience.

The great thing is, you don’t have to hire a zillion blue-shirts to stand around your company store to do the same thing for your brand. With a little guidance, your current employees can be geniuses for you, in social circles.

The key to effective guidance is creating the right balance between freedom and order. This includes having a written social media policy for your employees, going over it with them, and involving them in the process. Your employees can be your best advocates and a natural extension of your brand that gives you much better Return on Relationship than advertising ever could—but you need to switch your thinking by opening up your internal communications first.

Make sure that you do not overcomplicate the process. The best social media policies are short and easy to understand. Think about the policies you’ve dealt with in your career…can you remember paragraph 10, subsection 6? Probably not, but you can remember things like “do no evil” or “our customer is always right, unless they’re being mean.”

Sit down and talk to your employees about how they can communicate your company mission and values. Open up a dialogue. Get their opinions. Involve them in the process of creating a social media policy so they feel empowered to spread the word about you within the right framework.

77++J 54++J 77% 54%

of senior marketers say that their

strategy is easy to apply to everyday

questions.

Strategy is at its best when it’s useful throughout the marketing organization, and can be used to answer granular questions. But it’s easier said than done. Even though leaders tend to think their strategy is easy to apply to everyday situations, that confidence breaks down when you scratch the surface.

A good strategy should capture and promote the core ideas that power socially-forward organizations. If employees can’t articulate strategy, then they can’t act on it.

// Source: Leading a Digital Evolution, Econsultancy (2014): ecly.co/1vEm3Oo

say that everyone on the marketing

team understand the strategy well enough

to describe it.

Opening internal lines of communication and building healthy employer-employee relationships is the first step. The next is figuring out how to train them to communicate externally.

Educate employees about your core values, and about what’s appropriate to share in social circles. Make sure to involve them in the conversation. Keep the commandments to a minimum and the door open to ideas. Give them some leeway. Train them to be your brand evangelists and you’ll be amazed at the resulting Return on Relationship!

In the digital age, you can’t afford to try to control your company’s brand. You need to learn to let go and become involved in the conversation already going on about you in the social space—and let your employees help you. Otherwise, the cost in market share is steep, because competitors that “get it” are already out there eating your lunch.

Now, I’m not saying you should let go of the reins; there must be some structure and planning involved.

In today’s world, with the average job length of approximately three years, employees will have close to 15 jobs in their career. We hear that there is no such thing as employer/employee loyalty anymore.

Global competition has changed the game forever. For employees, that means zero job security; they’re always waiting for the axe to fall (especially in a lousy job market). And for employers, it’s harder and harder to find and hang onto good employees. As soon as you train them—they’re looking for greener pastures. So how can we bridge that divide?

One path lies in revamping the employee-employer relationship. Employers have to understand that the “buyer’s market” they’re in right now will not always be the case, and even today doesn’t apply to the best employees – the ones you want to keep and others want to poach.

It’s also important that employees understand that they’re not under a microscope...

34++J 65++J 34% 65%

of leaders say that they are challenged

by attracting and retaining digital

talent.

Econsultancy’s recent analysis of the Global 1,000 organizations suggests that culture has an enormous impact on their ability to attract and retain digital talent. Leading companies are much more likely to have open social initiatives, encourage employee training, experimentation with new marketing techniques and design long-term career tracks.

// Source: Leading a Digital Evolution, Econsultancy (2014): ecly.co/1vEm3Oo

of follower companies are challenged by attracting and

retaining digital talent.

Treating employees like a commodity and/or a cost center eventually backfires because it leads to constant turnover, which is counterproductive in the long term.

Start thinking of your employees as an investment instead. If you look out for them and help them when they need it, they’ll be there for you when you need them. It can be as simple as creating a nurturing workplace that encourages growth and innovation, versus a culture of fear fostered by so many companies today.

There’s an old saying in networking circles that in order to receive, you have to give first—and do so without expectation of anything in return. It’s called the “giver’s gain” philosophy. Doing for others without expecting anything directly in return always brings good things back to you.

One company that truly understands this concept is American Express. I heard recently from a number of people that American Express downsizes with dignity whenever the situation arises. They support those going through the transition and allow them 60 days to continue working in their offices and pursue other opportunities, relieving the stress that always comes with a change of employment.

So how do you think those employees felt about their employer, and how did those feelings ripple through their personal communities of friends, family and future employers? I know American Express has experienced lots of giver’s gain by helping downsized employees make a smoother transition.

To build a winning team that stays with you, advocates for you and helps you get ahead as a company, you have to treat that team with respect.

Another way employers can benefit from helping their employees is by recognizing the fact that digital social connection is an integral part of our lives now. Remember that in today’s social world, every person has an extended circle of personal influence and an opportunity to build their own personal “brand.” By helping your employees build that brand rather than squelching individuality, you could build an army of very powerful advocates. Most people, when given the opportunity, will advocate for their brands, when they feel good about where they work.

Some companies still fear the “socialization” of the workplace, but locking employees out of all personal social channels while at work is a big mistake. It only forces your employees to break the rules. They end up looking at their iPhones under the table.

Ever wonder why smoking breaks have gone up so much over the last two years? It’s not because more people are smoking, it’s because they’re going outside to look at their smartphones! Banning employees from using social in the workplace only forces them to use it on a different screen—when they could be more productive, be aware of daily social trends, and advocating for their brands rather than griping on their personal platforms.

Why not educate them instead? Let them know you’ll help them build their own personal brand, and if they want to talk about your company—great—but don’t make it a prerequisite. Create a social policy that embraces your employees’ personal brand and give them guidelines on what’s appropriate to share about your company.

Help them tweak their privacy settings, give them photos to share, create company-specific hashtags and make it easy for them to find content and use it when/if they want to. Unleash your employees and encourage brand advocacy beyond your own social reach.

If we want our companies to prosper in the digital age, we have to be more proactive in attracting and nurturing good employees. That means we have to stop thinking of them in terms of costs and liabilities and start thinking more about connecting with them as human beings and advocates.

Want more advocates?Help your employees “be social.”

Empower your Employees / Conclusion

In short, if you build them up, support them and add value to their lives, the relationships you build with your employees will pay dividends well beyond the value of their salaries.

Unleash the power of giver’s gain personally and socially, and great things will happen to your customer experience and your business as a whole.

Empower your Employees... and they will Power your Brand.

// Ted Rubin

The Masters of CX series features true marketing thinkers and industry heavyweights, covering the issues surrounding your customer experience approach and strategy.

These unique reports will be published between October and December 2014, along with two dedicated webinar sessions where you can gain first-hand insight from the authors on the key issues raised.

We’re delighted to be working with some of the most influential authors within digital marketing.

Reports in the series include:

Winning Hearts in Real-time by Jay Baer

Influence the Influencers - The Magic of Co-Created Content by Lee Odden

Beyond the Sale: Building Customer Relationships for Life by Brian Clark

Empower your Employees to Power your Customer Experience by Ted Rubin

Customer Loyalty Lessons from Medieval Times by Mark Schaefer

Why Brands are Stuck on Like and Failing at Love by Mitch Joel

Find out more about the authors and reports athello.econsultancy.com/masters-of-cx and join the discussion using #MastersofCX

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Published by Econsultancy in association with OfferpopAbout the Masters of CX