A short article that looks at how retail companies sometimes forget that their customer facing employees can be their best brand assets. Written as part of the Luckie & Company newsletter series.

1. BY: DAVID STUTTS, DIRECTOR OF BRAND PLANNING
TAPPING THE EQUITY OF YOUR TWO-LEGGED BRAND ASSETS
(AIN’T AS EASY AS YOU THINK)
Podcasting, DVR, blogging, vlogging, mash-ups, widgets, wiki, tagging
and anything else that allows consumer brand interaction/involvement
seem to be the current hot marketing tools of choice for creating a more
intimate brand experience. But if you think about the most interactive of all
brand experiences, it is already in place and has been for a long, long time.
It is your customer-facing employees. Whether you are a retailer, a service
provider or a distributor, your employees who interact with customers
can make or break your brand each and every time they engage one of
your customers.
While all of these other marketing forms are swirling around in an increasingly
crowded and complex communication universe, customer-facing
employees remain a solid constant. They are always in place, and the majority of your customers are
going to interact with them at some point in their involvement with your brand.
A recent AdAge.com story pointed to a statistic that some brands plan to shift up to 90 percent of their
annual marketing budgets in-store. Hopefully this means that in addition to store design/layout, signage
and other experiential elements, there will be a lot of time and effort spent on properly training employees
to be good brand ambassadors.
Brands that seem to “get” that their employees are an integral part of the brand experience include Starbucks,
Nordstrom, Cold Stone Creamery and Southwest Airlines. You can see it in the eyes of these employees. They
are all brand believers, truly understanding what the brand is about and what it is trying to do to enhance the
customer experience and create loyalty. They know how to act and what to say to customers to ensure the
brand experience is properly executed each and every time they interact with a customer.
So what is the best way to use your living, breathing brand assets? Here are some basic guidelines to help start
shaping your employees into strong brand ambassadors. This is not something that happens overnight. You
must be committed to these types of ideas for the long term if you ultimately want to see success.

2. BY: DAVID STUTTS, DIRECTOR OF BRAND PLANNING
1. Not all employee training should be the same. Study and recognize which employees
spend the most time or the most relevant time with customers and develop training that
addresses these interactions. Register employees may need different training than counter
or department sales associates. Stockers may not be on the floor as much, but they still
need to know how to properly represent the brand when interacting with customers. Call
center employees don’t have face-to-face contact, but for service industries, they may be
the critical, only link a brand has with its customers.
2. Develop backroom/breakroom posters and videos that keep employees up-to-date on
current marketing, advertising and PR-related programs, along with the overall brand
image and customer promise. Provide meaningful insight into these programs by offering
tips and talking points for interaction with customers.
3. Hire people for how they think and act, not what they have done. You can always teach
someone to work a cash register or help them learn the product attributes of what they
are selling. You can’t teach personality, passion and enthusiasm. Take the time to find the
people who want to work for you and in the long run will be strong brand ambassadors
while they are on your floor.
4. Create an atmosphere of fun and excitement. Tap into pop culture to understand what
is important in the lives of your employees and use that to keep them motivated and
understand how you might be able to incorporate pop culture into your brand’s personality.
5. Understand how interior design will affect not only your customer’s experience, but also your
employees. Use design to create a “cool” factor that inspires a sense of belonging and desire
to work for your brand.
Don’t give up on the ever-growing and expanding universe of new media tools; they are an important piece of
your marketing arsenal and should be used when appropriate. Just remember that no matter how those new
media tools evolve, your customer-facing employees will always shape your brand experience. Will it be for the
better or for worse?