Quality Service Marketing

A Gift to Improve Employee Engagement

This holiday, give the gift of employee engagement … and it’s free!  Employee Engagement Advice Book is a new e-book written by members of the Employee Engagement Network (EEN) and compiled by network host David Zinger.  EEN members (including me) share advice - limited to one sentence each - on how an organization can improve employee engagement.

The book contains over 200 contributions from people who are passionate about employee engagement, including several featured in this blog: Terry Seamon (see his advice on page 6); Kevin Burns (page 9); Paul Hebert (page 28); and Richard Parkes Cordock (page 35). (My contribution is also on page 35.)

Recurrent themes include communication (especially listening), valuing employees, empowering them, recognizing their efforts, and leadership involvement. It’s worth scrolling through to find the quotes that resonate with you. Pass it along and share it among your colleagues … to inspire them and/or reinforce their employee engagement efforts.

Happy Giving!

 

Memo to Senior Management: Take Care of Your People

I found this great quote from Dr. Judith M. Bardwick:

“When people are perceived as a cost and not a resource, when they are treated as a liability and not an asset, when no one seems to know or care that they are there, they don’t work well, and they don’t stay.”

Who are these ‘people?’

They’re your employees … your contractors, vendors, and consultants … your partners … and ultimately your brand advocates or - depending on how you treated them - your brand adversaries.

Amass Less, Value More (A Lesson for the Holiday & Everyday)

I’ve been trying to focus on the positive during the holidays despite constant media attention to the economic crisis. And I’ve found an upside to the down economy: we’re learning to live with less ‘stuff.’

To help us cope better with less, business & life coach Steve Davis advocates that instead of continually amassing more stuff, we learn how to better use what we really need. According to Steve:

"Unconscious compulsions for “more input” seldom satisfy our true needs. Nor will having piles of unread books and magazines ringing our desks reduce the nagging sense that there is some piece of information that will really change everything for us.

Satisfaction comes from fully digesting and extracting the fine nutrients from what we already have, and making choices for new input based on our true values and passions, not our casual likes and vague interests."

This is an excerpt from his excellent article, Assimilation vs. Accumulation - The practice of getting full nourishment from everything in your life. It’s worth reading to learn how we can better assimilate what’s important such as: relationships, customers, ideas, information, and experience. (Note: While written for an audience of facilitators, his message is applicable to everyone.)

Best wishes to all for a happy & safe holiday!

Getting What Internal Marketing is All About

I’m fascinated by audience reactions when I introduce the concept of internal marketing in my marketing training workshops. (Compared with attendees of my internal marketing presentations, these workshop participants are unbiased in that they’re not expecting to hear about internal marketing as part of marketing training.)

Following a recent training session, one young woman approached me to tell me she really got what internal marketing is all about. She shared the following saying [source unknown] that she felt best summed up internal marketing’s empathetic approach to employee-customer care:

People will forget what you said.
People will forget what you did.
But they will never forget how you made them feel.

Exactly.

PS. If anyone knows the source of this quote, please share it with us.

Notes from the Past - What Lee Iacocca Said

Way back in fall 1996, I heard Lee Iacocca speak at Lehigh University, which is Lee's alma mater and mine.

I recently came across my notes from his presentation in which I highlighted this quote:

"Technology has evened quality. Hardware is all the same. The difference is how you treat customers."

It's a relevant reminder that still resonates today. Technology may have changed how we work in allowing us to serve customers more expediently. But this doesn't necessarily mean we serve them any better.

The key differentiator is ensuring a positive customer experience that includes a genuine 'high touch' component in a 'high tech' world of customer service.

I wish more companies would take Lee's message to heart. "To speak to a live person, press 10 ..." just doesn't cut it.

Best Wishes in the New Year

Dear readers & fellow bloggers,

With the New Year approaching, this quote from comedian Joey Adams is timely:

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions.

Best wishes for a happy & healthy New Year!

When Employee Engagement is a Joke

For some time now, I've enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek philosophy of E. L. Kersten, author of The Art of Demotivation and provider of anti-motivational posters & products on his site: www.despair.com. Here are a few choice quotes:

• "Apathy: If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they'll stop bugging us."
• "Get to Work: You aren't being paid to believe in the power of  your dreams."
• "Worth: Just because you're necessary doesn't mean you're important."

(Enjoy checking out the complete list of demotivational quotes.)

But I've also had mixed feelings.  We all need to lighten up (like Sergeant Hulka, I have a "hell of a sense of humor"), yet I wonder if displaying these cynical, anti-Successories-type items might send the wrong message or be misinterpreted.

The sad truth is Kersten's Despair, Inc. business wouldn't be successful if it didn't resonate with people.  There are too many organizations out there whose only effort to engage employees is to display motivational posters and/or initiate token recognition programs.  Kersten's satire is an effective way to deal with these shallow efforts.

And for those of us who are passionate about employee engagement, it's also an opportunity to poke fun at ourselves ... while reminding us of the importance of our work.

Goodbye, Peter Drucker - You'll be missed

I had to comment on the recent passing of Peter F. Drucker, aka the "father of modern management."  I've followed his teachings throughout my career, especially as my work in services marketing evolved to focus on internal marketing and nonprofit marketing. 

Drucker was truly a visionary who advocated:

• Employee value ... "People are a resource and not just a cost."
• Customers as the focal point of business ... "To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business."
• Marketing as "the distinguishing ... unique function of business" (see Customers above), and
• the Importance of the Social Sector ... "The nonprofit exists to bring about change in individuals and in society."

Here's my favorite quote from Peter Drucker, and it comes to mind every time I finish up an internal marketing session:

"If a client leaves this room feeling he has learned a lot he hadn't known before, he is either a stupid client or I've done a poor job as a consultant.  He should leave saying, 'I know all this -- why haven't I done anything about it?'"*

Thank you, Peter, for your incredible legacy.  You'll be greatly missed.

*Note: No offense meant to those who attend my internal marketing programs; I truly value their interest & willingness to learn more about it.  Most feel internal marketing is intuitive and already buy-into the concept (hence my experience of "preaching to the choir") ... the challenge is getting more organizations to put it into practice.