Working under these principles, the brand can
change organization-wide behavior in a way that improves performance
and drives strategy.
Start with the Customer
At the heart of a successful brand strategy is a clear understanding
of the customers you serve and what’s important to them.
Employees need direction on what the customer expects and
the actions they must take to deliver on those expectations.
To gain this understanding, employees must identify the interactions
from the customer’s point of view to determine whether
or not the company is living up to its customer “promise.”
 These
interactions, these “defining moments,” are the
critical activities, the things a company must get right.
They are not limited to product performance and quality. Rather,
they span the entire customer experience from order to delivery
to application.
By understanding exactly what factors determine a satisfied
customer and then delivering them, a company can provide employees
not only with a common focus, but also with definite direction
as to how they can positively impact the customer experience
in their everyday jobs. In this context, every employee shares
the same job description—to serve customers and deliver
what’s important to them.
Making Magic Happen: Brand Delivery
How many times have you talked with a customer service representative,
looking for a solution to a problem only to find that the
employee does not have the necessary information or the decision-making
authority to resolve the issue? Wanting to help, the employee
often becomes frustrated and starts explaining the situation
in terms of the company as an outsider, that elusive “they”
who makes both the employee and customer helpless. In these
instances, the employee, in effect, divorces himself from
the company and the brand.
What causes this? Often, companies pour millions of dollars
into external campaigns that create a customer expectation,
while focusing few resources on the internal components necessary
to deliver on it. However, it is precisely the delivery via
employees that has the most profound effect on the customer
relationship. People, as simple as it is, deliver brands—not
advertising.
In order for the brand to “come to life” at every
point of customer contact, the brand promise must be the adhesive
that holds together the overall company mosaic—its vision,
mission, values, growth strategy and guiding behaviors—not
just another, separate thing you ask the marketing department
to do. Effective internal branding starts at the top with
the company’s business strategy and leadership’s
direction. In essence, brand strategy must reflect business
strategy, and vice versa. It’s critical that they are
both mutually supportive and two integrated parts of the same
directive.
Organizations that want to create the right brand experience
should make the brand promise the primary driver for decisions,
utilizing six key levers of effective brand delivery: people,
processes, structure, information, decision-making and incentives.
The competencies, experience and attitudes of an organization’s
people affect the customer’s “defining moments”
with the company. Leadership must select and train employees
appropriately, always mindful of the customer when making
recruiting and hiring decisions.
Organizational processes can make or break a customer’s
experience. The infrastructure must enable optimal efficiency,
productivity and customer service. Equally important is the
prioritization and escalation of work or customer issues.
Processes should promote collaboration across the company
to break down barriers to communication and effective brand
delivery.
How an organization assigns roles and responsibilities can
create a structure that encourages involvement from employees
in making customer-driven decisions. Leadership must clearly
define reporting relationships and performance expectations,
as well as make the necessary resources available.
The information available to employees must be accurate,
relative, timely and actionable. Sharing knowledge across
the organization will help employees be more effective in
their roles. Leaders should consider educating employees on
the company’s complete package of products and services,
market trends and intelligence, the competitive landscape
and customer satisfaction criteria.
Those employees closest to the customer must have the decision-making
authority to consistently demonstrate the brand in action.
To enable front-line decision-making, leadership must articulate
a clear corporate vision and strategy, and the specific role
of employees in realizing the full potential of that vision.
 Company
incentives—whether they are pay-for-performance, bonus,
verbal recognition, or longer-term goals such as career progression
and enhancement—must drive the specific behaviors necessary
to deliver the brand experience.
Focusing on the six levers of effective brand delivery will
help ensure that employees 1) understand what must be done
to realize the brand promise and 2) can take action to deliver
it.
While these levers create the infrastructure necessary to
deliver the brand, they must be pulled in a way that inspires
the brand to “come to life” in everyday experience.
The Magic of an Emotional Connection: Engaging the
Organization
It is critical to understand that brands are emotional. While
essentially inanimate products or services, the best brands
are embodied in the hearts and minds of both customers and
employees. Therefore, leadership’s direction must appeal
to the emotional needs of employees—what makes people
want to change their behavior and take action. With that in
mind, the brand can be an ideal platform for such motivation,
as brands often define the emotional connection between customer,
product, company and employee.
Through effective messaging and delivery channels, communication
plays a key role in inspiring employees’ hearts and
minds to engage in and take action on delivering the total
brand experience.
Messaging
Messaging, the first facet of this role, must provide direction,
clarity, simplicity, consistency, integration and emotion.
All messages should be integrated into a single story that
can be told by everyone, from leadership in the executive
suite to front-line management. A common story will provide
clear, consistent direction to employees so they understand
in no uncertain terms what they need to do and when they need
to do it. Simply put, on one day you cannot pursue the vision,
and the next the brand, and on the third day the strategy.
Success in branding requires everyone to charge down one path.
Moreover, messages should be constructed and delivered to
motivate employees to take the right actions with a sense
of commitment and urgency. That motivation usually revolves
around the “why” behind the strategic direction
and how it ties into the things that inspire employees’
commitment to the company and the customer.
Messaging can and should do more than tell a powerful story—it
should drive alignment and action that will actually create
the story, rather than just telling it. Employees need to
see management acting and talking about the brand (and overarching
strategies) from a common platform. If words and actions don’t
match, employees become confused and disheartened, and it
becomes difficult for leadership to drive the desired behaviors.
To work toward a common understanding, it is important to
present concrete, clear messages to which managers must respond.
Through that interaction, one can identify differing points
of view in the management team and therefore can work to achieve
language and content that represents those viewpoints (while
simultaneously moving the perspectives of the various leaders
closer together). If views are diametrically opposed, or if
personality issues preclude alignment, it is important to
raise those issues and recommend and help implement a path
to achieve a common brand vision.
Effective Channels
Messaging is only as effective as its delivery through effective
channels. A company’s branding effort cannot reside
in the executive suite alone. You must enlist support at the
local level to implement the brand and to change employee
behaviors to deliver its promise. Finding the early adopters
in your organization, the employees who will enthusiastically
champion the brand, is another way to tap into employees’
emotions on a peer-to-peer level. The effort requires effective
navigation of your organization, which is often a complex,
full-time job, spanning multiple levels and many silos simultaneously.
It is important to find leaders who will support the brand
at every level and put them to work driving new behaviors
among fence sitters and blockers.
Sometimes this involves very informal interaction—around
the water cooler, in the plant and R&D center, behind
the scenes. Other times it involves the creation of special
internal teams designed to harness and apply the skills and
persuasive powers of leaders up and down the organization.
Consider beginning your search with such groups as marketing,
sales and customer service, as they will have a keen interest
in brand evolution, as well as a vested interest in aligning
(or blocking) support for the brand.
To win their support, it is necessary to have mechanisms
in place to conduct a healthy dialogue around the brand, its
rationale and opportunities. Communication departments are
uniquely positioned to be leaders, brand champions. They can
be effective in distributing information throughout the organization,
targeting both formal and informal leadership.
With the right message and effective channels to drive it,
a company will be positioned to execute a powerful internal
branding campaign that will win the hearts and minds of its
employees. If you give them a reason to care along with the
right resources, structure and systems, employees will not
only meet customer expectations but also exceed them. That’s
when the real magic happens.
Maril MacDonald is an internationally recognized leader
in workplace performance and a founding partner of the strategy
execution and employee engagement firm Matha MacDonald LLC.
Previously, she was vice president, corporate communications
for International Truck and Engine Corporation, formerly Navistar.
MacDonald has more than 20 years of experience at global companies,
in positions ranging from human resources and communications
to operations.
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