Jim Joseph on Whether Temporary Holiday Rush Employees Hurt the Brand

The following is a guest post by Jim Joseph, author of The Experience Effect, on how brand managers should think about customer service during the holidays.

We are entering the hectic holiday season and that means one thing: shopping! This is make-it or break-it time for many brands and almost all retailers. It’s a scary time for retailers in particular. The lion’s share of retail sales and almost all profits happen in the last two months of the year.

Retailers handle this surge in seasonal demand by bringing in temporary help to stock shelves and serve customers. The problem is that temporary employees are often not “in the game” like permanent employees, which can damage their store in ways that retail managers might not consider.

First, we have to recognize that retail employees are the brand. Employees on the floor are the face of the company—what shoppers experience and what the retailer ultimately stands for; they are the part of the brand that customers interact with.

The truth is that the holiday season may be the only experience that many shoppers have with the brand. This may be the only experience that they know or remember. So it better be good.

An employee that is “off brand” doesn’t represent the brand well. When a temporary employee doesn’t offer the same level of service as the other employees, then the experience won’t be ideal for the customer, and the customer may get a bad impression.

Good retailers avoid this trap by:

• Training. They prepare “Brand Books” and “Training Guides” to teach temporary employees about the brand, store customer service policies, and provide rules of engagement on the sales floor.
• Enlisting help from permanent employees. Retailers should engage the regular employees to help train and guide temporary employees. Empower them to monitor and report behavior that is not “on brand,” as well as to correct it.
• Recruiting former workers. Smart retailers bring back many of the same temporary employees year after year, especially those people that embody the brand and have a good memory for what to do from year to year.

Ultimately, good retailers orchestrate the overall retail brand experience. They actively think about the experience that they want their customers to have and what they want their customers to remember about their brand. They hire and train for that vision. They put the best people on the retail floor (temporary and permanent) and cast their employees as if they were putting on a show.

Because during the holiday season, in many ways they are! Have a great holiday season!

Jim Joseph is the author of The Experience Effect: Engage Your Customers with a Consistent and Memorable Brand Experience, President of Lippe Taylor and Professor at New York University (NYU).

Yesterday… Renee Evenson on Customer Service Training Tips for the Holidays.

Coming tomorrow… Customer Service During the Holiday Season Giveaway: Buying Styles.

Random Quotes from New Books This October

With that fall chill in the air, we know we’ll be standing at the soup counter at our local lunch spot soon. Of course we know our old favorites but it’s fun to order samples of the new soups. Why not get a sip of a new book to figure out what will feed your mind this October? Our Random Quotes from New Books series continues with titles to help improve your business, your finances, and stimulate the grey matter.

It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss by Susan Wilson Solovic with Ellen R. Kadin

“Background noise is another potential problem for a home-based business. The sound of barking dogs and crying children won’t make you appear professional. If you have young childnren, you may need to consider day care. As for pets, make sure they are someplace where their activity won’t interfere with busiess. I’m fortunate. I have a shih tzu who never barks. When I work at home, he lays by my feet and never makes a sound. He is an excellent co-worker. (So much so I’ve given him a title. He is ‘chairman of the bone.’)” (page 158)

The Vigilant Investor: A Former SEC Enforcer Reveals How to Fraud-Proof Your Investments by Pat Huddleston

“Although the vigilant investor asks questions and writes down answers that an adviser provides, she does not rely on them. Instead, the vigilant investor seeks independent confirmation. At Investors’ Watchdog, we get education information from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC). If you give the NSC an accurate birth date, student name, school name, and $6.50, it will either confirm what your adviser told you about his education or expose the Fibber.” (page 52)

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, 5th Edition by Performance Research Associates

“Each interaction between a customer and a service professional is one moment in the chain of the customer’s experience. If you’re a service person, and you get it wrong at your link in the chain, you are very likely erasing from the customer’s mind all the memories of good treatment he or she may have had up to that moment, But if you get it right, you have a chance to undo all the wrongs that may have happened before the customer got to you. And, in today’s world, the faster you do it, the happier they are.” (page 4)

Harvesting Intangible Assets: Uncover Hidden Revenue in Your Company’s Intellectual Property by Andrew J. Sherman

“Kudoes to those companies around the globe that aggressively enforce their intellectual capital rights and do not allow illegal trespass on their property. But can this strategy go too far? Will high fences and concrete walls be helpful in the short term in their effectiveness and yet do long-term harm in driving shareholder value? Texas Instruments in recent years devoted significant resources to patent litigation and patent licensing, and the results have been impressive, netting the company more than $1 billion a year from litigation settlements and patent licenses as a result of vigilant enforcement policies. In some years, revenues from these sources have exceeded net income from product sales. Impressive, but dangerous. When revenues from litigation exceed revenues from innovation, this can be the beginning of the end of the future of the company. Yes, we must be diligent in building fences, but walls cannot be strategic substitute for the output of the new products and services that are intended to come from within the company.” (pages 112-113)

The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace Frustration–and Get the Most from Your Employees by Mark Royal, Tom Agnew

“The Bernette Financial call center culture is the envy of the industry. Turnover is low. Nearly every employee believes in the mission: They’re helping people buy homes, helping businesses serve their communities, and helping families achieve their dreams. Customer surveys invariably show that Bernette customers are overall ‘very satisfied’ with the help they get when they call or e-mail. Questions get answered. Problems get resolved. Customer service representatives are viewed as helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly.” (page 25)

Now you’ve knocked back a tiny cup, are you ready to order a full bowl?

Book Signing at AMA New York for Becoming an Exceptional Executive Coach

Authors of Becoming an Exceptional Executive Coach: Use Your Knowledge, Experience, and Intuition to Help Leaders Excel, Michael Frisch, Ph.D., Robert Lee, Ph.D., Karen L. Metzger, LCSW, Jeremy Robinson, MSW, MCC, and Judy Rosemarin, MS, LMSW will appear at the American Management Association New York Executive Conference Center Bookstore next month. Books will be available for purchase at the event and the authors would be happy to sign your copy.

Thursday, September 15, 2011
5:30 – 7:00 pm

American Management Association (AMA)
New York Executive Conference Center
Bookstore
1601 Broadway, 8th floor
New York, NY 10019
(212) 903-8286

Click here for information about attending this Becoming an Exceptional Executive Coach booksigning.

Conveniently located at 48th and Broadway in the heart of New York City’s bustling Times Square, the American Management Association New York Executive Conference Center is within blocks of some of the best restaurants, shops, and entertainment for which New York is famous. The AMA New York Bookstore has more than 3,000 business and professional books and CDs.

Michael H. Frisch, Robert J. Lee, Karen L. Metzger, Jeremy Robinson, and Judy Rosemarin are New York City-based executive coaches and trainers with substantial corporate, consulting, and academic experience. iCoachNewYork is a consulting and training firm that focuses on the development of executive coaches, both internal and external. The firm consists of five highly experienced executive coaches who together create and deliver training to other professional coaches. Since 2004, iCoachNewYork has delivered the one-of-a-kind Professional Coaching Certificate Program at the Zicklin Business School of Baruch College, CUNY, as well as in-house customized Internal Coach training programs.

Fall 2011 Catalog Online Now!

Our Fall 2011 catalog is online now! You can download it HERE, and check out our past catalogs HERE.

We’ve got some great books coming out this fall:

• It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss by Susan Wilson Solovic, owner and cofounder of ItsYourBiz.com.
• The Vigilant Investor: A Former SEC Enforcer Reveals How to Fraud-Proof Your Investments by Pat Huddleston.
• The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking…Because People Do Business with People They Like by Michelle Tillis Lederman.
• Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, Fifth Edition by Performance Research Associates, Inc. Illustrations by John Bush. 20th Anniversary edition.

We hope to spot these books on your bookshelf, and that you enjoy and find them useful!

A Big Thank You to Your Administrative Assistant

The following is a guest post from Kevin Wilson, co-author of The Administrative Assistant’s and Secretary’s Handbook.

Administrative Professional’s Day is the time to thank your hard-working assistant for putting up with those endless requests from you and your colleagues. This year, rather than a gift card to Starbucks or a spa gift certificate you would like to keep for yourself, how about giving the gift of development. (Or perhaps in addition to a gift card or spa gift certificate!)

Gone are the days when an administrative assistant might work 30 years for the same company, many of those years for the same boss. Corporate restructurings, which have affected hundreds of thousands of people over the past few years, have been a mixed blessing for administrative assistants. In the wake of restructuring, some assistants have to leave their position when their boss leaves, but others are asked to take on greater responsibility, to “take up the slack” as middle managers are phased out. Either situation could be professionally devastating if an administrative assistant is not prepared.

While it is important to offer training on the skills needed for the current job, such as computer skills, it could be strategically helpful to acquire other essential business skills whether or not they are needed right now.  Look for training opportunities in areas such as business writing, research, customer service, purchasing, budgeting, bookkeeping, invoicing, training new employees, presentation skills, and supervising an office staff.  The American Management Association offers a wide variety of seminars on these and other topics.

Having these skills will give your administrative assistant the most flexible preparation to meet any challenge he or she may face—either an on-the-job crisis or a career advancement opportunity.

Another development idea that is more closely related with your assistant’s current job would be to support his or her effort to become certified by the International Association of Administrative Professionals (formerly the National Secretaries Association) as a Certified Professional Secretary (CPS) or Certified Administrative Professional (CAP). This certification is granted only upon the successful completion of examinations in various aspects of secretarial/administrative procedures and skills. Being certified can be a tremendous boost to your assistant’s career.

Giving the gift of development shows you care personally about your administrative assistant’s future and well-being. If you have a limited budget, offer to pay for an adult education course of your assistant’s choice at the local college. There are also many useful online courses that can help your assistant acquire new skills.  And above all, talk with your assistant about what they see themselves doing in the future, and then work together on a development plan that helps them achieve these goals.

Kevin Wilson is the co-author of The Administrative Assistant’s and Secretary’s Handbook and is Vice President of Videologies, Inc., a company that specializes in training administrative professionals in Fortune 500 companies.