September 8, 2008
Employee WOM as a Marketing Tool
By Tom Ryan
In an article written for Advertising Age, Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, contends that employee word of mouth can serve as a primary advertising tool for brands. At Zappos.com, for example, strong WOM is almost directly driven by the motivation and attention coming from its employees.
“We invest the time and money into hiring and nurturing the right people, as many other companies do in their media planning,” said Brian Kalma, Zappos’ marketing chief.
Rick Murray, CEO of Edelman Digital and board member of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), agreed. “A well-trained, highly motivated workforce that understands the brand, their role in making it successful, and who feels empowered to do just that, is any company’s most powerful and most underutilized asset.”
Leslie Forde of Communispace, which builds online communities for brands, likewise believes employees are the “overlooked resource.” She asked, “How many times have we extended forgiveness or patience to a brand that ‘messes up’ in a customer service interaction because the individual employee that we’ve dealt with is impressive and professional?”
One challenge, according to Mr. Blackshaw, is building ROI metrics for employee loyalty and education. Another is that marketing departments rarely get involved with employees and HR departments don’t typically touch brand building.
But Mr. Blackshaw listed a few reasons brands should be tapping “the employee-as-relationship-builder” model:
Measurements: Consumer-generated media analysis can now determine “with high statistical significance why employee behavior at, say, Burger King or Taco Bell creates positive or negative conversation. We can even assign ‘reach’ value to the conversation.”
Social-Media Experiments: Social-media tools provide brands with a broader spectrum of “test and measure” tools to pinpoint opportunities to better understand the impact of employee loyalty and advocacy. It particularly helps employers explore the character and personality of employees. Corporate blogs offer the same opportunity.
Online Video: The “sight, sound and motion” benefits of employees talking via online videos “may well open up a powerful range of opportunities for companies to reap the full benefits of employee advocacy.”
The “New” Customer Service: As Zappos.com underscores, customer service could be the most important WOM tool. Said Mr. Blackshaw, “Brands should be conducting large and small experiments in this area to understand how a little extra ‘touch’ can impact the game.”
Rewards and Incentives: If conversations and employee advocacy can be somewhat measured, Mr. Blackshaw believes it’s time to create data-grounded incentive and reward models. He said, “Online consumers constantly call out Southwest or Nordstrom employees for going the extra distance. If it’s measurable, it’s rewardable, right?”
Concludes Mr. Blackshaw, “If conversation is the new gold standard, and employees are consistently at the heart of the conversation, we have a big compelling reason – and tons of upside – in rethinking the importance of employee advocacy.”
Discussion Question: How would you rate employee WOM as a marketing tool? To what degree can it be harnessed by brands? What challenges as well as solutions do you see in driving employee advocacy efforts?
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WOM is extremely important. The key is to keep it positive. Employees can do as much harm as good if they are disgruntled. Keeping employees happy and encouraged about the product and service you are offering is done by exceeding your commitment to them and to your customers. Giving them a place to work that they enjoy and a product they believe in will lead to positive WOM. A happy and comfortable work environment goes a long way. So do incentives and rewards. Everyone likes to go home and tell the family when they just got an extra bonus.
WOM is only a result of an exceptional experience. So many businesses try to get “the buzz” whether through advertising, paying people to be ambassadors or getting celebrities to try their product that they think WOM can be separate from the experience.
Nothing could be further from the truth. An employee that truly feels at home, valued and important will tell their friends as a result. Trying to measure it is a distraction. Fix the culture and the WOM comes naturally.
Employee WOM is a powerful communication channel for both promoting the retailer as a place to shop as well as an attractive place to work. WOM, whether it be generated by employees or customers, has a much stronger impact on customers than communications through impersonal media. Starbucks is an exemplar of a retailer that has effectively used WOM to build repeat customer visits as well as hire talent.
Considerable research has found that satisfied, committed employees provide better customer service that results in higher levels of customer satisfaction. While WOM has a strong impact on purchase decisions, it probably is not the primary communication vehicle for retailers that need to build awareness.
There is a lot of upside for many brands to be conducting some experiments to understand more about the impact of word of mouth conversations, both online and offline. However, the level of chatter that potentially could go way up based on some “reward opportunity” is somewhat off-putting as a marketing tool, as it seems like it could create a lot of endorsements for products that are “scripted” instead of genuine.
Brand ambassadors with genuine fervor are highly credible; let’s have a bit of caution that we don’t race to muddy the waters with “well-scripted” employees trying to earn an extra buck at work.
Zappos has an impressive staff culture, but it is not an easily replicable model. Also I think it muddies the analytic waters a bit when we blend word-of-mouth, employee culture, and customer service practices in a single discussion. Yes, they all connect, but it gets difficult to sort out the causality.
I know we’ve seen research indicating that companies with happy employees enjoy better customer relationships, but from my point of view, both flow from the organization’s service practices. A retailer that enables and empowers employees to deliver a great service experience by providing the right tools, standards, training and incentives will win over both its employees and its customers.
Zappos does most of this very well, from what I’ve seen. It gives associates broad latitude to help shoppers. It also applies a very unusual selection process for its associates. Only brand evangelist-types get hired. This has generated a fierce following among shoe shoppers, including very strong WOM.
But–and this seems important to me–Zappos’ great reputation is the result of the totality of its service practices. If WOM were the strategy, the company would be nowhere near as successful. Shoppers can detect a hollow message five thousand miles away, even filtered by the world wide web. It’s the practice that counts in customer service.
WOM in the retail world is a core marketing component. Sales staff who believe in the brand will increase penetration in and out of the store. Side by side stats from two different stores in the same chain have shown increased baskets and transactions for the store that has a well trained staff who believes in the brand (according to an internal survey). Retailers cannot discount the representation from frontline staff. Leadership, training and feedback are key in achieving word of mouth marketing from associates. The proof is in the P/L statement.
I believe what we are really talking about is direct customer interaction with a company’s employees and the effect it has on business. Clearly over the last few years, companies have recognized that the perception of their company (and brand) by consumers depends largely on their employee’s interaction with customers. While we have all known this is important–at least to give it lip service–the big change has been with various customer service functions associated with telephone interaction.
I have noticed a significant change in the customer service responders over the last several years. Whether it is for airline reservations, health insurance inquiries, online retailers or technical support, it seems that even if the customer would be disappointed by the facts of the response, they were made to feel like the responder tried very hard to understand and solve the problem. I am also finding many more companies surveying the telephone experience with a few automated questions at the close of the call or sending an email asking the respondent to rate the experience.
I am sure this experience is not unique, but worthy as an example, in any case. Several years ago I called tech support to solve a problem. The tech support person went through various steps as they were obviously prompted on their computer screen. We got to the end and they said my problem was solved. I asked them to wait a moment while I check. I found the problem was not solved. I told the “techie” and he told me it was, as I continued to look at my computer screen with the problem front and center. A bit of an argument ensued with him insisting that the problem was solved and no longer existed. I eventually ended the call and immediately called their customer service back and canceled the service. The customer service person canceled the service as I requested, but did NOT even ask why I was canceling.
The biggest challenge in making employee interaction with customers positive is managing a very broad spectrum of personalities and cultures. What may be one person’s “enthusiastic and positive response” may be interpreted as something quite the opposite. What may be one persona’s humor, may not be funny at all to a customer.
The key is monitoring communication and culling the best communicators from the norm. The top line of doing this may seem expensive, but it is less expensive than the few thousand dollars that the tech support guy cost his company when I canceled the service.
It is somewhat ironic that on the same day, there is another discussion about how employees are frustrated by their employer’s efforts around green initiatives. It is a reminder of the risks you take when front-line employees are the “face” of your company–it’s great when they’re happy, but what do you do when they’re mad? And they can get mad about so much more than just the scope of their job….
Is it any coincidence that Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines are mentioned for their employee advocates–and happen to also be known as great places to work? I don’t mind incentives for employees who create positive experiences, but such incentives have to be part of an overall culture that supports employees in delivering great experiences, not just “another incentive program” that is supposed to make front-line employees overlook the other ways that they are treated badly.
Personally, I like United’s program. Living in Denver, I fly United a lot. I get coupons every year to hand out to crew members who go “above and beyond.” I have no idea what they get when they get such a coupon, but I like that it leaves it up to the customer to make the call, not some corporate measure of “advocacy” or “net promotion” that strips the interaction of its real goal: to create a great customer experience.
It depends on the industry. WOM campaigns work better in newer, cooler industries.
What are the three best sources of customers and employees?
1. Present customers
2. Past customers
3. New Customers
What is the number one reason that customers and employees quit?
“An attitude of indifference”
From the customers point of view, this indifference comes from an employee.From the employees point of view it is from management.
The best way to have your customers and employees love your business is to continue to appreciate them and exceed their expectations. When you do this you have a WOW factor which creates a positive WOM movement and grows your brand as a place to work and a place to shop.
If you create a long term negative experience, you create MOM–Moment of Misery–which also creates a WOM. Just not the kind you want.
For this to work, corporate culture will have to change in most companies. The majority of companies would never allow their employees to blog about products on which their companies are working. And can you imagine a company that allows its employees to Twitter during a staff meeting. But this type of transparency can create great WOM opportunities, and if the corporations would allow their employees to have this type of freedom to speak, the WOM would do wonders for the corporate or brand reputation.
WOM is successful when the right opinion leaders are engaged. That would mean hiring people based upon their “connectedness” and interaction with others outside of work. Those criteria may or may not be consistent with the traits you are looking for in a good employee. If your employees have those traits, then developing WOM campaigns with them can work very well, If your employees do not have those traits, find a group of your consumers who do and develop a campaign with them.
Word of mouth may be a great tool, but face it: many great brands have lousy WOM. Do McDonald’s employees tell all their friends and customers how great it is to work there? Are Walmart employees known for their loyalty? Do Safeway’s folks bore their friends with endless bragging about their company culture? Do Dunkin’ Donuts’ workers look like they’re having the time of their lives? Pride and profit in retailing aren’t always close relatives.
Employee WOM is a potent marketing tool, one way or another. A fully motivated, enthusiastic, engaged and knowledgeable workforce can certainly create enormous goodwill, and if the retailer and product are on the cutting edge, a powerful buzz among early adopters. But the opposite is true, and besets far too many retailers who don’t place enough focus and emphasis on their employees.
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WOM is extremely important. The key is to keep it positive. Employees can do as much harm as good if they are disgruntled. Keeping employees happy and encouraged about the product and service you are offering is done by exceeding your commitment to them and to your customers. Giving them a place to work that they enjoy and a product they believe in will lead to positive WOM. A happy and comfortable work environment goes a long way. So do incentives and rewards. Everyone likes to go home and tell the family when they just got an extra bonus.
WOM is only a result of an exceptional experience. So many businesses try to get “the buzz” whether through advertising, paying people to be ambassadors or getting celebrities to try their product that they think WOM can be separate from the experience.
Nothing could be further from the truth. An employee that truly feels at home, valued and important will tell their friends as a result. Trying to measure it is a distraction. Fix the culture and the WOM comes naturally.
Employee WOM is a powerful communication channel for both promoting the retailer as a place to shop as well as an attractive place to work. WOM, whether it be generated by employees or customers, has a much stronger impact on customers than communications through impersonal media. Starbucks is an exemplar of a retailer that has effectively used WOM to build repeat customer visits as well as hire talent.
Considerable research has found that satisfied, committed employees provide better customer service that results in higher levels of customer satisfaction. While WOM has a strong impact on purchase decisions, it probably is not the primary communication vehicle for retailers that need to build awareness.
There is a lot of upside for many brands to be conducting some experiments to understand more about the impact of word of mouth conversations, both online and offline. However, the level of chatter that potentially could go way up based on some “reward opportunity” is somewhat off-putting as a marketing tool, as it seems like it could create a lot of endorsements for products that are “scripted” instead of genuine.
Brand ambassadors with genuine fervor are highly credible; let’s have a bit of caution that we don’t race to muddy the waters with “well-scripted” employees trying to earn an extra buck at work.
Zappos has an impressive staff culture, but it is not an easily replicable model. Also I think it muddies the analytic waters a bit when we blend word-of-mouth, employee culture, and customer service practices in a single discussion. Yes, they all connect, but it gets difficult to sort out the causality.
I know we’ve seen research indicating that companies with happy employees enjoy better customer relationships, but from my point of view, both flow from the organization’s service practices. A retailer that enables and empowers employees to deliver a great service experience by providing the right tools, standards, training and incentives will win over both its employees and its customers.
Zappos does most of this very well, from what I’ve seen. It gives associates broad latitude to help shoppers. It also applies a very unusual selection process for its associates. Only brand evangelist-types get hired. This has generated a fierce following among shoe shoppers, including very strong WOM.
But–and this seems important to me–Zappos’ great reputation is the result of the totality of its service practices. If WOM were the strategy, the company would be nowhere near as successful. Shoppers can detect a hollow message five thousand miles away, even filtered by the world wide web. It’s the practice that counts in customer service.
WOM in the retail world is a core marketing component. Sales staff who believe in the brand will increase penetration in and out of the store. Side by side stats from two different stores in the same chain have shown increased baskets and transactions for the store that has a well trained staff who believes in the brand (according to an internal survey). Retailers cannot discount the representation from frontline staff. Leadership, training and feedback are key in achieving word of mouth marketing from associates. The proof is in the P/L statement.
I believe what we are really talking about is direct customer interaction with a company’s employees and the effect it has on business. Clearly over the last few years, companies have recognized that the perception of their company (and brand) by consumers depends largely on their employee’s interaction with customers. While we have all known this is important–at least to give it lip service–the big change has been with various customer service functions associated with telephone interaction.
I have noticed a significant change in the customer service responders over the last several years. Whether it is for airline reservations, health insurance inquiries, online retailers or technical support, it seems that even if the customer would be disappointed by the facts of the response, they were made to feel like the responder tried very hard to understand and solve the problem. I am also finding many more companies surveying the telephone experience with a few automated questions at the close of the call or sending an email asking the respondent to rate the experience.
I am sure this experience is not unique, but worthy as an example, in any case. Several years ago I called tech support to solve a problem. The tech support person went through various steps as they were obviously prompted on their computer screen. We got to the end and they said my problem was solved. I asked them to wait a moment while I check. I found the problem was not solved. I told the “techie” and he told me it was, as I continued to look at my computer screen with the problem front and center. A bit of an argument ensued with him insisting that the problem was solved and no longer existed. I eventually ended the call and immediately called their customer service back and canceled the service. The customer service person canceled the service as I requested, but did NOT even ask why I was canceling.
The biggest challenge in making employee interaction with customers positive is managing a very broad spectrum of personalities and cultures. What may be one person’s “enthusiastic and positive response” may be interpreted as something quite the opposite. What may be one persona’s humor, may not be funny at all to a customer.
The key is monitoring communication and culling the best communicators from the norm. The top line of doing this may seem expensive, but it is less expensive than the few thousand dollars that the tech support guy cost his company when I canceled the service.
It is somewhat ironic that on the same day, there is another discussion about how employees are frustrated by their employer’s efforts around green initiatives. It is a reminder of the risks you take when front-line employees are the “face” of your company–it’s great when they’re happy, but what do you do when they’re mad? And they can get mad about so much more than just the scope of their job….
Is it any coincidence that Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines are mentioned for their employee advocates–and happen to also be known as great places to work? I don’t mind incentives for employees who create positive experiences, but such incentives have to be part of an overall culture that supports employees in delivering great experiences, not just “another incentive program” that is supposed to make front-line employees overlook the other ways that they are treated badly.
Personally, I like United’s program. Living in Denver, I fly United a lot. I get coupons every year to hand out to crew members who go “above and beyond.” I have no idea what they get when they get such a coupon, but I like that it leaves it up to the customer to make the call, not some corporate measure of “advocacy” or “net promotion” that strips the interaction of its real goal: to create a great customer experience.
It depends on the industry. WOM campaigns work better in newer, cooler industries.
What are the three best sources of customers and employees?
1. Present customers
2. Past customers
3. New Customers
What is the number one reason that customers and employees quit?
“An attitude of indifference”
From the customers point of view, this indifference comes from an employee.From the employees point of view it is from management.
The best way to have your customers and employees love your business is to continue to appreciate them and exceed their expectations. When you do this you have a WOW factor which creates a positive WOM movement and grows your brand as a place to work and a place to shop.
If you create a long term negative experience, you create MOM–Moment of Misery–which also creates a WOM. Just not the kind you want.
For this to work, corporate culture will have to change in most companies. The majority of companies would never allow their employees to blog about products on which their companies are working. And can you imagine a company that allows its employees to Twitter during a staff meeting. But this type of transparency can create great WOM opportunities, and if the corporations would allow their employees to have this type of freedom to speak, the WOM would do wonders for the corporate or brand reputation.
WOM is successful when the right opinion leaders are engaged. That would mean hiring people based upon their “connectedness” and interaction with others outside of work. Those criteria may or may not be consistent with the traits you are looking for in a good employee. If your employees have those traits, then developing WOM campaigns with them can work very well, If your employees do not have those traits, find a group of your consumers who do and develop a campaign with them.
Word of mouth may be a great tool, but face it: many great brands have lousy WOM. Do McDonald’s employees tell all their friends and customers how great it is to work there? Are Walmart employees known for their loyalty? Do Safeway’s folks bore their friends with endless bragging about their company culture? Do Dunkin’ Donuts’ workers look like they’re having the time of their lives? Pride and profit in retailing aren’t always close relatives.
Employee WOM is a potent marketing tool, one way or another. A fully motivated, enthusiastic, engaged and knowledgeable workforce can certainly create enormous goodwill, and if the retailer and product are on the cutting edge, a powerful buzz among early adopters. But the opposite is true, and besets far too many retailers who don’t place enough focus and emphasis on their employees.