WASHINGTON -- To turn employees into brand ambassadors, companies first need to secure a clear vision and then they need to explain that vision to employees, speakers on day two of Smart Customer Service 2019 stressed.
Andrea Wenburg, CEO of Voice of Influence, noted that employees turned brand ambassadors "really embody your brand and represent you well."
To create this environment, though, employees "want to know that their collective solution as a company matters," she said.
"Extrinsic motivations are good to a certain degree. They give us little boosts of energy as we go through life. But it's when we're connected to a purpose that's outside of ourselves that we are compelled to move forward, even through difficult situations," Wenburg said.
She also emphasized that organizations listen to individual employees. "Employees want to know that they belong to something that's bigger than themselves, but also to feel like they're unique in that setting as well; not just an interchangeable part of the whole," she continued. "They want to believe [their] voice matters."
A straightforward data policy is also key.
Robert Lamb, customer engagement manager for contact centers at CDW, offered some best practices for making the most of contact center data. "The important part of whatever information is giving you is what you do with it," he said, recommending that companies identify their information in relation to what they are trying to achieve.
To this end, he said companies first need to start with their mission statements, what they are doing to support those missions; and how each team collectively makes those missions happen.
After that, it gets a little more granular, according to Lamb. Companies, he said, then need to determine what each team does that might drive success from there, what technology can do to support it, and how available the technology is.
"ITsupport is an important part of this equation," he added.
The next step is defining the requirements to help determine whether the information "is actually giving you something that supports that business mission."
Lamb went on to suggest that companies define desired outcomes to match business goals, capture data from all relevant sources, identify and monitor metrics that are matched to desired outcomes, and implement a continual service improvement process that leverages empirical data insights.
Alexandre Guay, manager of digital customer service at National Bank of Canada, introduced social media management into its customer service center in 2016, with tremendous results. He said that some of the keys to success are to have a common voice across public relations, marketing, and customer service.
The next step is to establish a "special unit" with access to key decision-makers to quickly handle situations that might impact the organization's reputation.
<p"Guay also urged organizations to trust their people and allow for mistakes to happen for the sake of learning.