Walgreen's is training pharmacists to spend more time helping patients with chronic illnesses.
American Express is expanding a program aimed at getting agents to build better relationships with customers.
Comcast is putting call-center reps through new training and instructing supervisors to coach their agents more.
These are Brandtenders in action: moving from "customer service" to "customer engagement."
Over 25% of the 1,400-plus companies surveyed by Accenture said that customer service is the first area to get increased funding as the economy recovers, according to The Wall Street Journal. More importantly, these companies are changing how they perceive and approach customer service.
Customer service is reactive and transactional: taking customer orders and dealing with customer frustrations. The Brandtender approach is proactive, linking employees who are interested in the brand they work for—because of their company's unique culture (the DNA of a brand)—with customers who value their relationships with those employees.
I've found that the most customer-satisfying brands in the world do three things:
1. Help employees understand and become interested in the brand. (Don't over-engineer the brand message, make it simple and allow employees to relay it to customers in their own style.)
2. Give employees the tools to communicate the brand message at every turn, making every moment of impression with customers a strong one. (They should know what to say and when, consistently and effectively.)
3. Trust employees to represent the brand in the marketplace. ("Empowerment" is an overused word. It's about trust. If you don't trust employees, they know it and won't trust your brand. And if your employees can't represent your brand, then who can?)
