Your Company Brand Depends on Employee Engagement
June 24, 2015
Employee engagement is important when it comes to branding because it involves the organization, the employee, and the customer. When those three elements come together we call it tri-branding. First, the organization creates a brand for itself – this is the Employer Value Proposition. Second, the employees, and the product or service, brand the organization – i.e. “I really like working here, we make great products.” An added bonus is happy employees tend to tell their network about their organization which helps to attract talent. Third, the way third parties brand the organization to others, especially through social media– this can be customers, vendors, or suppliers.
Why is Tri-branding Important?
Before social media, most people’s reach wasn’t very far. If you had an experience you wanted to share you could tell your family, friends, and colleagues. Those people may share your stories to their network and your story may travel through some of their networks. Overall, not a very big reach. We know word-of-mouth is a strong branding tool, but now, with the help of social media, the reach of one person can be in the millions. Yup, millions! If you have a negative experience and go on a review site, or your own personal social media and tag the organization you can reach a huge amount of people. How do you pick out a new restaurant that wasn’t recommended to you by a friend? Do you check a restaurant review site? If you’re like me, and you see a lot of negative reviews, you are going to reconsider and likely explore other options that have positive reviews. This is incredibly powerful in the way potential customers may view your organization. Think of how online reviews can help or hurt your organizations brand.
How Does Tri-branding Relate to Employee Engagement?
When your employees are engaged, they are more likely to provide a good customer experience, which ultimately leads to positive tri-branding. If you have disengaged employees who don’t provide a good experience, it can be very damaging to your brand. The way that social media is used, a negative experience can spread like wildfire. For example, when a customer saw an airline bag handler damage his guitar and the organization didn’t resolve the issue, he created a video about it to show the world the situation. This video instantly went viral and now has over 15 million views. This shows the power of tri-branding, and how quickly a customer can negatively brand an organization. The core issue tends to be poor customer experience due to disengaged employees. This helps us understand that engaging your employees first will help you have more positive customer experiences, which leads to a positive view of your organizations brand.
The three elements to tri-branding are all important. However, it’s imperative to understand how engaged employees have a direct impact on customer experience. This theme cycles into how customers will brand your company for you. Can you take the risk of having disengaged employees who cause a negative customer experience and negative brand? Engaging your employees first will allow your customers to become engaged and have positive experiences. Is your organization ready to start focusing on employee engagement first in order to reap the benefits of customer engagement?
-Kaitlyn Carr, Organizational Development Specialist, @EmplyEngagement @kacarr789
