Last week I watched a client flush nearly $40,000 in top-notch marketing work down the drain because a $9 an hour employee took the great leads being driven to the business and sabotaged them. In this case, she took motivated and excited incoming calls and shifted their state to negativity faster than a teenage boy on prom night. And not just once.
If you run a business with employees, every single one of ‘em who interacts with clients/customers/end-users needs to understand what is and what is not acceptable. We raise people defiant nowadays, so you have to explain why and what’s in it for them. Oh, and let’s face it… bribes work. (Last month a client with a retail location was having a great deal of trouble with employees unintentionally offending clients. The employees couldn’t be fired, so we put together a bonus pool which is reduced every time a customer is lost for a handful of reasons… being offended was one of ‘em. It’s worked well thus far.)
Employees who do not have contact with clients/customers/end-users need to understand the effect they can have on marketing. (Marketing = everything a business does to get and leverage a client relationship.) Do you have a tech in the backroom who is only allowed out for bathing and feeding? Insulated employees need to know what they do has a direct effect on the growth (or decline) of the business… so instead of playing level 91434 of Doom, (s)he should get the value of speed to a client relationship.
And so on…
It’s the old tale, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
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