I have a new premium article up at Marketing Profs; "Ten Steps to Creating a Brand Ambassador Program". You'll need to have a premium Marketing Profs account to view it.At Daily Fix, my latest post there asks "Where Are the Community Evangelists?", and centers around what happened when Paul went to his local Kohls, and the aftermath. More background on the story at Hee-Haw Marketing here and here, and Ben at Church of the Customer also mentions it. Great stuff, and really shows the power of the blogosphere, and the consequences for companies that ignore this space.
In the comments to my DF post, 'IB Rich' asks:"As a retail company, isn't every Kohl's employee on the floor effectively a "community evangelist"? I don't know how they train their sales associates, but they already have so many opportunities to interact and evangelize with customers."
My response was: "I think the problem is, too many retailers focus more on teaching the associates how to take the customer's money back to management, and not their feedback."
Sad but true. If the interaction between a sales associate and a customer doesn't end with the customer handing the associate their money, it's usually viewed as a failure.
Pic via Project Photography
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The Viral Garden, Marketing, Brand Ambassadors, Daily Fix, Marketing Profs
1 comment:
It's such a different world in retail now- and not a good one at all.
I can remember serving my time in retail and how I felt it was my duty to make sure the experience for the consumer was good- even if they didn't buy anything because they will hopefully come back. Maybe next time willing to buy. I wasn't special either, that was the culture of the retail environments I worked in and we nearly all felt the same way. That seems to be largely a thing of the past. That's sad to me.
I am not sure if it is the "culture" of retail or if it is the lousy pay, poor management, or just the current crop of retail employees.
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