34 Loyalty to the Brand and to Customers
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe how employees help build and sustain a brand
- Discuss how employees’ customer service can help or hurt a business
A good employment relationship is beneficial to both management and employees. When a company’s products or services are legitimate and safe and its employment policies are fair and compassionate, managers should be able to rely on their employees’ dedication to those products or services and to their customers. Although no employee should be called upon to lie or cover up a misstep on the part of the firm, every employee should be willing to make a sincere commitment to an ethical employer.
Respecting the Brand
Every company puts time, effort, and money into developing a brand, that is, a product or service marketed by a particular company under a particular name. As Apple, Coca-Cola, Amazon, BMW, McDonald’s, and creators of other coveted brands know, branding—creating, differentiating, and maintaining a brand’s image or reputation—is an important way to build company value, sell products and services, and expand corporate goodwill. In the sense discussed here, the term “brand” encompasses an image, reputation, logo, tagline, or specific color scheme that is trademarked, meaning the company owns it and must give permission to others who would legally use it (such as Tiffany’s unique shade of blue).
Companies want and expect employees to help in their branding endeavors. For example, according to the head of training at American Express, the company’s brand is its product, and its mantra has always been, “Happy employees make happy customers.”
American Express places significant emphasis on employee satisfaction because it is convinced this strategy helps protect and advance its brand. One company that uses positive employee involvement in branding is the technology conglomerate Cisco, which started a branding program on social media that reaches out to employees ((Figure)). Employees are encouraged to be creative in their brand-boosting posts in the program. The benefit is that prospective job candidates get a peek into Cisco life, and current employees feel the company trusts and values their ideas.
Watch this video explaining the concept of brand loyalty to learn more.
However, protecting the brand can be a special challenge today, thanks to the ease with which customers and even employees can post negative information about the brand on the Internet and social media. Consider these examples in the fast-food industry. A photo posted on Taco Bell’s Facebook page showed an employee licking a row of tacos. A Domino’s Pizza employee can be seen in a YouTube video spitting on food, putting cheese into his nose and then putting that cheese into a sandwich, and rubbing a sponge used for dishwashing on his groin area.
On Twitter, a Burger King employee in Japan posted a photo of himself lying on hamburger buns while on