(This is the Week Eight official blog post)
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is all about the mix -- the integration between various IMC channels that work as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.
Advertising, Promotion, PR and Direct Marketing can hog the IMC spotlight, so you have to make sure that Personal Selling gets some TLC.
Employees can be the most powerful brand ambassadors, whether they're directly involved with sales or not. Just ask the Zappos folks. They've even written a book about it.
Good customer service is becoming a dying art, but Zappos gives me faith. Zappos is an online retailer, but the core of their business -- at the most basic level -- is a call center: one-on-one customer service-related conversations.
"Service" is so integral to the brand Zappos puts it front-and-center for all the world to see. For Zappos, corporate culture is the Personal Selling program that contributes to success.
Personal Selling programs come in lots of shapes & sizes. Seen any good examples? Come across a good case study?
I've never bought anything from Zappo's but I always hear about them. I guess I will have to check out their website :-) I vaguely remember their commercials, they used puppets right?
ReplyDeleteLL Bean is a good example of a business with good customer service. The ladies in the call center are super friendly and polite. The goods have a lifetime guarantee, if damaged they will replace it for free. The products are good quality and reasonably priced. They are expanding into NJ (paramus? I think). Only recently, have I seen commercials for LL Bean. Word of mouth originally introduced me to them. No puppets, just great stuff and good people.
ReplyDeleteI work part time for Macy's in Willowbrook, NJ. I'm in the home recovery department. My job is to pick up merchandise that customers leave behind or strewn on the sales floor.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I noticed is how the company pushes one-on-on contact with customers. This is even emphasized to non-sales personnel (such as me.) During employee orientation, human resources showed company done research about the value of patron contact. It indicated that shoppers are much more likely to buy something if an employee approaches them and strikes up a conversation, even just by saying" Hello, can I help you?"
I noticed Macy's has much more employee-customer interaction than many other retailers such as Walmarts, Kohl's, Sears or Home Depot. On my day off, I walk through the store, and get approached by at least five sales people each time. And I see many employees engaging in conversations with the store's visitors. So that's what I call personnel selling hard at work.
You can tell there's so much honesty in this video. I love how the employee in the end says that they're not faking the company's culture, all while she has what looks like a nose piercing. And no one told her to take it out! If that doesn't scream honesty I don't know what does!
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