Employees and marketing: How good employees can save your marketing dollar

All of your employees, no matter their role, need to be a part of your
marketing plan (Photo: Business Wire)

Your employees are the make or break element of your business.  Simply put, an employee can be the reason your customers come back, or stay away.  Yet do your employees understand that basic concept?  Have you made it clear to each employee that your business is their business?

Do you, or they, understand that marketing your business is also a part of their job?

Marketing means bring the customer in, bring the customer back.  No one is more on the front-lines of this basic marketing concept than the employee.  Not even the marketing department that creates and executes your marketing plan.

Marketing 101 is your employees interacting with your customers.  Period.

As we discussed in the earlier article, Employees are your marketing frontline, every business owner understands (or should understand) that it is cheaper to keep customers coming back, than it is to bring in new ones.

Yet, one must always be bringing in new customers, for the health and future of the business.  Therefore, one's time, money and marketing effort should be spent well.

Using the existing positive elements of your business will help bring back customers time-and-again, inturn, the bulk of your marketing dollar and effort can then go into adding in new customers.

So, how then is the employee so important, and how can they save you marketing dollars, just by being good at what they do?

Solving the problem

Think back to our previous article and the example used there.  In Employees are your marketing frontline, we talk about a recent incident we had at a national bookstore.  We had been using this bookstore due to our current lack of internet, and had sighed up for the provided AT&T monthly internet service.  At $20 a month, we were using the internet at this bookstore, as well as all area AT&T hot spots.  No problems.  No issues.

Shortly before announcing they were going to offer the wi-fi internet at the bookstores for free, the service kicked in.  At that point, getting on and staying on became a nightmare.  We went from consistent service to consistent problems, but only at the bookstores.

We started moving between two of the chain's stores, and having only problems, we started to also use other AT&T hot spots in the area.  Those locations we still paid for, but they always worked.  The bookstore was at the point of never working.

We let managers know and nothing changed, so we sent an email to the store's customer service.  They responded with, 'that's your problem, you have to contact AT&T, not us.'

Your employees will have the most contact with your customers. Do
they know what you want? (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

While one could make that argument, a good business would not.  We had zero problems at the locations where we were paying for service, so our issue was not with AT&T.  The only locations with the issue were the bookstores where there was free service, now presumably being paid for by the business advertising to come to their place because it's free.

So, whose problem is it?

Never should your answer be, "that's your problem, not ours"

When you own a business, the people who represent that business are the people your customers are going to interact with, and respond to.

In one quick motion, this bookstore lost our business because of one bad employee.

Had that customer service representative said, "we are sorry that you've had a bad experience, I will let my supervisors know, and we'll get this fixed, please continue to trust us," we might have continued to use them.

Yes, due to the situation, we continue to use their wi-fi service, but we now bring our own food and drinks, and all future books will be bought online.

So, whose problem was it?

Be the customer's answer

Each and every member of your staff needs to understand that how they interact with the customer is the differnce between that customer coming back or not - and their having a job in the future or not.

Whether or not we're in a bad economy, people have a choice, and while you may have more customers coming in, why give up the ones you've already earned?

Your employees, be they housekeeping or front desk, bartender, mail room or custodian, all play a vital role in the health of the business.  Each and everyone must understand and be held accountable for their role in marketing.

Marketing is the message of "we're glad you are here.  Please come again."  And, mean it.

Including your employees in your marketing is vital to your marketing
plan (Sandy Huffaker/AP Images for Eos Equis)

When a customer wants something, no matter who they ask, the answer should always be, "I can help you with that."

When someone asks the housekeeper where the pool is, they should be able to tell them.

When someone asks the front desk for a new towel, the front desk person should say they will take care of that, and make certain that new towels get to the room.

When someone asks the pool attendant for room service, they should get the order, and get it to the room service people.

No job of answering a question should go undone.  No one's problem should be someone else's problem.

Even if the actual act of completing the task is not doable, the act of seeing to it should fall upon the person asked.

Why?

Because people don't always know who to ask, but your employees should.  Because guests can be lazy and demanding, but they pay the bills, and you want them back.

Get the job done and get return business

It's that simple.  When a guest asks for something, and no matter why they ask gets the problem solved and job done, you earn the guests' respect and gratitude, and return business.

Each and every employee must take ownership in the guests you have, and bringing them back.

The best way to do that is to give the customer what they want.  Be the answer.  Never turn away a request.  Even if it's not something your business can do, there has to be an answer given.

And, never should the answer to a customer be, "that's your problem."