How are brands defined by their internal culture? How are customer-facing employees defining and marketing their company's brand? Alex Frankel, author of Punching In, came to Customer Service is the New Marketing to share his undercover experiences as a corporate culture chameleon.
When Frankel started the project, he assumed that he would be an equally good worker in any environment. What he discovered, however, was the opposite; his success in each role had to do with whether or not he was actually a good fit for that retail culture.
Who companies hire is key to building and sustaining corporate cultures. As a result, many retail companies are now providing in-depth personality assessment tests. If you work at the Container Store, you are obsessed with organization. If you're at Starbucks, you like the act of functioning within a single unit.
Training is the second key part of establishing culture. Not just the content and attitudes cultivated in training, but also the manner in which the training is delivered:
- Apple Stores encourage that you shadow an experienced employee for a few shifts, and do so in a highly interactive manner.
- Starbucks throws you behind the register and gives you an unexpected lesson in teamwork while on the job. Take-home training dice that use phrases like 'tall' and 'half caf' allow new baristas to learn the special language combinations that Starbucks has trained its customers to use. Starbucks employees feel part of an extended alumni network.
- At UPS, Frankel trained in economy of motion, in providing service swiftly and smoothly. Individuals felt empowered because they had the tools that they needed to help themselves. Among the drivers, there is a special esprit de corps.
By dressing in a brown UPS uniform or a green Starbucks apron, the individual transforms herself to represent an otherwise-anonymous corporation. Frankel's contribution to each of these corporate cultures was essential to establishing its brand with customers:
- Apple Stores = Integrated + Interactive + Inspirational
- Starbucks = Screening + Training + Working
- UPS = Economy of motion + Efficiency of delivery + Excellence of service
It can be easy for those who have never worked in a service position to dismiss these observations. But at Starbucks, Frankel didn't feel like he was doing something worthwhile, and at Enterprise, he felt disenfranchised. At UPS, however, he never questioned the worth of his work. Guess where he was an actual cultural fit?
