The following is the first of a 2-part series:
International Anti-Corruption Day was celebrated yesterday, December 9,2011.
It's a day when anti-corruption agencies within some countries, take the time to raise awareness about corruption and its perils and how it negatively affects the prosperity of a country and its people.
Before we delve into our discussion, let's look at two (2) definitions of corruption:
1) Dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery
2) The action of making someone or something morally depraved or the state of being so.
So how did your brand do in light of the above definitions?
[A brand is a set of symbols, names, terms, designs and associations (or combinations thereof) that differentiate one seller's products from those of another].
Are you treating your internal customers (your staff and business partners), fairly?
Yes?
Really?
Well, let's see, I travelled around Kingston and just observed how customers were being treated at this time of year: The busiest and most lucrative time of year for some retailers.
Did some checking on Thursday and Friday at some stores, whose store owners thought their brand was in tact.
This is not what your employees had to say though...
...and certainly how they interacted with your customers showed their contempt for you and for your customers.
In some instances, your customer-facing staff were downright rude!
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Remember, your brand also consists of those associations that people have when your product or company name comes to mind.
Those associations can be positive or negative.
So marketers are hired to create memorable positive associations for your products and/or for your company, so that your customers will keep coming back for more of your products and will tell others of the positive experiences they've had with these products and so encourage others to patronize you too.
A brand increases your company's worth approximately 7-25 times than it would have been, had your products/company not had these positive associations.
There is a lot more to branding than this, but let's stick to this aspect for now.
So for Apple, some of the most potent brand associations they have are "innovative", "cutting edge", "producer of new and relevant electronic products that solve people's everyday problems".
See more associations, here.
Your brand is like an apple (no pun intended), if its core is rotten, it will soon reflect on the outside of the apple.
A lot of customer-facing staff in Jamaica are poorly-paid...
...and to top it off, they aren't paid overtime for working far beyond their usual 8-hour shifts, during the holidays.
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Your customers are your life-blood people!
You can't afford to have your staff running away your customers.
Pay them well (determine their true worth to your organization). Treat them well. Pay over their taxes and other statutory deductions, when due.
When you don't, you'll experience anemic and lethargic sales.
Your business/company seeing black (making a profit) at the end of the month/quarter, depends on how you treat your partners, in this instance, your employees.
Don't defraud your employees.
Don't make them morally depraved by not paying them what they're worth.
Treat them well and they'll reward you richly.
As for some online retailers ...I will be revealing my general observations next week, all being well.
More anon!
(I would like to thank Andreas Schwind for the use of his Flickr inset photo above, entitled,"apfel/apple").
Gillian
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