Spying on Your Brand Promise

It has always bothered me that companies feel as though the boss needs to go under cover to discover if their employees are delivering on the brand promise.  This approach seems like the "boss" is operating from a point of distrust and he/she is already signaling to the employees that there is a gap in what should be happening versus what is actually happening within the operations. 

On the flip side, it bothers me that employees generally feel inhibited and helpless that they can't be honest with the company and share where cracks are beginning in the brand image and ideas that might make the brand that much better.

Fast forward to reality.

I believe that there is a much simpler way to determine if your employees are doing what they should be doing. First off, do the hard homework by getting to know your employees. Yes, have conversations (as in plural) with your folks who are on the front lines representing your brand name. 

It is important that your employees understand what exactly you expect of them.  There should be no assumptions or guessing games, rather:

• Established guidelines and policies; so, employees understand the value and culture of your company; and, the standard for acceptable behavior
• Make sure there are ongoing training programs that are consistent to ensure that your employees are operating at your defined level of excellence. 
• Set up performance evaluations that are equitable and help employees understand how their contributions are evaluated; and, more importantly how they can succeed. 

And yes, if you spot high-performing employees who have potential, invest in them so they feel valued; get them engaged and together map out a career plan.

Both you and your employee need to invest in a reciprocal relationship.  By getting to know your employees, what uniquely motivates them and what their life achievements/goals are it will enable you to help your employees deliver the best possible experience to your customers.

Operate from a point of trust and support.  When you see a gap or a crack happening in delivering on your brand promise - intervene,  evaluate, and help that employee. Sometimes you can't and I trust that you'll know when that relationship needs to be terminated. But for the most part, you're dealing with people that want to contribute and give you their best. 

So, when you're wondering what's really going on or your gut is telling you there is something wrong here - resist the urge to find out by going undercover and face the issue openly and honestly - you'll be surprised what you'll discover.

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

Who's your BBF (Best Brand Friend)?

I met a friend recently at Starbucks for a quick 30-minute reprieve before our day got too busy and vanished before our eyes. As mothers and entrepreneurs, we had already decided via text that our coffee together could only be 30-minutes maximum. We both had subsequent appointments/responsibilities. I arrived little early, so I texted my friend to ask what she might want since I was already in line (I should mention that we both have the Starbucks app on our phones). For whatever reason, we didn't connect; I got my order and found a table. 

My friend showed up and got in a very long line.  I started thinking about the Starbuck Experience. For me, it really begins before I arrive at the store.  I start thinking about what I want and really imagine it. I think about how that coffee product will positively enhance my mood/day/moment. Part of that experience is ordering in line. My friend and I had the option to pre-order using the app and just pick up, but neither of us used it. Even though we knew standing in line would eat up some our limited time together.

I was happy waiting for my friend to join me.  I waded in my thoughts about why I enjoy sipping my coffee in a white paper cup that has the green Starbucks emblem. I wondered, "Why wasn't I impatient, anxious or in a rush knowing that the 30 minutes were ticking down?" That is when I realized, I'm already enjoying valuable time with one of my BBF's (Best Brand Friends) and her name is Starbucks.

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

What brand can you count on?

When I got married my husband asked me point blank "Why do you carry an American Express Gold card?  It's not worth the high annual fee." 

The simple answer:  American Express has always had my back. I know that I can count on them.

I can count on them when I'm traveling internationally and need help, or when a purchase has gone wrong and the establishment is difficult; and, not to mention the special offers.  

But my husband "rolled his eyes" and made it clear that he couldn't understand why I wouldn't give up my AMEX card. Friends and family members had told me war stories of "Wait until you get married...there are going to be friends that your husband doesn't like and you'll leave them behind. But, there will be some that you just won't give up." Well, my American Express card was one of those friends I wasn't willing to give up because I knew that it had my back!

Now, we are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary and my husband through the years has witnessed first-hand the benefits of carrying an AMEX card. The perks with our travel, special offers that we value just because we're members and yes, the ease of disputing a refund. 

Since then, I have upgraded my AMEX card; and my husband teases me about the annual fee, primarily because he is perfectly happy carrying his Gold AMEX. He knows that he can count on it and he just can't give it up even if it's for an upgrade. 

I would love to hear about the brands you can count on and that you just wouldn't give up. You can email me at sonya@jarvisconsultants.com.

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

The Buck Stops Here!

A good leader always wants to empower team members to honestly voice their ideas, suggestions and opinions.  It takes a host of different departments to implement any successful business initiative.  Each area needs to be proficient in their core competency (i.e. finance, merchandising, human resources, marketing, etc).  There are so many cross-functional activities that need to be performed well by different departments to yield the best results.

It happens in both small-to-big businesses especially when the company is stretching out of its comfort zone to reach for aggressive goals or a new vision -- inevitably the lines of responsibilities can get blurred. I believe that this happens through sheer interest and the desire to contribute but team members begin influencing decisions that are outside of their core competency. Honestly, it's fun to be engaged and know that our opinion counts.  But we always need to pause and check ourselves because it's important that team members express their opinions based on their expertise. It becomes dangerous when the advice is not grounded in our discipline or knowledge of our customer base. The scales then begin to become unbalanced; and, now there are influencers weighing in that just might tip it to make the final decision. 

When this type of decision-making starts to happen accountability begins to erode and a group consensus emerges. It's always good to have group buy-in because it makes the execution process that much smoother. But, ultimately there always needs to be a singular person (the leader) who is responsible for the final decision. Otherwise, there is no accountability.  

And, we all know that accountability is important in each and every business. Not for the "gotcha" moment but the business that runs best is based on established objectives, goals and measurements and will fundamentally always achieve higher results. 

Good leaders navigate through challenges by recognizing the situation and always know that the buck stops with them and steps up to own the accountability. 

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

My First Brand Love

Have you ever fallen head over heels with a brand?  Where regardless of whatever happened you would remember when it sealed your love forever. I have three brands that I feel that way about. But I always remember my first brand love as the best.

The love affair began in the summer of 1996 when my father was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I was living and working in New York City at the time and my parents lived in North Carolina. Being far away but wanting to stay connected meant frequent long distance phone calls to, not only my parents, but various siblings (I'm one of six children), aunts (my Dad had 10 sisters), and numerous other relatives.

Well in those times it wasn't a bundle deal; so, you can imagine the phone bills I racked up. My father died in the middle of the fall season. As I grieved the loss of my father, I was faced with a mountain of phone bills. I was fearless because, after all, I had just lost my Dad who was my best friend. So, I decided to call AT&T and explain the situation (because I couldn't afford to pay the bills or be without a phone). At most, I was hoping to work out a payment plan. The customer service person listened to my story of why I couldn't pay my bill in full; and that I was hoping for a payment plan. She looked at my account history and the four-month period where there was a huge spike of usage. Then something odd happened. I heard a genuine apology in her voice for my loss. She explained to me that she looked at the history to determine my average monthly charges and applied it to the four-month period and that's what I would need to pay. They reduced my bill down to my regular monthly usage!  Really?  With another genuine "Please accept AT&T's sympathy for the loss of your father." Just like that I cried and fell in love with my first brand. 

I felt that they cared about me and they empathized with me; and they were showing it by offering an immediate solution to my problem. It affected me so much that now, almost twenty years later, I can still recall the customer service experience that made me fall head over heels in love with my first brand. 

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

Be Faithful to Your Brand

We all love to use marketing buzz words like brand marketing, brand strategy, and delivering on our brand promise. As a marketer, I am always cautious when using these words because they are not to be taken lightly. With the use of these marketing terms comes a tremendous obligation. If we are to take our responsibility, in practical terms not just conceptually, to our company, our employees and our stake holders seriously we must strive to excel all expectations and be true to the meaning of these terms.  

Unfortunately, many times we as leaders develop, unconsciously, our own definition of these words and we become satisfied that we are optimally executing because we have (across the organization) adopted the buzz words in our everyday speak. (Say it often enough and we believe that we are doing it).  

In many of our businesses we are actively and consistently developing our brand image and hopefully evolving through engagement with our customers. Engagement through all kinds of different formats (i.e. Circulars, customer service, social media, website, community involvement) is one thing but  measuring and tracking the results are totally different.  

We have to be able to track, evaluate and course correct all along the way for our entire relationship with the brand. Yet, how many of us have tracking tools that we don't believe or at the very least don't review on a consistent basis and/or use as an indicator to tweak our plan?  (Think of that last project where you didn't believe the numbers and put your own spin on the data).

Make a promise to be faithful to your brand by:

• Not being superficial when exploring all of the brand marketing options

• Develop non-conventional ways to get to your end game

• Examine and re-examine the data for what it is performance of your brand! 

• Be open to the data and don't put "your" spin on the numbers

• Be honest - if it's not making sense then the approach probably isn't right; dump it and move on

• Don't get blindly vested where you can't change course

Yes, when we're not faithful to our brands we are cheating on them - plain and simple. If we are true to our brands, customers will respond with loyalty and yield good returns.

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut.

When did, "Can I help you" become a rhetorical question?

I stopped answering the question for a while; and, now I answer the question more from the sense of hope rather than thinking that I’m actually going to receive help.  But it never fails, when I am in a store and I ask if they have my size, color, etc.  before I can get it out of my mouth the sales associate usually replies that everything we have is out on the floor. Really?  Please enlighten me and just take a look (or at least pretend that you are looking).   I realize that there are some cases where this is true and everything is indeed out on the floor. But, it can't possibly be true in every single case. 

I had a recent experience where I decided to put that premise to the test. I stopped into a national chain store looking for the exact pair of jeans I had bought the previous month (and fallen in love with) from the same retailer but in a different town.  I looked and couldn’t find my size.  I asked a sales associate for my size and surprise I was told everything is out on the floor.  I really wanted the jeans; so, I pursued my mission and asked two other sales associates at two different times. Both gave me the same answer. I didn't notice but a fourth sales associate must have seen what was happening; and, quietly went in the back and found the jeans in my size. She handed them to me.  As I was walking out of the store with my purchase, I passed her and she looked at me and "mouthed" "sorry about that".

I can only assume she saw how my customer journey was playing out and decided to intervene and do what should could to help sell me the merchandise that I desperately wanted and that was just taking up space in the store and quite frankly on the financial statement.

Retailers continuously invest in training and educating its associates.  But in so many cases it's not all about training but about hiring the "right" person to represent your brand. That sales associate should have personal characteristics and traits that reflect a service attitude. The fact is you can do all the training in the world and if the sales associates doesn't have a service "heart" and a genuine willingness to help the customer it will leave a tremendous crack in your brand. 

We all know that brand image is important; but, I would advocate that hiring a person that has a service attitude and reflects a willingness to help is just as important as investing in training. Both will reap the rewards of ultimately representing the best of your brand. 

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut. 

The Invisible Customer

It always amazes me when I am standing at a cashier trying to check out and pay for items and the phone rings. Invariably, the cashier always answers the phone and begins serving the customer on the other end; while, continuing to process my purchases. Once my purchases are done she/he hands me my bag with the phone to his/her ear (sometimes whispering “thank you”). Each time this happens to me it’s always a bizarre and baffling experience. I want to yell, I’m not an invisible customer.  I am a living paying customer standing right in front of you.  But, I always shrug it off.  I was having lunch with a retail owner and explained the same scenario; and how it happens more often than not.  He then explained to me it’s a tough position and asked, how would I recommend handling the situation?  I explained to him, on the contrary I have had very positive experiences too.  Recently, I was in an upscale department store making purchases. The phone rang, the clerk said “excuse me please”. She literally stopped waiting on me and answered the phone.  She explained that she is currently with a guest; and, as soon as she is done she would return to helping the guest on the phone. She finished ringing me up and walked around the counter and handed me my bag of purchases.  She said “thank you”.  I looked at the cashier and said "you’re welcome and I appreciate that". She looked at me and smiled. As I walked away I glanced back and she was picking up the phone to give her attention to the customer on hold.  This customer service person recognized me as a living paying customer standing right in front of her. I realized I wasn't an invisible customer with this particular retailer and they raised the level of excellence of what I now expect from others.

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Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut. 

When was the last time a brand exceeded your expectations?

Every company touts outstanding customer service but truth be told, how many companies really deliver exceptional customer service?  Yet, the ones who do gain unrivaled brand loyalty from consumers whether it's shoppers, hotel guests, travelers, passengers, gaming guests, you can name any customer type.  It seems like it should be a no-brainer for brands to strive to deliver excellence in their customers experience. And many do, but fall short. But, there are clearly some premiere brands that consistently excel. Here's a recent story of one.

Recently, my family was on a vacation and the hotel we stayed at had outstanding customer service in a way that made all of us feel so special. It wasn’t just one situation or an example we can cite from our vacation experience but the entire seven days this hotelier got it right.  At check in, greeting us by name, having a cool drink ready for us (including an age appropriate fun option for our young daughter) and the genuine friendly escort to our room.  That night, my husband and I both had beautiful robes but our daughter didn’t and she asked why she didn’t have a robe?  Like most kids (not fair, right?) she wanted one too.    Well, I stopped at the front desk to mail a letter and the guest relations representative asked me if we were enjoying our stay. I told her everything was great .  I then proceeded to share the story about my daughter and the robe just as a cute story.   Well, that night after dinner when we went back to the room there was a beautiful child’s robe, a stuffed lion (who was a wonderful addition to the two stuffed bears and turtle) and a box of chocolates – all gifts to help our daughter feel extra special too!  Plus, all were to take home after our trip with a lovely note from the guest relations representative.

That was the first time we stayed at that brand on a family vacation and now we stay at no other hotel brand for our vacations. The additional cost is well worth it for us because we always know we will be more than satisfied with our experience.  We are now super loyal guests and we look forward to each experience at their properties. We even keep a comparative survey that we complete after each stay. And, each time regardless of the destination the brand consistently exceeds our expectations.

Sonya Ruff Jarvis, is the Managing Member of Jarvis Consultants and Founder of the eRetailer Summit. Sonya has extensive experience in creating original innovative solutions to overcome major business challenges.  Sonya has spent most of her career visiting headquarters across global industries and has built strong business relationships across diverse brands. 

Sonya has a M.B.A. in Marketing. She is married and has a daughter and they live in  Fairfield County Connecticut. 

Guilty of Striving for Excellence!

For my entire career, I have received feedback that I expect too much from people. And, I have been accused of measuring everyone by my standards. And, through out-my career I have plead guilty to expecting people to strive for excellence (not good enough, not great but excellence). I have never felt bad with being tagged as the leader who "expects too much".  Because I have always held myself to the same standards.

My blog, Sonya's Standards will examine the mystery around striving for and/or achieving excellence (and sometimes the lack of) we are faced with as business people and as consumers.   I will break the code of excellence by sharing encounters that are interesting and quite frankly deserve more thinking and conversation.  There is where you come in, please share with me what you think about the topics I will talk about in this blog.  Every topic is game! 

My posts will appear every other Thursday.  I invite you to follow me as I journal through life's experiences in search of breaking the code of excellence.  And, I guarantee we can learn something together. 

Until next time, cheers!

Sonya