By Ben Fowler^*

Who Defines Your Brand?

Recently, I talked about an unpleasant round of golf that I had and how the golf course failed in customer service. In the past week I have been thinking a great deal about this golf course which had just reopened after a renovation.

I realized that the one constant thread involving every memorable bad experience I have had at a golf course is that it always involved the staff. Without fail, some staff member was always at fault in my memorable bad experience.

Even if a golf course is in poor condition, such as just after an aerification, if the staff communicated this to me before I arrived at the course, my expectations are set to see an aerified golf course and I am still capable of being a promoter after that day’s round. If the conditions aren’t communicated before my arrival, that is when there is a problem, because the experience is not going to live up to what the brand promise is of the facility.

But does management's marketing define the brand of a course?

Well as you can see from my recent bad experience at this course, absolutely not. The brand of any golf course is most defined by the frontline employees at the facility. This is the outside operations staff, the golf shop attendants and the food & beverage staff. Like the Alanis Morissette song goes, isn’t it ironic that these are the lowest paid staff at any facility. These are the people that define your brand, not the General Manager, not the Director of Golf, not the head Chef and not the Marketing Manager.

Management can create the vision of the brand, but it’s up to the frontline staff to execute this vision. This is where most brands fall apart. The best brands are not comprised of just a marketing message; they are brands that have the total alignment of all employees with the customer in pursuit of their brand image. Yet this doesn’t happen for many courses.

Why??? Research suggests that less than one in three employees are truly engaged in their career. Can your course fulfill its brand promise with less than one in three employees engaged?

An engaged employee is one who believes the company cares about them, cares about the customer, and as a result is motivated to go the extra mile for the company and the customer at all times.

Without employee engagement, everything else falls apart. The customer experience does not meet the brand promise, which results in low customer satisfaction and loyalty. The employee sees their job as just that, a job. They are there to collect a paycheck, and are not willing to put forth extra effort to achieve the goals of the brand. The company suffers because employee turnover will always be a problem and they will have challenges in recruiting good talent. They will have very few hires as a result of referrals from existing staff and there may be a great deal of negative word of mouth about working for that company. Also, employees will be more likely to be absent and they will be more likely to file a workers compensation claim.

One statistic that I found interesting was that the electronics retailer Best Buy found that stores which can increase employee engagement by a 10th of a point (on a five point scale) will realize a $100,000 increase in sales for the year.

Bottom Line: For your course to fulfill its brand promise it all starts with your frontline staff. Disengaged employees will rarely provide a satisfying experience to the customer. A key ingredient of having high customer loyalty is employee engagement. Only when your course has the entire staff working towards the common goal of the brand will you be positioned to have high customer loyalty. We at NGF have spent a great deal of resources in researching what employee engagement is, why it’s important and how it should be measured. If you’re interested in learning more about our research into employee engagement, contact Ben Fowler at 561-354-1628.

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Credits

Originally posted by BenFowler on 23 Feb 2010.
All contributors: BenFowler, LynnwoodBrown, MarleneStone,

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