In service organizations, the product is the people! Think about it. Whether you're doing business with a health care organization, an attorney or a business consultant, what you receive is integrally tied to the people who deliver the service to you. Their actions--or inaction--and their attitudes are critical to your satisfaction with the service you receive.

• Determine your desired brand attributes
• Determine how your organization is currently perceived by internal and external audiences
• Identify and prioritize the gaps
• Design tactics to help close those gaps

Of course, the process itself is far from linear. Why? Because service organizations are comprised of people and people aren't predictable. 

Creating brand ambassadors requires clear communication, feedback, follow-up and consistency. It requires:

• Identifying the behavioral traits that the best employees exhibit and hiring for those traits
• Clearly identifying and conveying the behavioral expectations that you have through both written policy and procedure and leader actions
• Quickly and explicitly providing positive and constructive feedback to employees who are--or are not--exhibiting the desired behavioral attributes
• Measuring and monitoring results

Most importantly -- it requires clear, consistent and open communication. And that, unfortunately, is where most organizations fail to close the loop. Learn more here.

Suggested reading:

The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today

Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School

There's much talk these days about how social media has changed the communication landscape and, indeed, it has. But, despite the fact that social media has created new opportunities and challenges for communicators, there are basically two ways in which it really represents anything "different":

1) Communicators are provided with a wide range of new options for getting their messages across.

2) The audience for these messages is exponentially broader than ever before.

Despite those admittedly significant differences, the basics still apply.

I was involved in an online conversation recently about the "blurred lines" between PR, marketing (in this case, more correctly, advertising) and social media. While I believe the lines truly are blurred, and I also believe that advertising is losing relevance in favor of non-paid forms of communication, I also believe that the basic rules of good communication are still relevant.

One communicator in this forum posed the question: "How do we define our role in this merged environment?"

My response:

"I don't think this merged environment is necessarily new, although the tools--specifically social media--may be new. Our role, I believe, is as it always was--to communicate messages that are aligned with our organizations' mission, vision, values and goals. Effective communicators need to understand all of the ways they can connect with their key audiences and leverage them, in combination, to achieve their desired results. Interestingly, I think, this environment presents both benefits (many ways to connect with audiences) and challenges (many ways to connect with audiences)! 

How about you?

Suggested reading:

Communication Basics

Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing

Related blog posts:

Is Social Media Advertising or PR? - Duh!

Does PR Matter in the Internet Age?