This one stuck in my craw. Perfect example of negative branding.
I was in the post office a few days ago (granted, it is the early Christmas season) to check the P.O. box and stuck my head in to check on getting a passport (the wife an I are thinking about a short cruise in January). I was buzzed into this separate office and came face to face with a postal employee I recognized from the front counter (although I had not seen him there lately, and now I know why).
Before I could even speak he announced in a brusque manner, “I’m not here,” and then walked away.
He was on his break, but the damage had been done.
“I’m not here!”
With three words, this postal worker immediately reinforced everything I had come to believe about the post office brand (the brand they don’t want you to know about).
He could have said, “This is not my department, but I will get someone to help you right way.” He could have said, “Someone will be with you in just a minute.” He could have said any number of things.
But instead he grumbled, “I’m not here!”
I know it is popular to pick on the post office. But the truth is they move mountains of mail each day and almost all of it manages to get where it is going, and for a relatively inexpensive fee. They do an amazing job. They make life interesting with new releases of stamps and they even sponsored a bicycle team at the Tour de France, and I am sure a lot of other stuff.
But at that particular moment that one postal employee managed to erase every bit of good will I had for the post office with three words:
“I’m not here.”
This is the businessman’s lament. You can offer a great product or service, have great looking marketing pieces and signage and even a wazoo website, but how do you ensure that your brand is reinforced through one of your most important assets – your employees? How do you push your brand so that it spreads throughout the company to every employee and oozes out their fingernails and gets on everyone who comes within range? If you are a retailer, how do you get the part-time high school kid at the front counter (who you probably pay minimum wage) to be your brand evangelist?
How do you ensure that your customers are never greeted with those three words?:
“I’m not here.”
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