Our north star was simple from the beginning: create a “seamless extension of our MK Retail store experience.” This wasn’t just a slogan – it became our guiding principle in transforming our call center approach. The first breakthrough came when we reimagined the very role of our customer service team. Instead of using generic titles like “agent” or “CSR,” we introduced the term “Style Consultant.” This subtle shift was about more than semantics – it was about giving our team a sense of prestige and importance. The new title immediately elevated the perception of the role, making it feel more aligned with our brand’s image.

We knew that creating a truly immersive experience required a holistic approach. So, we partnered directly with our retail store design team to completely reimagine the call center’s physical environment. Every detail was carefully considered, from the Benjamin Moore wall colors that perfectly matched our store aesthetic to the meticulously selected carpeting. We brought the Michael Kors retail experience to life with a product showroom showcasing the current season’s hot products, mannequins displaying our latest floor sets and collections, custom tables to display products, and thoughtfully designed chillout areas with furniture like those found in-store.

But we didn’t stop at visual design. We created a multisensory brand experience that would connect our Style Consultants entirely to the Michael Kors world. We commissioned two macassar wood display cases featuring large flat screens that continuously played our most recent runway shows. In-ceiling speakers streamed our signature store playlist, ensuring that the ambient sound matched the energy of our retail spaces.

Recognizing that true brand alignment requires deep understanding, I took a critical step by hiring a former Michael Kors store manager as our on-site Brand Ambassador. Her role was nothing short of transformative. She kept our showroom and floor displays current, conducted comprehensive brand and product training for new hires, walked the floor to ensure our Style Consultants maintained our unique brand voice, and participated in calibration calls to ensure we retained our distinctive communication style.

We also understood that connection requires tangible appreciation. Recognizing that our hourly-paid Style Consultants might not always be able to afford our products, we created meaningful ways to help them experience the Michael Kors brand. We provided them with an annual clothing allotment as a thank-you for delivering on our brand promise. We coupled this by offering MK products as monthly incentives and rewards to meet sales and service goals.

The results have been quite remarkable. Our approach has made the Michael Kors account a highly desirable assignment at our Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partner. We’ve seen reduced attrition rates compared to other accounts and developed a team of tenured employees who truly understand and embody our brand.

Our commitment to creating an immersive, respectful, and engaging environment has not gone unnoticed. We’ve been honored with multiple customer service awards, a testament to the dedication and passion of our Style Consultants. More importantly, we’ve created a work environment where our outsourced team feels valued, connected, and proud to represent Michael Kors.

It was never my intention when I started developing this approach. Still, it certainly can be considered a blueprint for how brands can create meaningful connections with their extended teams, proving that with creativity, remaining true to your brand, and genuine investment, outsourced doesn’t have to mean disconnected.

About the Author: Ebrahim Hyder is the Vice President of Customer Service at Michael Kors, where he leads a dedicated team focused on elevating customer experience and driving operational excellence.

He is also a member of the Execs In The Know Advisory Board. 

The post Creating a Seamless Brand Experience: Our Journey to Transform Michael Kors’ Call Center appeared first on Execs In The Know.

We all know the importance of a raving fan or brand ambassador. Those loyal followers that purchase your product or service time and again. They are willing to recommend you to others and share their experience with their friends. These individuals are pure gold to any business, but what about your internal advocates? Taking care of your own and growing a tribe from within will help to make your business a better place to work and help to spread your message organically through your employees.

Your employees, everyone from customer service representatives who may be the first point of contact, to individuals in HR or Finance, play integral roles in your business. They keep things running smoothly and ensure your customers have pleasant experiences. They can be happy and excited about their job and your brand – or the opposite – which could have a negative effect on other employees, your customers, and ultimately the success of your brand.

Corporate Journey Mapping

We’ve all heard of Customer Journey Mapping – tracking the journey or steps your customer takes to interact with your brand, make a purchase, submit an inquiry, etc. It’s often used as a means to discover what is working and where improvements can be made, to create a more convenient and pleasant customer experience. What not do the same thing internally in your organization and its various departments?

There are a number of areas you should examine to see if there is room for improvement. Start with taking a good hard look at your departments and try to understand the journey your employees have to take. Understanding department gaps can help you avoid disconnect, bottleneck, and save time and frustration for everyone involved. Next move on to the employee experience. Does everyone seem informed and on the same page? Do you have the proper training and technology? Are you creating a positive atmosphere, providing incentives, or providing encouragement and opportunity for growth? Do your employees seem happy and excited to come to work? This brainstorm session can help you identify what you currently have in place and where you’re falling short.

Here are a few main areas you might look to improve:

1) Culture & Transparency

It’s important, especially as your company grows, to try to maintain a consistent company culture across all sites or locations. You must first understand your company mission and values, and then be able to concisely communicate that to employees. Whether it be through a company document, video, or sit down meeting. Find a way for this education and on-boarding process to be fun and memorable.

Equally as important is transparency in the company. Employees like to feel part of the organization and the more that you take the time to inform people about changes in the company, additions, new sites, etc. you are only going to contribute to morale and have everyone on the same page. Try putting someone in charge of sending out a weekly company update, internal newsletter, or even a yearly company meeting where employees can ask the c-suite questions.

2) On-Going Training & Tools

Give your team what it needs to succeed. Having an on-going feedback loop is important to understand what is and isn’t working for employees. You can determine if investments need to be made in new technology, a more robust knowledge base, or if training modules need to be altered. On-going training is critical to give both higher level managers and the employees they’re responsible for the best chance they have to succeed; to comprehend and feel confident in their day-to-day duties.

3) Growth & Development

Every employee should be interested in growing and developing as a person, and if they’re not you should be encouraging them in this direction. Through periodical reviews constructive feedback can be a means to evaluate performance and make suggestions for personal improvement. Perhaps you can send certain employees to a customer experience conference, further education to help them in their position, or gift them a particular book they could learn from. The gesture doesn’t need to be expensive, it’s just important that it’s made.

4) Employee Engagement & Rewards

Is your work environment one that is positive and pleasant to be in? Whether it be through physical enhancements, company activities, incentives, or rewards – happier employees often translates to harder workers, and better experiences for your customers. Internal social networks like Jostle can help employees to feel connected and parties or activities for staff can help them to feel valued and enhance team morale. Even something as small as going out of your way to make conversation with your employees can go far.

It can be daunting, but above all remember to be kind. It really is as simple as thinking about how you would want to be treated and investing the time, energy, and money needed to create a positive work environment for your staff.

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The following is a guest post from Susan Hash, Editor of Contact Center Pipeline.

Social Media: Tap Into the Power of Employee Advocates

Businesses pour an incredible amount of time and budget into creating positive buzz on social media. While tweeting, liking and sharing has largely been the domain of marketing and social media teams, more companies are now encouraging their employees to become brand ambassadors using their personal social networks. It’s called employee advocacy. Although it’s not a new concept, adding a social media component has amplified the effects.

What makes the employee voice so powerful? Employees have more credibility than the CEO on social media when it comes to the company’s work environment (48% vs. 19%), business practices and crises (30% vs. 27%), according to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, the global communications marketing firm’s annual trust and credibility survey. The survey respondents also stated that, on social media and content-sharing sites, they’re far more trusting of family and friends (78%) than a CEO (49%).

I recently had the opportunity to talk with employee advocacy expert Christopher Hannegan, Edelman’s executive vice president, U.S. Practice Chair, Employee Engagement. The idea behind employee advocacy, he says, is that employees are so impassioned and excited about their company’s products, culture and workplace, they will actively talk to others about it, encourage them to buy the company’s products, or apply for a job.

Naturally, employee advocacy is rooted in the culture. “You have to have an engaged workforce before you can expect employees to go outside of the company and start talking favorably about what it’s like to work there and how great the products are,” Hannegan says. “Employees need to understand and feel good about where the company is heading, their role within the company, what they can do to make a difference, and they need to have a good relationship with their manager.”

Elements of an Employee Advocacy Program

If you are considering rolling out an employee advocacy program, there are a few critical core elements that need to be in place to be successful. Hannegan says it boils down to four areas:

– The content and information that your want employees to share.

– The technology to enable the sharing. “There are many tools available, but when assessing platforms, it’s important to be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish with your program before selecting the technology,” he notes, adding that, many times, companies will choose the platform before they’ve figured out why they’re launching an advocacy program.

– Cultural expectation setting. Make sure that employees not only understand that it is OK to share the content, but that it is viewed by the company as a positive activity. Importantly, they need to understand that it is optional and not a requirement. “If, for some reason, they’re not comfortable advocating for your company, they don’t have to,” Hannegan stresses. “That is especially important if you have a workforce represented by unions.”

– A way to measure the results. How will you know if your employee advocacy efforts are making a difference? Understand how you are going to measure what you’re trying to accomplish—whether that is increased sales of a certain product, more job applications from top talent or higher engagement with a particular blog post or other online content.

Common Missteps to Avoid

While a successful advocacy program can boost your company’s credibility, visibility and revenue, the reality is that many companies attempt to launch one without ensuring that the key elements are in place. The following are some of the more common mistakes to avoid.

– Not having a clear gauge of employees’ views of the company. Some companies make the mistake of trying to launch an advocacy program when employees are not likely to be positive advocates, Hannegan says. Measuring your employee engagement is critical to avoid misreading your audience.

– Assuming that employees don’t want to participate. Some companies take the opposite view that employees would not want to talk about them online or that there would be no value in it. “What companies sometimes overlook is that, if for nothing else but to help find talent and to help burnish your overall reputation, there is an incredible power in having your employees talk about you,” Hannegan says.

– Not providing employees with adequate training on how to use the social media tools or on the guidelines for sharing.

– Launching an advocacy program because “everybody has one and we should have one, too.” Companies need to clearly define the purpose of the program, Hannegan notes. Is it to sell more products? Improve the company’s reputation? Attract better talent? “Define the use case upfront so you can then develop the right programs, select the right technology, and build in the appropriate KPIs and the right measurement for it,” he says.

Consider an Internal Advocacy Program

Employee advocacy can be very impactful if there is a really clear and articulated business case for the program, and if every element of the program is anchored in the business case, Hannegan says.

Most companies think about employee advocacy as making it possible and desirable for employees to talk externally about the company and its products. An often-overlooked opportunity is to apply that same mentality within the company, he points out. “Having employees talking to each other about how great it is to work at the company or how excited they are about a product launch is powerful. It creates a positive cycle from within and reinforces engagement. That in turn helps to make the external advocacy even more compelling.”

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It’s a given that customer service is currently experiencing a renaissance in many regards—ground-breaking companies are starting to realize that the CSR’s role has become far more than simple issue resolution. They are now recognized as a direct face of the company—critical brand ambassadors, vital to customer experience.

Innovative companies are realizing the benefits of having an existing customer reach back to them, and the resulting opportunity it provides to present an outstanding customer experience, as well as a chance to entrench the customer more deeply to the company.

As an upshot, service-based suggestive up-selling and cross-selling have become integral to many companies revenue plans, increasing them by as much as 10% annually. Some companies have become so effective at this that their customer support departments are no longer cost centers, but profit centers instead. So how do they do it—without angering the customer or being pushy, and causing customer satisfaction to suffer?

Done correctly, a powerful new revenue stream can be created. However, done wrong, companies risk turning formerly satisfied customers into newly disgruntled ones. So what are the steps needed to walk the fine line of upselling and cross-selling… without losing customers in the process? What are the secrets to being able to effectively sell on a support call while actually increasing customer satisfaction at the same time?

At the end of each call, offer a customer review:

I recently had a real pro demonstrate this with me at my bank. I called in to close an account, and wound up having the best support call of my life.

First, my banker made sure and completed what I asked her to do; close an account that I no longer needed.

However, while she was doing this, she happened to mention that my home equity line of credit seemed to be at a high interest rate. “You should consider re-financing that—it would likely save you a lot of money in interest every month.” I was listening. In essence, she was telling me I could now keep two-thousand four-hundred dollars a year that I was currently spending needlessly.

That’s an extra vacation every year, or $2,400 more annually towards retirement.

Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity—any intelligent person would. She made the value proposition of doing business so strong that to say ‘no’ would have been counter-productive and frankly, absurd.

It was clear to me that all of her suggestions were sincerely helping me. And while she may have also been trying to upsell, she was at the same time, presenting only options that would genuinely be of benefit. I wound up going to the bank, meeting with her and another banker and saving even more than $200 a month— and by the time we were done, it turned out to be closer to $500. I was ecstatic.

I was then asked to rate her performance following the call. I not only gave her the highest scores I could, I also added a comment; “She’s a credit to the bank, and I just wish you had more people there like her” in my review. She kept her word and saved me over $500 a month. I’m now no longer a customer– I’m an advocate of this bank… and my new favorite banker. I’ve since spoken with other people about this particular branch and all are absolute advocates as well. They wouldn’t even consider defecting from this bank.

It all started with a sincere customer service review, looking for ways to authentically improve my life and make it better. It came across with all of her recommendations and her tone of voice—she wasn’t reading from a script, she was engaging in a dialogue with me.
By solving my initial issue successfully and showing she first cared about me, she had earned the right to ask more questions. The stage was perfectly set to move forward, make a sale, and create a customer advocate.

To read the full report, and learn the other five strategies, visit https://clearharbor.leadpages.net/sixinnovativestrategies/. 

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