The Conversation Manager

Turning your employees into your most important brand ambassadors should be the goal of any company. So many brands are currently looking for brand fans, but forget to look within their own company. Recently I wrote a blog post about my belief in Superstar companies. Well, Belgian's leading brand in terms of helping patients in their private homes, ‘Het Wit-Gele Kruis’, understood this quite well.

In East Flanders alone, they have more than 1500 employees helping patients in their own private homes. These days, it has become pretty difficult to find new nurses. Looking at the growth ambitions of this company, it will be quite challenging to find enough nurses. What is the best way to convince young nurses to join? Of course, the best way is through your existing nurses, especially if you have 1500 of them.

So, they started an online and offline campaign: ‘I have the best colleagues in the world’. Central point in this campaign is their website. The URL of the website (in Dutch) is printed on their 1200 company cars, the best billboards you can imagine.

Next step is placing their nurses in the spotlight on the website. Linking great on-the-job stories to the private social network of their employees gets the message in the open. It goes further than offline. The whole story is about being positive about your co-workers. One of the great things they do, is give ‘you are great’ - post cards to all employees. If you feel that one of your colleagues, a supplier, a patient, a student, an intern … has done a remarkable job, just show your appreciation through this post card.

Goal of the story is creating a positive working environment that (in my feeling) could change the companies’ culture in a very positive way. Companies like ‘Wit-Gele Kruis’ are making the lives of their patients more positive, they are doing an amazing job. The moment you can show to the world how proud you are about your job, culture will become more positive. It is actually facilitating your employees to show how proud they are.

I guess this is the best advertising a company could have. Turn those employees in superstars and make them show how proud they are to belong to their company.

@dadovpeteghem

On my last day in the States, I decided to go for the real American food: burgers! My favorite one is the American Whopper. So, before jumping on the plane, I found one and could enjoy the taste of the best burger in the world.

When I wanted to order a meal, theylady helping me with my order said that their fountain system was broken. So there were no soft drinks. No problem, for me, just give me something else. No probs she said, it will only cost you 70 cents more. And then, to be honest, I was disappointed.

Their system is down, can happen, but I have to pay for it. Not really a good conversation starter. And, they were pretty certain about their approach. Check out this sign, addressed to: our valued guests 

 How can you just NOT see such an easy opportunity to create a positive conversation out of a negative situation in your restaurant. Sometimes life is so easy, but brands just don’t see it or don’t get it. I don’t know which one is worse.