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Faced with growing criticism of patient care and demand for better ‘customer’ experience, the NHS has turned to retailer John Lewis to help improve service in a move that has been both welcomed and scoffed at. As reported by the BBC, retail staff at the store made famous for its excellent customer service will be re-educating NHS doctors in Devon in a new bedside manner that focuses on the needs of the patients.

Daniel Todaro, MD at marketing agency Gekko, highlighted a key difference between the two: “The very fact that John Lewis is a retailer and the NHS is a service should be an immediate red flag,” he says. “If you shop in John Lewis, you are there by choice whereas if you’re in A&E it’s likely that you really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter; it’s a question of need.

“This is the crux of the issue; how do you translate the needs of a John Lewis shopper to that of a patient? It is true that John Lewis offer a best in class, successful retail experience with the human element at its core, but a health care provider and a retailer have zero points of synergy.”

“As good as the John Lewis model is, it applies to retail and not to an under-resourced not-for-profit public organisation.”

The proof of this unique collaboration between the public sector and retail’s golden child will essentially be in the eating – whilst it poses strong benefits in theory, only by putting the proposals into practice will the NHS understand if there are lessons to be learned from John Lewis.

Read the full article at: http://www.mycustomer.com/feature/experience/can-john-lewis-help-nhs-deliver-superior-customer-service/165386

Field Marketing agency Gekko have added additional silverware to the trophy cabinet with a Silver prize at the 2012 DMA Awards.

The awards, hosted at London’s Old Billingsgate by Stephen Mangan, celebrated all that was good in the realms of Direct Marketing. The Silver Award came in the Best use of experiential  category and recognised the highly effective Summer of Sport road-show campaign that Gekko designed and delivered on behalf of Freeview. It was remarked that the campaign, which supported Freeview’s ATL marketing throughout the summer of 2012 and the London Olympics, was “a genuinely intriguing experience enabling Freeview to engage consumers for a sustained period and communicate brand messages. The campaign raised both brand awareness and recognition: Freeview rose to 14th in the Brand Index”.

Wayne Hemingway, chair of the DMA Awards judging panel, said: “Once again the winners at this year’s DMA Awards show how strategic thinking and creativity can achieve real social change. It’s not just about selling products to consumers. Good – great – direct marketing makes a real difference to the lives of mothers, holidaymakers, parents, commuters, homebuyers, music lovers… and even scientists!”

For additional details about Gekko’s award winning entry please visit: http://www.dmaawards.org.uk/2012-silver-best-use-of-experiential

Leading FM agency Gekko features in an article in Marketing magazine about the use of technology in the world of field marketing.

Marketers can spend all day in front of a screen checking on market research results and sales figures, but there’s nothing like getting out of the office and into stores to truly understand the way consumers shop. As novelist John le Carre warned: ‘A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.’

Tim Bedward from Epson, one of Gekko’s top clients, mentions that when it comes to selling high-ticket priced items face to face contact is still vital and that staff training in particular can really boost sales. Brands need to engage with store sales staff to make sure they understand the strong points of a product so they are enthused enough to promote it effectively to consumers. The staff – especially Christmas temps – need to be engaged just as much as the consumers.

‘Delivering practical training through iPads and interactive sessions can make a difference in how quickly your team is able to understand and immerse themselves in your company values and in the way they go forward and interact with customers,’ he says. ‘Shop floor staff are your key brand ambassadors for every consumer that enters the store. By involving an appropriate use of technology to enhance the training experience, it ensures you have an army of enthusiastic, empowered staff who build relationships with shoppers. Technology plays an invaluable role in maximising effectiveness and fostering positivity and a sense of team.’

The use of technology in training staff is helping real-world retailers fight back against the threat from online sales. This is the view of Daniel Todaro, managing director of field marketing agency Gekko, which specialises in consumer electronics. The agency worked with Epson to create a training plan for retail staff that was delivered by the field team via iPads.

This technology allows what Todaro calls a ‘one-device technology solution’ that comprises training, product presentation and demonstration materials, as well as photo capture and point-of-sale ordering. ‘Technology does not make the experience, it enhances it,’ he says. ‘Consumers (use) channels such as mobile to research, but expertly trained staff offer a level of guidance and reassurance that can give consumers confidence in their purchases that can’t be found online. People need to be at the centre of the field-marketing experience.’

Full article at:  http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/login/1150252/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Motivation is an issue that rarely discriminates. No matter what size or sector, all companies face constant challenges when it comes to keeping motivation and morale high. However, looking at motivation alone often results in mere stopgaps, only serving to give a temporary boost – especially when looking specifically at call centres where staff turnover may be higher than the average.
Fostering an overarching positive culture and promoting a sense of brand loyalty should be the aim, and the first steps towards achieving this is by making your employees feel like they’re part of a real team, regardless of whether they are from an external agency or on a permanent contract. Here are some tips on how to achieve just that:

1. Give your call centre agents ownership

Call centre employees often feel the most de-motivated when they feel they aren’t worthwhile to the business. By finding ways to create a sense of ownership within the team and involving employees in certain decision-making processes, they will become more invested in the brand and its core values.

2. Set achievable group targets that necessitates teamwork

A call centre environment is often highly sales and target based, with individuals competing against each other. Whilst competition can be healthy, it can be inefficient. Set manageable, tiered targets that require employees to collaborate, rather than compete.

3. Share goals and targets

A rigid hierarchy can mean call centre employees feel inferior to more senior members of staff. By sharing certain business information with staff, employees can better understand decision-making, whilst also understanding the value of their own role. Transparency is the key to building trust, and if employees cannot trust each other, then they can feel isolated and de-motivated.

4. Promote belief in brand values

It’s important that staff not just understand the brand values, but believe in them so that these values translate credibly when interacting with customers. This not only makes the process easier, but is surprisingly motivational too – assisting the employee and fostering a sense of pride in their work.

5. Listen to your call centre agents

Every employee is important, and should be made to feel so, including agency or temp staff. Those at the top can often find themselves far removed from the day-to-day running of a company, and when this disconnect happens, morale can drop. By making time to listen, it breaks down barriers and fosters a greater sense of being part of a team.

6. Celebrate success

At an economic time where lows are sometimes unavoidable, it’s even more important to celebrate success. Call centre employers need to demonstrate that hard work leads to reward, but on a team level as well as an individual. After a successful quarter, it’s important to leave a positive feeling amongst a team, rather than a hollow one.

Daniel Todaro

MD Gekko

Full article available:

http://www.callcentre.co.uk/page.cfm/action=library/libEntryID=4486/libID=1/

For many Olympic sponsors, the quality of their staff on the ground will be all important once London 2012 begins, writes Daniel Todaro, managing director, Gekko.

For marketers across the country, this is the week that it finally feels like the Olympics is truly upon us, with Locog’s marketing blackout coming into full force.

As well as the detailed social media guidelines for athletes, there are now the 250-plus, intimidatingly-titled ‘brand enforcers’ taking to the streets to ensure that no unofficial advertising activity takes place within the exclusion zone, which stretches up to 1km outside the Olympic park.

Certainly for marketers, it’s an unprecedented crackdown on ambush marketing. For many sponsors who have paid enormous sums to feature, they have in the past found themselves infuriated as their gold medal moment is ruined by a savvy competitor skirting the rules (Michael Jordan intentionally covering up his Reebok logo in 1992 being a memorable example).

This edition, it is unlikely even Paddy Power would be so bold as to dare intrude.

While it has been made clear that the burden of proof falls squarely upon the shoulders of the athletes, it’s time for plan B for many brands who have invested so much of their 2012 spend in associating themselves with Olympians.

With a cooling-off period also in effect after any medal win, as well as advertising within the village limited, it seems that there’s only one real opportunity left for the select few brands lucky enough to be inside the Olympic Park to provide a true brand experience and create lasting emotional connections – the staff on the ground.

The list is exclusive, but brands such as McDonald’s, Holiday Inn and Acer will all feature staff of some kind within the Olympic village, which officially opened to athletes this week.

We’ve heard how McDonald’s monopoly on Olympic food extends even as far as chips, but how can McDonald’s make this opportunity of a lifetime count?

Quite simply, it’s vital for these brands to have an army of brand-ambassadors in their ranks, ready to give a flawless experience of the brand.

As interaction at the point-of-sale becomes even more diminished (see contactless payment), I think the Olympics will be another marker that shows the growing importance of what’s traditionally labelled as the ‘sales assistant’.

In order to fully exploit this expensive, but undeniably lucrative opportunity, it begins with recruitment (a hurdle that G4S hasn’t managed to successfully navigate).

Staff need to be better educated, more enthusiastic and more charismatic than ever before – not expendable drones drafted in as and when necessary.

To approach in such a fashion wouldn’t quite be suicidal, but certainly incredibly foolhardy.

McDonald’s, for example, is doing lots to change perceptions of its employment opportunities, and, especially considering the inevitable criticisms it’ll come under as a sponsor, it will need to ensure staff are a positive aspect, not a liability.

Its drafting of Wayne Hemmingway to design new eco-friendly, Mad-men inspired uniforms, indicates it knows where its money will be made and lost.

At Gekko, we’re working with Acer in a slightly different capacity, but just as important. As the official hardware provider for the London Games, Acer will be responsible for the entire IT infrastructure across the village – including branded lounges for use by athletes and technicians on-site to provide support where necessary.

This isn’t just about the brand experience, or preventing things from going wrong – these staff will have to ensure they embody the Olympic spirit, and promote the Acer brand in line with its Worldwide Partner Status and the Olympic Spirit; the responsibility that comes with biggest sporting event in the world.

It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s really about being the greatest ambassador for the brand and truly recognising the world stage you are performing on.

The athletes may be competing for gold, but so are the brands too and with the world watching, experiencing and relating to your product, whether it be visitor or athlete it’s all part of your Olympic journey and our job as marketers is to make it complete.

So it is quite the daunting task, but these brands can get a real head start on what’s looking to be the evolution of the retail industry as we know it. Point of sale, promotion, direct, etc, will all have roles to play, but it is the experience that is the future.

The term brand experience is debated daily, but brands need to really start thinking seriously about just who will be delivering that experience, within the Olympics and beyond.

Full article available:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/opinion/1142222/think-br-key-brand-experience-olympic-proportions