The BIG Kahuna

It recently came to my attention that Bose has different policies and procedures for their?employees. Employee?s that work in a more corporate job get the benefits of a full spectrum of a?vacation schedule while customer service and tech support only receive two holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.?

Of course I see the need for having a fully staffed department during peak times but having different policies and procedures for employee?s is not cool. Secondly it?s a brand killer. Let me tell you why it will ultimately destroy Bose internally.?

The departments we?re talking about are customer service and tech support. These departments talk directly to the end user (the customer). So if they are unhappy or feel slighted guess what? Exactly, their frustration, anger and general bad feelings transfer to the customer.?

At least this is what has happened to the person I spoke with. Here is a quote from the Bose website:?

?Bose Corporation is committed to being a good neighbor and corporate citizen. The company upholds a longstanding belief that we have a responsibility to give back to the communities where our facilities?and many employees?are located.??

But if you?re a tech support person you are treated differently? Bose, why establish a ?class? system amongst your employee?s??

?Reaching our goals requires uniquely talented individuals with a strong desire to grow and achieve. Individuals who share the values of passion, innovation, excellence, respect and integrity that are embedded throughout our organization today.?

I see ?respect? and ?integrity? but do you practice what you preach? Bose, internal branding is as important if not more important than external branding. You do a great job of external branding but if this is true and you have separate policies for employee?s then you clearly don?t get the big picture.

?We have a passion for what we do and what Bose stands for. Our passion and enthusiasm for what we do enables us to achieve the high standards of performance and innovation we have set for ourselves. We believe that people who are focused, internally motivated and energized by what they do spread their enthusiasm to others. We derive great benefit from individuals who champion their ideas and from leaders who inspire us to higher levels of achievement.?

I?m here to tell you that you are misguided. Look back at the underlined sentence and rethink who you really are and want to be.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 8:44 am and is filed under Branding Blunders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.