Stupid customers and word of mouth.

Google “word of mouth advertising” and you’ll get 322,000 hits. Word of mouth can be a powerful tool. But too often, companies forget that employees are some of the mouths.

The other day I was in a Barnes and Noble store in Rockville, Maryland, buying some books. There were two check-out clerks, and one was busy regaling the other with a story of just how stupid a customer was because he wanted “a gift receipt for a gift card!” The second clerk laughed and joined in the “dumb customer” commentary. While us customers listened.

I don’t how Barnes and Noble defines touchpoints for delivery of their brand ― but if they include employees, at least two of them didn’t get the memo.

Here’s another example. Giant Food here in the D.C. area. It’s a 50-50 chance that your checker will be talking to a co-worker about what time they get off, when their next break is and when they came in that morning. Which usually means they can’t be bothered to connect with the customer in any way.

And another. About 20 years ago, I worked for an aluminum company and our agency ― specifically, a brilliant CD named John Corey ― proposed that our “ad campaign” one year consist of commissioning a limited-edition series of photographs, each of which illustrated “The Competitive Edge”, which was our theme. The idea was that we would give each of our top 200 customers and prospects a framed photo each quarter ― a photo of high enough quality that they would put it on the wall. And every time they looked at it, they’d remember us and our message.

We did an exhaustive search, settled on photographer Larry Fink, got four photographs, had them framed and signed and sent the first batch out to the sales force to distribute. About halfway through, I was travelling with one of our sales guys and he handed the picture to his customer. “I don’t know for sure why we’re doing this,” he said. “It’s a nice picture though. And an aluminum frame.”

I’d missed the whole boat by not involving the sales force at the very beginning. Later I heard that some customers were keeping the frame and throwing away the pictures. I hadn’t drawn our sales force ― the direct customer connection ― into the idea and the message. A good idea very nearly went to waste because all of the employees weren’t bought in.

Any branding or advertising effort ought to involve the HR department in some way shape or form. After all, employees will be delivering your brand essence to customers. That includes, sales clerks, front-desk clerks, service techs, receptionists, CSRs, supervisors, phone support, bellmen, bartenders ― and those two clerks at Barnes and Noble.

Everybody.