UPS Employees Don’t Live the Brand Image
August 18, 2007 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — a critical component of successful branding is ensuring your employees understand your brand and communicate its image and message consistently.
Consumerist posted a video that’s generating quite a buzz on YouTube that catches a UPS (NYSE: UPS) deliveryman acting counter the the brand image UPS executives spend millions of dollars trying to develop each year (watch the video below).
I’m fairly certain that damaging packages by throwing them at the recipient’s door from several feet away is frowned upon during UPS driver training, but this employee’s behavior provides a great example of a company where the brand message is not being adequately delivered to employees. Of course, this individual may not display behavior typical of most UPS employees, but from UPS’s perspective, it would be worth investigating to determine if a wider problem exists.
Remember, if your employees can’t buy into your brand image and live it with you, why should your customers?
Outrageous, but sadly not surprising Susan.
If you really want to see UPS working hard to sabotage their own brand, visit franchisepick.com and click on The UPS Store posts. Read the comments. They’ve created extreme bad will, negative press and multiple class action lawsuits by acquiring the MailBoxes Etc. chain and, according to many franchisees, coercing them to drop competitive shipping services, change their name to The UPS Store, then undercutting their business by going direct to businesses with lower prices. They’re also being sued for overcharging customers and franchisees.
I’ll give you plenty of info if you want to blog on this great example of a major brand shooting itself in the foot, then reloading with remarkable speed!
Great posts… keep the good stuff flowing!
Wow. I hear they make pretty good money too. I guess it’s not always how much money you make that dictates how you perform; not deep down. Crazy stuff.
While some of the employees make good money what some people dont understand is they also work long hours and miss alot of family time and activities such as childrens sports games, losing child visitation because of the long hours, etc. They are paid for that. They dont get to decided well, i have a daughters game so i will leave work early, not an option. It only takes a few to ruin the reputation of the rest.
Generally, ups employees care about their customers, and as always there’s the one that drives them crazy. No i am not an employee just know a bunch. The phrase, what can brown do for you? They actually do more than you think. They run all aspects of their shipping where other shipping companies hire out. both aspects can benefit the different companies but as a business owner i have found that with ups having one central control company it is easier to have items shipped, dealing with one customer service for different types of shipping. I live in a rural area and while i like fedex as well ups seems to have a better customer service than the other shipping companies.