The Most Important Part

We all know that "marketing" is actually the collective name for a vast assortment of tasks and activities -- advertising, sales, customer care, distribution, and so on. But, it seems like the most important aspect of this collective is one that most people don't even think belongs under the marketing umbrella.

I've mentioned this area before, but recent personal experiences have reminded me of it.

I think the key to marketing and branding is: human resources.

Obviously having good people in your customer service department and other customer-facing roles is vital. But it goes a lot further than this.

Here's an example:
I was recently visiting Paris and trying to enjoy the city. The obvious "customer service" side of things is apparently not-so-obvious to the French. Unfortunately, the majority of employees simply did not even bother to pretend that they were happy to see me, let alone serve me. (There were exceptions of course -- most staff at my hotel were quite good, for example).

But, this was hardly a surprise. To be honest, even before the trip I assumed that I would get the stereotypical, almost cliche, French attitude to "service" and didn't get my hopes up.

Who really let me down were the behind the scenes people.
The people who would call themselves "logistics" or "operations" or "administration" or anything except "marketing".

Why, for example, would a person in the transit system's planning department create a ticket structure that requires a new ticket to be used for each journey but not account for the fact that some "journeys" require leaving a station (or section of a station) and re-entering another (and therefore need a new ticket)?

Why does the operator of a paid toilet facility have an employee who's sole purpose is to take a 50 cent coin and give a token (worth 50 cents) back for the customer to use in a turnstile?

Similarly, when there's a line stretching around the block at the entrance to a museum, why use a valuable employee to - instead of selling tickets and alleviating some of the lineup - glance at each customer's ticket as they enter? (A ticket that was sold to the customer 10 seconds earlier by another employee just a few feet away. )

Who would schedule room service in a hotel to start at 9am -- long before check-out time and before many people are even out of their rooms?

Back to the transit system: Why shut down the EXITS from a station when it's closed, but leave the ENTRANCES open?


I bet that NONE of the people responsible for setting up or maintaining the above systems, processes, procedures, etc. would ever describing themselves as working in a marketing, branding, or customer service department.

Maybe we shouldn't even have marketing departments. Instead, change the CEO into a CMO and make it clear to all staff that they are actually reporting to this head of marketing. Continue doing the same job, but perhaps change mindsets so that everyone is thinking "My job is to profitably do XYZ for customers and clients".