Recently, Haidilao’s latest financial report was released. The financial report shows that Haidilao opened 544 new stores in 2020, and the number of stores worldwide increased to 1,298. Due to the impact of the epidemic in the first half of 2020, the company suffered a loss of more than 900 million yuan, but in the second half of the year it bucked the trend and achieved profitability, demonstrating its strong recovery ability. It is an absolute leader in the catering industry.

Why has Haidilao become a benchmark in the domestic catering industry? The reason lies in its service. "Haidilao-style service" has even become synonymous with the ultimate service.

In fact, many companies attach great importance to service, but why is Haidilao the only one that stands out?

The biggest difference is: one is active and the other is passive.

The secret of Haidilao is not stricter rules and regulations, but to first let employees fully recognize the concept of "service first", mobilize the subjective initiative of employees through full empowerment, and finally make them the masters of the system and provide the best service to customers.

There is a saying within Haidilao:

Instead of impressing 10 customers, the management is better off impressing 5 employees, because the 5 impressed employees will definitely impress more than 10 customers! Surveys show that for every 3% increase in employee recognition, customer satisfaction will increase by 5%, and profits can increase by 25%-85%!

This gives us an inspiration: employees are also "customers" and "internal customers" of the company. To satisfy customers, we must first satisfy employees.

This is internal marketing.

1

Internal marketing is to treat employees as customers, to help them identify with the company's values ​​through training and motivation, to coordinate internal efforts to achieve efficient collaboration, thereby creating greater value for customers and better establishing ties between the company and its customers.

So what should you market to your internal employees?

The first is to market the company's values ​​to employees , make them recognize the company's values, stimulate their initiative, and achieve a better combination of personal goals and corporate goals.

The second is to market the company's products and services to employees so that they can fully understand the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of the company's products, which helps employees to have an overall grasp of their work and improve their enthusiasm.

Just imagine, if even your own employees don’t understand and love your own products, how can they sell them to customers?

In addition, there is marketing between various departments of the enterprise. To achieve satisfactory results for customers, close cooperation among various departments is required to provide strong support for the marketing department. Therefore, departments need to exchange information and collaborate with each other in order to better accomplish their work and goals.

Therefore, when formulating marketing strategies, company managers must have a holistic perspective, coordinate the relationship between "internal" and "external", form a unified front, and ultimately create the best consumer experience for users.

2

The essence of internal marketing is to help companies and employees establish a strong emotional connection, emphasizing putting employees at the center of management.

Therefore, improving employee satisfaction has become the core of internal marketing. Enterprises can start from 5 aspects:

01 Recruiting the right talent

The mutual match between the enterprise and its employees is a prerequisite for internal marketing. We can judge whether it is suitable based on the match between corporate culture and employee values ​​and personality traits, the match between the company's development direction and the employee's personal career development direction, the match between the company's position and the employee's abilities and interests, etc.

Therefore, try to recruit employees who identify with the company as much as possible, so that the employees who come in will treat their job as their own and do their best.

02 Do a good job of internal market research

Employee satisfaction is a prerequisite for customer satisfaction. The prerequisite for improving employee satisfaction is to understand employees’ emotions and needs; only by truly understanding employees’ emotions and needs can we implement effective management of employees.

Some of these methods can be borrowed and applied to internal marketing. For example, one-on-one interviews, special discussions, questionnaires, etc. are used to understand employees' basic situation, skills, expertise and values, their attitudes toward the company, their evaluation and expectations of managers, their requirements for internal service quality, their views and suggestions on the company's products and services, etc.

03 Provide regular employee training

Employees join a company to seek personal development and realize their self-worth. Training can enable employees to acquire better working methods, improve their working abilities, increase their awareness and sense of belonging to the company, and make them work harder.

The content of the training should clearly know what the employees are interested in and what they need to learn, and then formulate a training plan. Do not "fill knowledge" into employees at will, as this will most likely have no effect. Flexible methods such as classroom teaching, field observation, and case analysis can be adopted. After the training, effectiveness evaluation and project adjustments should be carried out in a timely manner to create a mature learning atmosphere.

04 Adopt appropriate incentive policies

Enterprises can adopt appropriate and correct employee incentive mechanisms to encourage employees to work at a higher level and with a higher degree of consciousness and achieve higher achievements.

There are many ways to motivate. For example, companies can use the methods and techniques in pricing strategies to design appropriate salary and benefits plans and establish fair and just promotion mechanisms. Carry out performance appraisals in a timely manner based on the contributions made by employees to the company, and reward and commend outstanding employees clearly and reasonably.

05 Optimize internal communication mechanism

Companies should strengthen effective communication between employees and between employees and managers. Through sincere and open listening and dialogue, employees can understand and support the company's goals and enhance their sense of belonging and identity.

Try to choose methods and channels that employees can accept so that the organization's goals can be subtly understood and accepted by employees. For example, internal publications, internal websites, bulletin boards, etc. are all effective communication methods and channels.

Final Thoughts

For enterprises, internal marketing is a long-term project with no end. It cannot be accomplished overnight, and it cannot be done superficially.

Business operators should set an example more often and let their employees truly feel the spirit and philosophy of the company, so as to gain their employees' sense of identity. Once an enterprise begins to practice its spiritual culture from top to bottom, it will become a powerful competitive force that cannot be replicated.

Author: Yan Tao

Source: Yan Tao (yantao-219)