When you shop at a major retailer, like Kmart, Bunnings, JB Hifi or Coles, chances are you’ve noticed that all employees are wearing name badges. There are many good reasons for this, and the benefits that major retailers and business organisations enjoy can also be enjoyed by small businesses like yours. What’s more, it isn’t just salespeople and employees in customer-facing roles that should be wearing name badges that clearly identify them by name and position, but all employees, including those behind the scenes. Here’s why:
Corporate Identification and Branding
As a business, every opportunity to get your business name and logo out there for the world to see should be taken advantage of and name badges are a great way to achieve this. As most contact with customers, suppliers and other people happens on-site at your shop or place of business, name badges reinforce your brand and provide a strong corporate identification that provides customers with confidence and trust.
Trust and Accountability
Name badges provide customers with confidence and make them more likely to trust a salesperson or customer service assistant through accountability. It also has the effect of making employees accountable for their actions (because the customer knows their name) which results in them providing a better overall service to customers. Employee rewards programs are made more effective when employees wear name badges and are made accountable for both their positive and negative actions.
With regards to sales and business revenues, name badges are particularly important for salespeople, as coming across as trustworthy and maintaining a favourable image to customers is imperative to making a sale. What’s more, most sales staff actually prefer to wear name badges as they allow them to speak more freely with customers without having to introduce themselves every time.
Monitor Employees and Get Feedback
All employees should be monitored for performance, especially customer-facing employees and salespeople as they’re the ‘face’ of your organisation and the most responsible for presenting a positive image of your business and putting your best foot forward at all times. When your employees wear name badges and are easily identifiable to customers, they can provide feedback (both positive and negative) that’s inherently useful in making informed decisions about your business and how employees interact with customers.
Customer feedback is one of the most important tools a business has access to and name badges are one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to facilitate the process of getting feedback from customers. In larger organisations, the wearing of name badges also enables management and co-workers to provide feedback about one another and organisational processes, and has also been found to improve internal communication.
Better Security
One of the most notable benefits to wearing name badges in the workplace relates to security. Name badges have been found to help with security because everyone is identifiable and, therefore, accountable. When employees wear name badges, supervisors can ensure that everyone in their section is meant to be there, helping them keep track of where everyone is, and minimising employee theft in the workplace.
With outstanding benefits like these and many more, don’t you think it’s about time you invested in name badges for your employees?