Your staff are on the front line of portraying your organisation’s vision, values and messages. To illustrate how important and successful this can be, below are some great examples of how one employee's actions can potentially have a big impact on your brand, highlighted at a great fringe session at IOF Scotland recently (‘The Little Things’ - @rachel_hunny).

1. Sainsbury’s giraffe (formerly known as tiger) bread

Sainsbury’s received an enquiry from a somewhat precocious three (and a half) year old asking why their tiger bread was named such when it looked akin to a giraffe. The response from James (above) was quite brilliant. In particular, witness natural child friendly tone, an appropriately small but thoughtful gift (three pounds to spend on sweets!) and the small details such as signing off with his age as "27 and a third".

Sainsbury’s have a shopper for life in Lily and have warmed the hearts of everyone they shared the story with on Facebook. The bread was even rebranded!

2. Starbucks and paper cup messages

A high-powered businesswoman had a long standing tradition with her husband that on returning from a business trip, he would pick up her favourite Starbucks drink for her to enjoy at home. The staff at starbucks, instead of writing her name on the paper cup as they now do, started writing little messages. Random, silly and small, but momentarily uplifting – a great reminder of the very reason most of us treat ourselves to a takeout coffee in the first place.

This continued over the course of several months, until the businesswoman and barista final met for lunch concluding this rather charming story.

3. A charity example?

These quite different stories have one thing in common - engaged staff that have gone the extra mile to build a relationship with a customer. Such examples are a reminder of the importance and value of building commitment among your staff to your vision and values. They could quite easily have been donor or service user interactions, and the charity sector must have plenty of examples! Can you share them?

If you have any experiences you'd like to share, either from the charity sector or the commerical sector, please leave us a comment below or email patrick.brennan@nfpsynergy.net.