That movement has now resulted in a large series of stories, which can be read on vodafoneziggo.nl/verhalen . One of the latest additions is a blog by Jan Zwang, Senior Manager Market & Customer Insights . Together with his team, he provides VodafoneZiggo with valuable information: the wishes, judgments and behavior of the customer, and all the opportunities that arise from that.
Van der Aa: “When we asked Jan Zwang to act as ambassador or 'storyteller', it worked out well. His way of telling stories is infectious and offers food for thought. In this way, we like to give our colleagues, their character and knowledge the stage. The fact that this content is then widely shared on LinkedIn is the icing on the cake.”
Van der Aa continues: “ Enthusiasm is our keyword . We are very enthusiastic ourselves and know how to get people involved in that way. We also throw a lot of humor and mnemonics into our presentations, so that the learning points stick well. That is how you get people moving.”
Gamification
Gamification is used in many organizations that use their employees as ambassadors. Leaderboards indicate who has shared the most content. At VodafoneZiggo this is not an option.
Mirck: “Ambassadorship is intrinsic motivation, it has to come from within yourself. We love giving employees tools, but we don’t give out prizes for the one with the most likes. If you make it a game, people will compete against each other. It becomes a competition, while it isn’t. We focus on quality, not quantity.”
During an internal presentation, they emphasized this point. They showed a ranking of the reach of the employees. The directors were at the top. Logically, because they have the largest network. By putting a big red cross through it, they made it clear that this is not the way. Van der Aa: “It's about your company pride. Who you are and what you want to convey. Not about lists.”
“Forced or unintentional enthusiasm, you can always see that through. Nobody is waiting for I-love-my-job-content . It has to remain spontaneous and authentic. Authentic , a terrible word by now. But that's what it's all about,” says Mirck.
Vincent Mirck & Jan van der Aa give each other a high five.
Vincent Mirck & Jan van der Aa – VodafoneZiggo
Tools and plopping
Ambassadors can be presented with stories that they can share via a tool. Initially, this was done via LinkedIn Elevate, but VodafoneZiggo has now switched to Business Social, a platform via Vodafone Group. Van der Aa and Mirck see such tools as training wheels. “We do look closely at how employees use these tools,” says Van der Aa. “ We want to prevent content from being blindly shared. ”
Mirck explains laughing: “We came up with a word for that: pleppen . We don’t want anyone to b2b email list pleppen. Period.” Van der Aa: “We also made a fun internal video about it. Now everyone knows what pleppen is!”
Coming out works!
Van der Aa: “I personally like to do my work in the background, but I have learned that being ' in the picture ' really pays off. It is not really in my nature, but I believe that you should stand for your work and go public with it.”
This year, the duo presented this story to a packed room at a Frankwatching event, they held a webinar and were willing to travel to Rotterdam for this interview.
From getting stories to telling stories
“Stories lead to stories,” says van der Aa. “We started by collecting stories, and this spread like wildfire through the organization. The stories were discussed internally. Now we notice that colleagues are increasingly coming to tell stories.” So the success comes from two sides.
Mirck adds an example. “We helped a director who really has something to say a lot by recording her stories. She recently came to us with the idea of letting colleagues from her team speak. She understands that she shouldn’t be the only one in the foreground and that others also benefit from a platform.”