Here the principles of internal marketing play an important role. Staff is seen as the first customer of the brand. Kotler’s (1999) typology of marketing in service industries applies equally to the marketing of brands in service industries. The theme here is that the customer not only receives the message from the companies external marketing activities, but also the message from the behaviour of the staff he has contact with. The impression the customer gets from the service, from the company and thus from the personality of the corporate brand is also influenced by the friendliness and responsiveness of staff, their perceived qualification and how the staff “lives” the philosophy of the corporate brand. Driving school should adopt internal marketing since it is important in delivering a service that will always exceed the expectations of their driving students.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The descriptive survey was applied in the research. The study used employees on 20 driving schools in Harare. A sample of 200 students was established through a multi-stage sampling. First 20 driving schools were selected through simple random sampling and 10 students were selected using systematic sampling Data was collected using the survey questionnaire that had Likert scale items. Data analysis was done using the SPSS software. Reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. According to Creswell (2009) reliability is a measure of whether scores to items on an instrument are internally consistent, stable over time and whether there was consistency in test administration and scoring. Cronbach’s Alpha values are derived from the research results processed by the SPSS software. In this study reliability was fair (alpha= 0,513). The benchmarks are that alpha should range from 0.50 to 1.00 for it to be acceptable (Creswell, 2009). The use branding variables derived from empirical research recorded in journals improved the validity of the questionnaire. Field (2009) said validity is whether an instrument measures what it was designed to measure.  Construct validity was generally good since concepts in the literature review of employees as brands variables were those maintained in the survey questionnaire of this study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1 below shows responses on perceptions of driving school personnel as branding ambassadors.

1. Greeting of Clients Is Carried Out In a Friendly and Welcoming Manner

Then aim was to ascertain if the driving school staff was doing as expected in terms of upholding the brand of the organization The mean value was 3.29 which is a good mean number because it spells out that there were positive results from students who answered questionnaires with a total agreement percentage of 59.5% and a disagreement figure of 40.4%. There were no students who were undecided on this matter.

More than half of the students felt that greetings of clients were being carried out in a friendly and welcoming manner. This could be attributed to well experienced staff that knows the true meaning of customer care and really appreciate the fact that first impression is very important since it is a point of making or breaking future business. For the 40.4% of students who did not feel that they were greeted properly, the main cause may have been because of inexperienced, less motivated and dissatisfied staff who will then fail to treat their customers as expected of them.

            It becomes important for driving schools to learn and understand the need to treat clients satisfactorily the moment they step into the organization. This is so because first impression is really important on any given organization. Customer care programs must always be carried out so that employees do not get to forget how important their clients are, since they are the life blood of any given organization, because they are the very reason why the organization is in existence. If this is done properly it will always result in brand recall and brand preference.

2. Staff Is Always Smartly Dressed And Wearing Branded Uniforms

The researcher was seeking to make out if the driving school staff was always smartly dressed and wearing branded uniform. 14.3% of students totally agreed with the above mentioned fact. 20.7% were undecided while 64.9% were in total disagreement; as a result the mean figure was well below the average mark with a 2.16 value. This could also be because of pure ignorance of the advantages associated with smartness as wearing branded uniforms. A branded uniform is used as a distinguishing factor and for easy identification. The other reason for this could be because the employees may actually refuse to wear branded uniforms.

There is need to keep on educating driving school personnel on the need and importance of being smart all the time and wearing branded uniforms. According to De Chernatony and Horn (2003) when the staff is consistent in the way they are presented, with for example staff uniforms, they have the greatest impact on the brand perceptions. If staff wear branded uniforms no doubt students will build a positive toward the organization. They will have greater confidence to approach them and ask any kind of questions they will be having or if they need any kind of clarification on any subject. If personnel are not tidy, students lose confidence in them as they will not be looking serious in terms of serving clients and improving customer services. At the end of the day clients will always have a negative brand image with regards the organization.

3. Front Office Staff Seeks To Provide an Error Free Service

The aim was to find out of driving school staff was doing enough to provide an error free service when booking clients driving lessons. Mean value turned out to be 2. 19 with a total disagreement percentage of 76.6%.where 14.9% were undecided and just 8.5% agreeing to this.

            The results above showed that most driving school personnel did not do much in terms of finding way to minimize mistakes and errors. This meant a lot of mistakes were actually being made when booking students lessons. There could have been situations where two or three students are booked to the same instructor at the same date as well as the same time thereby creating havoc where some students will fail to have their lessons. The personnel may actually forget to notify some students in time that their lessons would have been overridden by driving tests which will also prevent the said students from carrying out their driving lessons. Only a very small percentage of 8.5% agreed to this fact which means just a few driving schools were able to offer an error free service when booking driving lessons.

This therefore meant that driving schools really have to introduce programs or software that allows booking of driving lessons with more accuracy and less errors. If an organization gets to be known for always being accurate and never making mistakes, this enables them to have a better client turn out. Students will always have a positive image towards that organization. As a result the brand of the organization would have been upheld.

4. Driving School Staff Possess the Skills and Experience

The main aim was to find out if the driving school staff was in possession of the skills and experience that would allow them to give prompt service and driving information as soon as it was needed. The mean value turned out to be 3.04 which are just a little bit above average. Not a single student strongly agreed with the above question.  Only 36.3 were in agreement, while 36.7 were undecided on the issue and a total disagreement figure of 27.1%.

This was proof that some students felt that driving school staffs were experienced enough. This may have been attributed to the kind of personnel that would have offered the service. Some are just naturally good at imparting the very much needed information at just the right time compared to others.  They actually know what is expected of them in order to be able to win more clients in the future.

It is important to place those very experienced personnel at the front office. They need to be in possession of all the skills needed to deal with clients. Putting employees who are not well knowledgeable about the company’s products and services will result dissatisfaction. That will amount to bad image for the organization and a negative brand perception.

5. Customer Service Is Excellent

The researcher wanted to make sure if customer service was excellent enough such that solutions to complaints were always given as quickly as possible. The mean turned out to be 3.88. The total agreement figure was 86.7% while 3.2% of the students being undecided and only 14.6% of the students who answered the question were in total disagreement.

From the above results it can be deduced that most of the Harare based driving schools were offering proper customer care service as they were able to come up with solutions to problems that would have arisen as quickly as possible. The reasons to such positive responses could be credited to employees who are up to date with the changes in the driving environment such that they are able to realize the exact needs and wants of their clients, because failure to deal with problems that would have arisen will cause most clients to choose alternative brands.

For organizations that were not doing well in this area, there was, or there actually is need to concentrate on internal marketing first. Taking care of the welfare of the employees is very important. This is so because once an employee becomes fully equipped with product knowledge and if they also feel that their personal needs are being taken into consideration by the organization, rest assured these will be happy employees. Once employees are happy this can be evidenced by treating those customers exceptionally well by exceeding customer expectations. Customer care programs and workshops should be carried on regularly.

CONCLUSIONS

Driving school personnel score high on courtesy, driving skills, experience and customer service. However most driving school personnel were not smartly dressed most of the times and did not wear branded uniforms. Errors rate while booking driving lessons was  high.

COMPETING INTERESTS

There were no competing interests envisaged.

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS

The two authors conceived and designed the study together. The corresponding author then collected, analysed, interpreted the data and compiled the final document.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to thank management and employees of the selected driving schools for their assistance.

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