Your Most Valuable BRAND Asset

Intro, Part 2 - Corporate Brand Personality

The most valuable element of your brand today is what your customers say about your brand to their contacts. In this digital age, this instantly goes global through the medium of TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google Business, and the myriad of other social media sites. A significant percentage of the population are largely reliant on and influenced by social media and technology for their choices on where to go to bank, eat, drink, exercise and a wealth of other experiences, so you need to right on top of what is being said about you online.  If you’re serious about your brand, which you will be of course, you cannot afford to not invest in aligning people behaviour with your brand messages.

Every year millions of dollars are invested by organisations in branding and re-branding, to get that logo or latest slogan at the hottest sports venues or on that prime spot billboard.  How much of that investment are you wasting by not aligning people brand and behaviours to the corporate messaging and in engaging all your people in what the messaging really means? Brand-awareness building is all great and worthwhile if it is backed up consistently from all angles, and most of that means via your people.  If you leave this to chance, then the leakage of brand investment could be massive.

Going even further, I would ask if you’ve considered the actual risk to your business in not addressing this potential leakage and dilution seriously?  What if your fabulous new and expensive marketing campaign attracted great media coverage, positive social media discussion and huge brand awareness, yet the customer experience starts to fall short of the high expectation created. There is an even greater height to fall from that may cost millions of dollars in lost loyalty, trust and a feeling of being ‘let down’. It’s fair to say that companies today don’t necessarily need to exceed customer expectations as often as is thought and strived for, they just need to meet expectations consistently.  It is this consistency that is lacking for the majority.

So going back to the receptionist scenario in Part 1, would you consider this experience a ‘hiccup’ or would it have seriously tainted your view of the corporate brand? I suspect this will very much depend on previous experiences and how much of a reputation they already have with you.  If this were a first experience on the other hand, your sub-conscious or even conscious brain will tell you that that is simply the way they do business, with an indifferent approach to people behaviour and customer experience, therefore you will quite possibly question having any business dealings with them.

 THE BRAND ROADBLOCK

We are at a point in our business environment, where we need to re-align the corporate culture with that demanded by our clients and customers. Today customers demand trust, respect and a level of ‘personality’ from the companies they choose to buy from and build relationships with. However, conversely what is happening is a slide towards the other extreme, of corporate bad manners and apathy in the way businesses communicate with their stakeholders. Communication turn-around and response times are getting longer, and call waiting times extended in the ever-increasing call centre systems we all so frequently have to endure.  In turn this can create a significant roadblock between your customers and your brand, and the business success you strive for, need and indeed work hard to achieve. 

The roadblock is unfortunately becoming more firmly rooted into business culture, creating a superficial yet very effective, solid barrier to providing great customer experience and therefore ultimately increased or even static bottom-line profits.  The more firmly it takes hold, and the longer it is there, the more difficult it is to change the perception of the brand, both internally and externally, as well as the resulting culture within the organisation.  The roadblock also creates the need for a diversion, as customers and clients try to find an easier and less troublesome and a more pleasurable way to get what they need – a diversion away from your brand towards other suppliers and partners is the unfortunate result.

Consider Call Centres as an example – was this de-centralisation trend a false economy? The idea of transferring call handling for customers to cheaper set-ups in other parts of the world, seemed a good one for streamlining a business, taking away something that could quite easily be outsourced and in a potentially more cost-effective way. However, as has now been proven, customers want person-to-person contact more than anything, in order to ‘trust’ a company and its products and services. Remove that personal contact and you remove what is essentially at the core of customer loyalty, trust and respect.  Hence we are starting to see some organisations bring call handling and customer service back ‘in-house’.

THE FIRST DIRECT MODEL

Did First Direct Bank in fact get it right, a long time before their competitors even saw the need for this level of localisation and personalisation and the resulting genius of it?  First Direct are one of the world’s first fully functional direct banks and they launched in 1989. They pioneered the concept of no branches and a 24-hour service via a call centre. In the early 1990’s this model expanded to the use of Internet Banking and other banks came on-board with the concept.

In speaking with First Direct clients, I found that from the start, First Direct Bank have been consistent with their approach in really putting the customer first, and not just claiming to - they have always delivered on what they promised from the outset.

They have created a ‘relationship’ with their customers that causes individuals to feel like they belong, that they can relate to their bank in a personal way and are actually valued as a customer.  It is an informal brand that is human, friendly, fun and can be identified with – similar to Apple and the relationship they have created with customers. The Apple approach is totally focused on the customer, from the moment they enter the store, to understanding their individual and specific needs sincerely, listening actively and providing a solution. However, this level of service and customer focus is quite incredible for a bank that has no branches!

Even today, their call centres have no automated phone system – but instead a positive, upbeat and real person to speak to. A certain way to attract new customers and keep their existing ones happy! Again this is the personal approach that appears to be so unusual today. When calling my Dentist, even when they answer my call and ask me if I mind holding, I’m quite happy to do this for 2-3 minutes and possibly longer if necessary, because I’ve had some human contact.  Whereas being put into a queue for an indefinite period without that real person speaking to me, I’m unlikely to hold, even though they keep telling me my call is important to them!

From my research, I have also found a common theme to be that First Direct customers are loyal (most I spoke to have been customers for 10+ years), and they have consistently recommended the bank over the years and actively look for the opportunities to jump in and recommend, whether in an on-line discussion or amongst colleagues. Imagine how many new customers this has resulted in. When we have a recommendation from a trusted friend or colleague we are much more likely to try that new service. If we hear it recommended several times over from different sources, the chances of us trying it are significantly increased. Hence my belief that the most valuable part of any organizations brand today is what your customers say about your brand to their contacts.

Loyalty goes two ways – First Direct have customer loyalty because they are also loyal to their customers with this consistent, personal and high level of service. They operate on the basis that ‘people buy people’ – something that many organisations say they do, but in reality they miss the mark.

(I'll be releasing my entire book in bite-sized chunks like this through the next few months).

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