The Brand issue. Possibly the biggest and most important one for growing a business. There is no end of literature on the subject. The amount of time and resources invested in building brands are staggering. In 2017 alone, nearly half a trillion dollars were spent on the subject. It is interesting that such expenditure is dedicated to pursuing something so elusive, ethereal even. Or seemingly elusive. A brand is so much more than its physical manifestation, the logo, the corporate colours and image and all those things traditionally associated with brand. I always ask attendees in our workshops, what a brand is. Surprisingly enough, most still relate it to things like logos and copyright. Maybe this is natural. In fact, maybe this is the reflex response. Even people that give this answer have emotional responses to brands. Then, when asked what words come to mind when you mention specific brands the answers are words like “status”, “quality”, “happy”, “safety” or even “anger”, “hypocrisy” and so on. Most don’t realize the work that is being done by branding. And this is how the best branding works. According to an accredited February 2018 Survey, the top reason firms use social media is for brand awareness and brand building (46%). We are exposed to logos and symbols more than ever. In more and more personal settings, in the “privacy” of our smartphone. Hence the correlation. Most of us realize that we are looking at a promotion and log the emblem or unique selling proposition shot at us. What we don’t consciously realize is that we are also receiving brand messages which are all about triggering the type of emotions the brand wants us to feel. Feel is the operative word here. Whether we like to accept it or not, as already mentioned, we make decisions emotionally. Branding is about generating specific feelings among the population of customers and potential customers. The stronger the brand, the deeper the emotional association and bond. The stronger the bond, the greater the loyalty. The greater the loyalty, the higher the profit. Take Apple as an example. Can we build that kind of devotion in our customers? A strong brand provides not only the basis for viable growth, but also a level of insulation in hard times. In today’s market the Brand is becoming more and more inseparable from the experience. How we feel about a company ultimately determines how we interact with it. The obvious elements of a brand are easy enough to define and design. One might go as far as to say that, in most cases, customers take them for granted. It is expected that any serious operator will adhere to the standards that are becoming part of everyday life. It is considered a given that the devise you buy will work as promised. It is a given that when we walk into a business, we will enter a professionally laid out, clean and functional environment. It is taken for granted that the heating/cooling/lighting will be in perfect working condition. It goes without saying that we won’t be sold imitation or faulty products. Warranties will be honoured. Business ethics and codes of conduct are not concepts obscure to the public any more. In fact, the mark is set so high that it takes a lot for a customer to walk into our business, today, and walk out again without making some sort of negative comment. Hopefully to very few people. Hopefully not through social networks. Take the Net Promoter Score. If a customer is to talk about you in a positive light and actually recommend your business to others, you need to score at least 9 out of 10! And, as already mentioned, the obvious brand elements are easy enough to get right. Or should be. If you are listening to your customers. It’s the intangibles that pose the greatest challenge. Subtle things such as the fact that you have created a reputation that you exploit your employees. Or the fact that you are less than environmentally responsible. Or the issue of your main supplier that is in the news in relation to unethical practices. The list goes on and on. So, no matter what we read about Branding, what we should always keep in mind is that it is essentially about feelings and emotional responses. And Brands, today, have become much harder to manage and control. They are complex beings with a life of their own. And just like our children, if you don’t put in the hours in the early stages, they become increasingly difficult to manage. You can never manage a single aspect of a brand. Think of a weighing scales with not two but any number of weighing pans. And you need to get the balance just right. Any one element out of balance can cause a negative impact. Think of the most scrumptious chocolate cake. Heaven on a plate. You sing praises to the confectioner. You insist your friends should try it. You swear that any other chocolate cake simply doesn’t deserve the title. Now let’s say they forget to put in the sugar. How was the experience? What if the sugar is accidentally (or maliciously) replaced by salt? Customers buy, or don’t buy, experiences. Not products, not services. Customers become loyal because of a great initial experience and because when they gave us the second chance, they had, yet again, a great experience. This is not easy to achieve.
Which brings us to branded experiences. If it is hard to build a brand, it is even harder to build a branded experience. You can print your logo on a product. You can make all your stores the same. You can build your products to the strictest specifications. But can you actually brand the experience every customer has at each and every touchpoint, during every moment of truth so that they come to associate that type or level of service with your Brand?
As an engineer I was trained to deal in facts and figures. My entry to the world of sales, management and business showed me that there are many cases in which what we initially perceive as spontaneously emotional reactions are, in fact, the result of carefully engineered processes. Consider a company designing a smartphone, or a car. Or an application. The trick is to leave nothing to chance. They strive to cover all contingencies so that the performance of the product is predictable. So that it doesn’t fail and disappoint. The better class of product is built with high quality components. They are costlier and have low tolerances. That means that any deviation from their specified values is lower than that of cheaper options.
Customer experience is, or should be, a product. It is designed and manufactured. The better class of customer experience, which is inadvertently related to its brand, also uses high quality components. Arguably the most crucial component of any customer experience is the people creating it. Creating? Some ask. Don’t you mean delivering? Yes, people deliver a service, but they create experiences. An experience is something different to every person. It may even be different for the same person on two different occasions. The best components of the experience -people- create great experiences for the customers they interact with. Great experiences are memorable. And they influence future decisions. Great customer experiences influence future purchasing decisions. The flip side of the coin is that a poor customer experience will contribute to customer attrition. We read that 95% of customers will not return to a business if they associate it with a bad customer experience. When designing your strategy, make sure to factor in the creation of a great customer experience. No matter what business you are in.