How to Polish Your Service Lens to Reflect Your Brand Promises | Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge

To be branded, customer service must possess four attributes.

It must be unique. The service exchange must have some minimal components that are different from other service exchanges. After all, if brands are unique, then so must be the service that reflects that particular brand. This uniqueness can be attained in the way that brand characteristics are combined or emphasized.

For example, friendly and secure service is different from friendly and exciting service. And a brand that emphasizes excitement and at the same time is friendly is differentiated from one that prioritizes friendliness with a dash of excitement thrown in. Given the vast number of possibilities to touch customers logically and emotionally, it is relatively easy to carve out a distinct space for your uniquely branded service. "It absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight" is different from "a reasonably priced alternative" to sending your packages.
It must amplify or deliver the core brand promise. Branded service must be expressed through behaviors that demonstrate the core brand promise. At Disney hotels, for example, housekeepers take stuffed animals left behind by children staying in the rooms they attend to and arrange them in an inviting position. When the young owners return to their rooms after a long day at Disneyland, they are welcomed by the open arms of their beloved toys. Simultaneously clean rooms, family entertainment, and the core Disney brand are all delivered at once!
It must be delivered with awareness. Delivering good generic service can be so natural that service providers do not have to think much about it. They know their jobs, and many are instinctively friendly and quick. But branded service, especially when it is noteworthy, normally requires a decision on the part of staff to do something or not. This is why creating an environment that supports living the brand within the organization makes it more likely that staff will remember to deliver the brand in their behavior.

This is also why it is not possible to just tell your staff to go out and deliver a particular style of branded customer service. People are not innately knowledgeable about how to do that. Staff must not only fully understand the brand, but they must also explore how their service can represent the brand in action. In addition to being brand savvy, they must have the required skills, systems, resources, and tools to help them deliver the brand.
It must be delivered within a defined and consistent range. If service is not consistent, customers will assume that the experience was specific to the individual with whom they interacted. They will not see the service as representative of the brand. ^[4] Even the worst service organizations have a few outstanding people. And some have service providers who are so off-brand with their skills that they can give the entire organization a black eye.

Travelocity, the Internet travel provider, has a very good reputation, is very successful, and has worked hard to distinguish itself. But even the best in the field can fail at always being on-brand. The following e-mail is duplicated as it was received from a reputedly well-trained Travelocity service representative, complete with at least nine glaring errors that have been underscored. Since over 50 percent of online customers seek help when they make travel arrangements, a single e-mail can send a message that the entire organization doesn't value precision or accuracy, both of which are critical in the travel industry.

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^[4]Valerie Folkes, professor at the Marshall School of Business, argues that because customers have "learned to treat information about each service provider as limited to that unique transaction," service firms will find "creating brand images challenging." Folkes and Patrick, "The Positivity Effect in Perceptions of Services."