Branded Customer Service--The New Competitive Edge

JANELLE BARLOW and

PAUL STEWART

BERRETT-KOEHLER PUBLISHERS, INC.

San Francisco

Copyright © 2004 Janelle Barlow, Ph.D., and Paul Stewart.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 Barlow, Janelle, 1943-   Branded customer service : the new competitive edge / by    Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart.     p. cm.    Includes bibliographical references and index. 

ISBN 1-57675-298-4

1. Customer services. 2. Business names. 3. Brand name products. I. Stewart, Paul. II. Title.

HF5415.5.B3667 2004

658.8'12—dc22 2004047605

FIRST EDITION

09 08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyediting and proofreading by
PeopleSpeak.

Book design by
Designsmith Limited.

Composition by
Beverly Butterfield, Girl of the West Productions.

This book is dedicated to long-suffering customers who have had the courage to remind companies that matching "what they do" with "what they promise" is not just a way to keep their business. It's a matter of common courtesy.

About the Authors

Janelle Barlow, Ph.D., is president of TMI US, a partner with Time Manager International, a multinational training and consulting group. Janelle is coauthor with Claus Møller of the best-selling business book A Complaint Is a Gift: Using Customer Feedback as a Strategic Tool, published by Berrett-Koehler. She is also coauthor of Emotional Value: Building Strong Relationships with Customers, and Smart Videoconferencing: New Habits for Virtual Meetings, both published by Berrett-Koehler. Her book The Stress Manager is used in the popular TMI course by the same name. She also developed a management training program, Creativity Power: Unbind Your Mind, which uses 365 skill-building mental aerobic exercises called mind flexors.

Her doctorate was earned at the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied both political science and education. She has two master's degrees, one in international relations and another in psychology. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Janelle is married and has a son.

Twice awarded the prestigious International Trainer of the Year award by Time Manager International, Janelle works with and looks at brand images in exotic locations such as Croatia, India, Poland, China, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and Papua New Guinea. She earned the designation of Certified Speaking Professional offered by the National Speakers Association, on whose national board Janelle is an elected member.

Prior to joining TMI, she was the founder of an educational corporation that produced major personal development rallies for thousands of people. While in her twenties, she lived in Taiwan for three years, where she developed a particularly keen sense of diverse ideas and approaches to management.

As a keynote speaker, consultant, and seminar leader, she draws upon her broad educational background and practical management experience. Over 100,000 people from all continents have participated in and been charmed by Janelle's training programs and speeches.

Paul Stewart is a director of TMI New Zealand, partner in the international consulting and training company Time Manager International. He studied economics and psychology at the University of Otago (New Zealand) and graduated with a bachelor of arts, first class honors. In his twenties he rose rapidly to the position of chief economist for the ANZ Banking Group (NZ), one of Australasia's leading banks, and became renowned as a leading business and economic commentator. In 1998, he was chairman of the Economics Committee of the New Zealand Bankers Association and was a member of the Government's Consumer Price Inflation review committee.

His growing passion for effective application of business strategy led him into the field of corporate strategy, brand development, and organizational effectiveness. Described as an outstanding leader at an individual, team, and company level, he has a rare ability to work with all levels of organizations, from boards and executives to operations teams and employees. As a senior executive, he managed complex corporate projects covering integrated brand development, merger communications, and cultural integration. During this time, he led teams that won awards for best corporate strategy and B2B Web sites and developed world-class brand strategies.

In 2002, he joined TMI New Zealand as a full-time executive and consultant and now works with a range of leading organizations on strategic initiatives around cultural transformation, integrated brand development, service delivery, emotional intelligence, and employee communications. He coaches and mentors emerging executives.

As a speaking professional and member of the National Speakers Association of New Zealand, Paul is a widely sought-after speaker on organizational development and business strategy. He was a founding board member of a regional economic development trust and is a trustee of a leading-edge think tank, the Future of People and Organizations. Paul is passionately committed to Leah, his partner in life and business, and their standard schnauzer named Max.

A Web site has been created for this specific subject at http://www.brandedservice.com. Janelle's telephone number in Las Vegas is 702-939-1800; her e-mail address is [e-mail]. Paul's telephone number in Auckland is 64-9-373-4240; his e-mail address is [e-mail]. TMI US's Web site is http://www.tmius.com; TMI New Zealand's Web site is http://www.tmi.co.nz.

Acknowledgments

Thank you for helping keep us on-brand!

Any strong brand is an orchestration of dozens, even hundreds, of component parts. The same is true of any book. They are never written in isolation, so thanks go everywhere, but responsibility lies with the authors.

We particularly want to thank clients and customers who engaged us in conversation on this topic and helped us think through the tricky conceptual parts of this book. And thanks to service providers, even when they gave us off-brand service, so we could experience at a strong emotional level what happens when a brand promise is authentically delivered—or not.

To all the named, and unnamed, researchers who have toiled over these concepts, crunched the numbers, and bothered to write it all down in business journals, we give you a resounding thank you! This work is not easy, and we are mindful of how the carefully measured thinking of academicians inspired our thinking on the subject.

To the many people who reviewed the text, especially in its early formative stages, we thank you for seeing the genesis of an idea that has the potential to impact customer service for a long time. And to the dozens of people who read the book before it was in its final form and still wrote glowing testimonials, we are totally indebted. To such inspired people as Felicity Stevens, David Walker, Mark Di Somma, and Grant Costello, with whom we have been privileged to work on brand projects over the years, we are indebted to you for shaping our initial understanding around brand strategy and internal branding.

Berrett-Koehler has again lived up to its brand promise in how its staff worked with us. Steven Piersanti, publisher, truly stayed on-brand in his no-holds-barred feedback, necessitating us to write and rewrite. We especially appreciate his approaching us about this book. Once Janelle suggested the idea for the book, Steven held on to the vision throughout two years of telephone calls. Our gratitude also goes to Kerenza Smith, who at the eleventh hour helped us to resolve issues we had been grappling with in relation to the creative design, Beverly Butterfield for final composition, and Sharon Goldinger for her excellent copyediting.

Our TMI colleagues, staff, and friends around the world have been exceptionally generous with their time and feedback. They include Jeffrey Mishlove, Lewis Barlow, Pamela Fedderson, Leah Fisher, Jennifer Schmicher, Bill Oden, Peta Peter, Ralph Simpfendorfer, Judith and Dick Davidson, Elcee Villa, Debbie Schultz, Vic Hewson, George Aveling, and a host of our colleagues. Thank you for your interest and thank you for living the brand TMI. And a special thanks to Howard Putnam, not just for his writing the foreword to this book, but also for participating in the vision of Southwest Airlines to show that branded customer service can be done!

Finally, we want to thank the many organizations and individuals who have asked us to work with them on this topic, either by consulting with them on their service branding needs or by inviting us to deliver keynote speeches on the topic. Every good speaker knows that there is no better way to grasp a topic than being asked to speak about it.