Final Thoughts


Customers have been teaching us for some time that generic service, even if it is excellent, no longer excites them. Generic service has become the vanilla flavor equivalent of connecting with customers. Generic service inspires judgments of satisfaction, a judgment that lacks the punch to create engaged and brand-loyal customers.

Branding your service experiences in all the myriad ways that are possible takes the discussion about customer service to its next logical step. Specifically, how can your organization use the concept of brand to align your promises to consumers, to live values you aspire to, and to deliver service experiences that customers need to receive if they are to remain your long-term customers?

When promises are aligned with service, you not only magnify your brand promise, but you also give your customers the service you promised them.

Throughout this book we have profiled a number of companies that have succeeded, by and large, in aligning customer service with their brand promises and values. However, regardless of how successful you become in building an on-brand organization, there will be times when you fall short of the standards you aspire to. It is a reality of the complex and fast-moving world we live in that mistakes are made, suppliers let us down, processes develop faults, or employees simply have a bad day. This is when the brand lens through which your service is viewed needs to be in its sharpest focus.

How you recover from these failures is integral to building trust with your customers. We have stated that without trust it is impossible to build strong, enduring emotional connections between customers and brands. Trust is based on the congruence between what your brand stands for and what you reliably do. It is also built upon openness and integrity.

Therefore, when you are off-brand, be honest with your customers. They will appreciate it. Honesty provides a great opportunity to not only restore customer faith but also to reinforce what your brand is—what you stand for and who you are.

The journey to an integrated brand, where the behavior of the organization matches its public promises, is complex. But no one has ever argued that a strong brand is an easy goal to achieve. At least we have a road map to get us moving in that direction.




Branded Customer Service(c) The New Competitive Edge
Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge
ISBN: 1576752984
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 134

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