Brand Delivery: What Does Our Brand Look Like in Action? | Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge

THE EXPERIENCE NEEDS OF OUR CUSTOMERS

This is a multistep exercise to get to the heart of what your customers would like to experience with your brand.

First, list experiences your customers want (their needs) in relationship to something you do for your customers.
Second, describe these needs using your customers' voices.
Third, list specific ways your organization or team can meet these needs as they relate to your brand values.

Table 7 shows a sample of how a company that produces training seminars and related materials might answer the above questions.

Table 7: A sample brand in action
CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCES: "PROGRAMS AND PRINTED MATERIALS
THE NEED	NEEDS DESCRIPTION IN OUR CUSTOMERS' VOICES	POSSIBLE WAYS TO MEET THE NEED AS IT RELATES TO OUR BRAND
Reliability of our printed materials	We want materials to be of the highest quality—as promised. This means no errors and timely delivery.	Always have two people check our completed work. Let customers know we take the extra time to double-check our printed materials. If we find any significant errors, reprint the material at no extra cost to the client.
Innovative, most recent ideas in our programs and printed materials	If we wanted rehashed ideas or copies of materials from the Internet, we'd do it ourselves. We are hiring you to buy your creativity, uniqueness, and inspiration.	We spend time in brainstorming ideas; we do not copy our competitors' work; we always tweak our materials so even if a similar process or idea Is used, it is customized to precisely fit each client. We let our customers know when we have developed something specifically for them.

BRAND SKILLS AND RESOURCES

Most organizations assess internal training needs from time to time. After your staff understand your brand and know what they need to do to deliver it, ask them what specific skills and resources they need to better deliver the brand.

Here are a few possibilities that may never show up in a regular needs assessment list.

Acting classes
Language or elocution training
Penmanship instruction
Personal image and professional presence training
Memory classes for name retention
Humor classes
Emotional competency skills
Cross-cultural understanding
Seminar on reading body language
Foreign language skills
Brand-related selling skills
Specific product experience

Another way to approach this is to identify the people on staff who best deliver your brand. Study them and note the unusual talents or skills they possess. Then replicate these abilities in the rest of your staff through training. Encourage your talented brand deliverers to become mentors to new staff.

IDEAL BRAND BEHAVIOR, ACTUAL BRAND BEHAVIOR

Apply a quality technique to your brand delivery.

First, define customer interactive touch points.
Then identify specific on-brand behaviors for each touch point.
Next, describe what ideal brand behavior (IBB) would look like.
Then describe your actual brand behavior (ABB). (You may need to send in undercover shoppers to measure your actual delivery levels.)
The difference between the IBB and the ABB is the gap you want to close. Involve staff to help you describe precisely what needs to be done to reach the IBB level.

SEQUENCING OF IDEAS

Psychologists know that the order in which they ask their questions influences the answers that people give. ^[3] This happens at an unconscious level through a phenomenon called priming, in which our brains are made ready for an idea by the order in which items are presented.

You can influence answer choice by presenting a nonverbal cue and then asking someone a question. Bring up a pizza reference in conversation with someone, for example, and then ask what kind of food that person would like for dinner. There's a good chance that he or she will choose pizza because you stimulated the idea of pizza in the person's brain.

Choose a process that you follow with your customers and experiment with the order in which you go through the process. Seek to understand if the order of presentation makes a difference in customer behavior or reactions. For example, most toll-free customer service help desks start with identification questions, which are not the most brand-reinforcing questions.

The unspoken message conveyed by the order in which you ask for information may say that you are more interested in your procedures than you are in listening to customers so you can help them. Our own experience tells us that asking identification questions first primes many customers to heightened levels of irritation.

USING LANGUAGE TO ENHANCE OUR BRAND EXPERIENCE

Fabulous Freddy's gas stations in Las Vegas encourage staff to say "fabulous" when they can naturally interject the word in conversations with customers. Ask them how they are, and they will tell you, "Fabulous." It's obvious what they are doing, and it's also fun. Indeed, "fabulous" seems to affect their whole demeanor. They rush to offer to pump gas at no extra charge.

Reinforcement of Fabulous Freddy's brand through language makes it easy for customers to remember them, especially since every time you go for a car wash you will hear, "Have a fabulous day."

Choose one of the words contained in your brand promise and ask your staff to experiment with ways to naturally use that word in your customer communications. For example, if your brand contains the emotion word exciting, how can that word be "naturally" integrated into your conversations with customers? ^[4] The key is to make the use of your brand words not sound forced but rather delivered in such a way to reinforce the brand promise. Here are some examples using the word exciting/excited:

Leaving a message on a voice mail system: "Mr. Roberts, I have some exciting news. I believe I have a solution to the question you phoned about. Thank you and please call me at ******."
Helping a customer make a clothing purchase: "I think you'll be excited about how easy this fabric is to care for. You can literally throw it in the laundry and then wear it right away."
Setting up an appointment: "Well, this is exciting. I can work you in this afternoon. Can you make it over here by then?"

BEHAVIORALLY DEMONSTRATING BRAND VALUES TO CUSTOMERS

Many organizations take care of customers' needs at counters staffed with multiple service providers. Under such circumstances, it is not uncommon to see an employee working on a computer behind a Closed sign—even if customers are waiting in a long line.

While the customers have no way of determining what that person is doing at the computer, it looks as if the organization has higher priorities than reducing the waiting time that customers are forced to spend to get help.

Choose one of your brand values that has strong behavioral implications, such as responsiveness, respect, or dignity.
Ask your staff to brainstorm all the ways you can behaviorally show your customers you are responsive to them, respect them, or treat them with dignity.
Make a parallel list of all the behaviors customers will likely interpret as nonresponsive, disrespectful, or undignified treatment.

BRAND CUES

Many large institutions have little regard for their patrons' time, as witnessed by poor or inadequate signs. For example, we have yet to hear anyone talk about the Grand Ole Opry Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, without mentioning how difficult it is to find one's way around that sprawling property.

Cues speak volumes about your brand delivery—even if customers are not consciously aware of them. Professor Gerald Zaltman provides an example of this type:

Something as simple as a wall clock included in a magazine-ad photo can exert a powerful impact on what consumers retain about the ad. For example, a picture of someone being helped at a service counter in a setting where a wall clock is displayed is more than twice as likely to evoke the notion of speedy service than the same image without the wall clock. ^[5]

Here are three ideas to consider when looking at your brand cues.

Identify brand cues that relate to your brand values. Divide them into categories and tackle them group by group.
Advertisers use inserts in Sunday newspapers to cue customers to come to their stores. What cues can you use to let customers know you are serious about your brand values once they arrive at your location? For example, what do your staff titles (and name badges) tell customers about your brand or how you treat your staff?
Pay attention to your cues that send negative messages. For example, if you occupy a large location, do your direction signs let your customers—and staff—know you are concerned about their time? Or does the absence of signs or poorly placed signs send the negative message that you don't really care whether they get lost?

COMPLAINT HANDLING AND OUR BRAND

Service recovery, or complaint handling, is a huge issue for brands. As a result of looking thoroughly at this topic for over ten years, we know that one of the easiest times to be off-brand is when customers voice complaints. There are so many ways to be off-brand in these situations.

Ask your staff how they can handle complaints while remaining on-brand. To keep your discussion brand focused, talk about effective complaint handling that stays on-brand, rather than just effective complaint handling.
Ask your staff to pretend they are a customer with a fairly common problem. Have them imagine calling your organization and asking for help with a complaint. Then ask, "What would customers expect from you so you are consistent with your brand even though the customer found something to complain about?"
Can your staff figure out ways to link your brand promise to your style of complaint handling? For example, when alternatives are available that would help customers avoid recurring problems, would it enhance certain aspects of your brand promise to suggest them? If lengthy lines plague your business, could your staff offer alternative times to visit your business when lines are not so long? This type of suggestion could be linked to a brand that offers size while emphasizing personal care.
If your brand promise is about care, would it be appropriate for your staff to show empathy when customers face problems that no one can solve? For example, airlines frequently must deal with displaced passengers who cannot get home because of bad weather. While not the airlines' fault, a show of empathy can demonstrate caring.
When customers complain about prices, staff need to know how to respond by selling brand value—not just value but value specifically linked to the brand. Do your staff know how to do this?

^[3]Zaltman, How Customers Think, 32.

^[4]Zaltman cites a concrete example of this approach. "(A software company) trained help-line personnel to use movement and force metaphors during conversations with consumers ["Let's conquer the problem," "Let's get you going quickly," and "It's a slam dunk"]. The company also added the image of a lightning bolt near the help-line phone number on its packages and in its instructional materials. This image suggesting force and movement reassured potential purchasers that they could get fast, effective help when they needed it." Zaltman, How Customers Think, 95–96.

^[5]Zaltman, How Customers Think, 174.