Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge

Once your staff have a solid grasp of what a brand is, you can then use this base of knowledge to explore your own brand. The following exercises are concerned with your brand in specific.

WHO IS OUR BRAND?

Every time we see a group wrestle with the following brand exercise, we again are convinced of its value. This exercise enables people to put a human face on their brand.

• Ask your staff to identify your brand as a man or woman. Assign an age and give it a name. How educated is your brand?

• Have your staff think of your brand as a fully developed person who can be described in great detail. Harley-Davidson, for example, is probably not an elderly person or a young child. And even though many middle-aged men and women buy Harleys, the brand aspires to youth and freedom. When middle-aged people buy one of these powerful, rumbling motorcycles, they are buying a piece of youth and freedom.

• Have magazines available so people can create a collage that represents your brand.

• If your brand is going through a transformation, you can phrase the question, Who is our brand? in two ways: What is the brand right now as it appears to the public? And what do we want users of our brand to experience?

• In doing this exercise, it is likely your staff will begin to describe your actual organization, rather than your brand. Keep them focused on your brand or brands. If you need representation from the marketing department to help keep you brand focused, invite one of your brand experts to participate.

OUR BRAND IN THE FUTURE

This is an exercise to have your staff describe your brand in the future. Invite them to tell the story of your brand as it occurs over the next ten years.

Engaging in this type of projection encourages staff to see that they own your brand and its future as much as anyone or anything else does. To stimulate their thinking, ask your staff specific questions that relate to your brand, including future-based questions, such as the following:

• How many people recognize our brand logo? How did this happen?

• Our brand has gained the number one ranking in its market niche. What did we do to achieve this?

• We just won a major award for our brand. What was the award for and how did we win it?

• Three major newspaper features have appeared about the brand because of something that happened. All the stories were positive. What were they about?

• While our brand core has remained the same over the years, our brand has developed. What are some of these developments?

• What has been your role in our brand's future?

BRAND UNIQUENESS

If your brand stands for friendliness, you can be sure that a number of brands would also claim that. And many of them possibly are your direct competitors. What is it about your style of friendliness that is different from everyone else's? Is it the way you express it verbally? Is it the degree to which you apply friendliness as a concept? Is it overstated or subtle? If your friendliness is not different from everyone else's, then it is not a unique position.

The point of this process is to help your staff understand how your brand is differentiated not just by your logo and marketing material but by all the behaviors displayed to your customers.

• Divide your staff into groups and ask them to list all the features that are unique about your brand. If your company represents several brands, choose one at a time.

• Ask that all the answers be compiled on sticky notes (one unique characteristic per sticky note) and then organize them into categories.

• Have your staff challenge the unique identifiers of your brand, pointing out where other brands offer or do the same thing. The point of the exercise is to help your staff clearly understand the unique offerings of your brand.

OUR BRAND EMOTIONS

Because people have differing definitions of words, it can be helpful to have your staff develop a deeper appreciation for the emotional value your brand adds. One clever way to do this is to ask your staff to write down as many words that relate to or are synonymous with your brand values.

For example, let's say you want to provide a "refreshing" experience. When related words are presented, a much broader scope for refreshing can be imagined. In J. I. Rodale's The Synonym Finder, ^[2] you'll find words related to refreshing, including renewing, reviving, stimulating, thirst-quenching, cooling, like a breath of fresh air, cheering, encouraging, and enheartening.

^[2]J. I. Rodale, The Synonym Finder (New York: Warner Books, 1978).