Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge

Any solid management intervention requires reinforcement. The following four ideas can help you to focus your communication so it reinforces your brand every time you communicate with your staff.

DESIGNING ON-BRAND INTERACTIONS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION

Choose one of the emotions or elements of your brand, and ask questions about a range of interactions you have with your staff and colleagues. If the brand value is "excitement," for example, sample questions might include the following:

• How can we lead exciting staff meetings?

• Are our internal communications exciting? How can we make them more exciting?

• How can we convey excitement in the first few minutes when we enter the office or greet our customers?

• Is there some way we can make payday even more exciting?

• Does our office design look exciting? How about the paint on the walls? Is it exciting?

ADVERTISEMENTS AS PART OF YOUR INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

Get your management team involved to determine how effectively your ads communicate with your staff.

• Do you first sell your ads internally before releasing them publicly? A good reason for testing them internally is that your ads may strike a raw nerve that can actually demotivate your staff. We know of one company that emphasized its total commitment to its customers. The idea behind the ads was this company's employees did nothing but work twenty-four hours a day to (breathe, eat, sleep, drink) solve customer problems. The backlash was palpable. One wife of a midlevel manager told her husband, "Well, they finally got it right. That's exactly what you do." Some customers even commented they preferred a supplier that encouraged staff to have more balanced lives. A preview of the ad concept to staff could have prevented hearing about this slant on the ads only after they were already produced and rolled out.

• Do you show your ads to your staff? If repetition is one of the keys to brand reinforcement, then showing or displaying your ads to staff on every appropriate occasion is simply taking advantage of awareness, reinforcement, and culture building. There is no excuse for customers to be better acquainted with your organization's advertisements (whether on television or as a flyer inserted into the Sunday newspapers) than your staff.

  Unfortunately, most consumers have had the experience of needing to educate staff about special offers that have been widely advertised. There is something very off-brand when a clerk has to reach for a flyer to see what specials are being offered this week. Several messages are sent with this type of behavior: (1) we do not know the value of items we sell; (2) if customers fail to be diligent, they will be charged regular and not sale prices; (3) things change so frequently around here, we are not able to keep up with them.

INTERNAL INFORMAL BRAND-STRATEGY SURVEY

Conduct an informal survey among the people who report to you. Ask them about their strategy to ensure your brand values are met during all customer interactions.

If they give you examples of specific steps that they take to be on-brand, steer them back to your question about strategy. Strategy is long-term and aspirational and generally looks at the situation from thirty-five thousand feet.

While you are in conversation with your immediate subordinates, ask them how one of your brand values (take a rather common one, such as trust) is differentiated from this same value as expressed by one of your major competitors. If they tell you it is more or less the same, it is time to work on how your brand is differentiated, lived, and then delivered!

BRAND BOOKS

When technology services company Comdisco rebranded itself, it printed a Brand Book for thirty-five thousand employees. Comdisco wanted to reflect the rapid changes in the field of technology both to employees and to customers. One Comdisco ad showed a small boy aggressively holding a sword, with the headline "I need constant attention. I am technology." Children are frequently used in Comdisco ads to emphasize constant change and experimentation.

Comdisco's Brand Book spells out how employees can embrace the company's brand position to deliver the promise of technology: "Become a brand champion with everyone—with customers and prospects, your fellow employees, your friends and family. In short, live the brand." That is not mincing words! ^[6]

^[6]"Grand Re-Brand," Sean Callahan B to B (April 24, 2000): 1.