The Marketing Blender

It’s the Little Things…

The genuinely good attitude of the call centre rep when you call with a
routine question, that makes you feel that they actually care about their
job and their brand.   

Or the consistently good advice and treatment you get in a particular store,
that makes you feel that you really are a “valued customer”.

These are examples of the silent, unseen events that drive brand loyalty and
have the potential to turn clients into advocates for your brand.   

So why are many companies managing these activities out of their organizations?

Modern day brand management, especially on a mass scale, doesn’t do very well with these creative little variances. We like to put policies and procedures in place to keep the customer experience as consistent as possible. We want the phone answered with a specific phrase, or a standardized greeting used in our stores.   

But in driving this kind of “regulation” into the brand, we’re also stamping out some of those creative, silent, often unseen behaviours that make a huge difference in brand loyalty.

We time call centre employees to the point that they rush through calls to land on the top of some scoresheet somewhere that ranks employee performance by call times. Only, clients aren’t even aware of call times – they just want the phone answered, to be treated well, and not to be hurried.

We standardize service down to a scoresheet that asks whether the employee greeted you in a specific way or offered you a receipt. I’m sure some of the brands I deal with greet me in a standard way – but I haven’t noticed it and it sure hasn’t made a difference in my loyalty to the brand.

The next time you survey your customers, how about asking them one simple question -- The last time you called or visited us, did we meet your expectations and treat you like a real person?

Managing brands and brand image is not always about instituting rules and regulations. Its about establishing parameters for behaviour, and then giving your people some room to go the extra mile.

You’d be surprised how many of your employees will.

Missing the Low Hanging Fruit in Customer Loyalty

I recently leased a new Saturn Aura, and yesterday it was due for its first oil change. I had never before leased a car and have never owned a Saturn before this one. So this was the first time I'd ever been in for service at my local Saturn dealer.

The experience was decidely mediocre.

In a classic case of missing the low hanging fruit when it comes to generating customer loyalty, I was processed much like someone at the deli counter in the grocery store. The folks working behind the service counter didn't seem too interested in me being there, and I actually can't recall them saying much more than a word or two to me the entire time I was there.

What a missed opportunity. Here I was, a freshly minted customer still enjoying driving around in my new car. And when I show up for my first service experience at the dealership that sold me the car (and could sell me others in the future), the experience is brutally ordinary.

Here's what I propose. When a new customer brings their car in for service for the first time at a dealership, a message pops up on the screen for the service rep that reads as follows:

“The person standing in front of you is a new customer. The next 5 minutes are critical to giving them a reason to come back here for service again and again, and maybe buy their next car here. Right now, their relationship with us is entirely in your hands. Make a difference to this customer in the next 5 minutes.”

Evidently, they didn't have that little pop-up at Saturn.

Leveraging Brand Equity in Tough Times

  When the tough times arrive (some would say they’re already here), your brand equity is your greatest asset. But how do you leverage it when your entire industry might be feeling the pinch of slower economic times?

Here are 3 keys to making the most of the credibility that you’ve built for your business:

Communicate! – Talk to your clients when times get tough.

I know that marketing budgets get squeezed when times are tight, and it can be tougher to get your message out to the market. But at the very least, you should be communicating with your existing clients – frequently.

Don’t disappear when the going gets tough. Reinforce your brand message and offer ideas and strategies for clients to prosper in slower times.

Your competitors are more prone than ever to doing irrational things as they face pressures of their own. For example, they may sell their product or service at a deep discount that you dare not match. At times like this, your brand message needs to come through loud and clear so that you have a leg to stand on when others get desperate.

Inform – This is critical in “high trust” businesses (think real estate agents, financial or insurance advisors, lawyers, marketing consultants, and so on).

Change creates an insatiable appetite for information among clients, and the brand that provides it will be afforded expert status in the market, potentially gaining a huge advantage in the short term, and establishing a solid foundation for long term success.

For example, homeowners are carefully watching the value of their property right now, and are looking for guidance and information more than ever. As a real estate agent, be the one to give it to them, good or bad. Ditch the “friendly service” message in your ads and be the local expert who’s on top of the situation, the one who really knows what’s going on. Get in the local media, and talk to community leaders. You’ll only add to your brand equity, and if you’re a mid-pack player right now this shakeup could be the opening you need to become a top-tier agent. This applies in a variety of industries.

Deliver – It’s tempting to cut corners or trim costs when business slows, but you absolutely must preserve your brand experience.

When looking for a 10% cost reduction, businesses often cut the one thing out of their business model that makes them standout, and that their existing clients consider a key element of the brand experience. The logic for the cut is that none of the competition are doing it, so why not cut it. Of course, the fact that none of your competitors are doing it is the reason you shouldn't cut it when "it" is a unique part of your brand experience!

When the market around you slows down, your strength is in your brand. Leverage it, and whatever you do, don't damage your brand by seeking short term cost reductions in the worst possible place - your brand experience.

The Cost of Imperfection

How much did it cost you today because you were imperfect?

You know that your website/blog/product/packaging/etc. isn’t perfect. There are a few things you would like to do to make it better. But, there are also competing priorities, and you can’t do everything, so you learn to live with those little imperfections while dealing with bigger, more pressing issues.

Have you ever put anything back on the shelf in the grocery store because it wasn’t perfect?

You know, you pick up a can of soup, but you realize the back half of the label is ripped off, or the can is dented…so you put it back on the shelf and grab another. If it’s the last one, you might forget about buying soup altogether, or perhaps choose a similar product from another brand that isn’t dented.

So...when you’re the consumer, a small imperfection can lead you to abandon a planned purchase.

But...when you’re the marketer, you live with imperfection because you have other pressing issues to deal with.

But what's more pressing than sales?

Managing Complaints in Cyberspace

When a customer complains to a big company with a big brand, there is typically a team of people responsible for resolving the client’s complaint. When the same customer posts a negative comment about a brand somewhere on the Internet, visible to you and every potential customer on the planet, most companies do nothing.

Why?

Companies invest in customer service departments for two reasons:

• Defending their market share - they don’t want to lose business because of a bad client experience




• Defending their brand image - they want to diffuse a bad situation before the customer goes out and tells 10 friends who tell 10 more, and so on

This reactive "complaint department" model is no longer effective in defending your brand image, as so much of the conversation between customers is now online.

This reveals an interesting paradox about the way companies allocate resources. Call them with a complaint and they’ll have a team of people working to help you (well, the good brands will.) But post something online for everyone to see for all eternity, and most companies won’t do a thing about it.

Why not? Those negative comments are popping up in Google searches every time someone looks for the brand online – isn’t that far worse than someone who tells ten friends who tell ten more?

Personally, I use Google to check for “dirt” on a company that I am planning to deal with for the first time especially if I haven’t heard of them before. I’ll use searches like “Name of Company Scam” or “Name of Company complaints” to dig up negative information on the brand, just to see if there might be a reason not to deal with them.

As Andy Sernovitz asks over at the "Damn I wish I'd Thought of That" blog, why don’t companies invest in hiring what I could call a “clean up crew”? Get a group of students together to scout the Internet for negative mentions of your brand, then see what you can do about managing those potentially damaging comments.

And for those who would say there’s nothing you can do, I disagree:

• If you’ve been bashed on a message board over a bad customer experience, post something yourself that apologizes for the bad experience and give the client a way to contact you. Don’t go overboard here because you’ve only heard one side of the story so far, but the fact that you care enough about your image to post a reply will help to mitigate the negative post. When potential clients stumble across the client’s rant through a Google search, they’ll also see your reply, helping to balance the story.




• If you’ve been wrongly accused of something, share information that helps to balance the negative point of view, or outright prove it wrong, but don’t be confrontational about it.




• Compile some stats on why you’re getting bashed – if a common theme emerges, post some robust information about the issue on your website and link to it in response to negative mentions of your brand online.

Complaints have moved online - isn't it time companies started putting some resources behind proactive image management instead of reactive complaint management?

Is it Time to Stop Growing?

Laura Ries has an interesting post over at her blog, The Origin of Brands.

In a nutshell, her post suggests that “backwards is the new forwards” when it comes to branding. In other words, it’s a back to basics approach that often rescues companies who lose their brand focus in their quest for growth.

In my view, it usually plays out something like this:

- Well defined brand enters market with awesome marketing strategy

- Customers flock to the brand and rapid growth ensues

- Brand gets really big and is celebrated as a success

- Company goes public, or if already public, they start to attract serious attention from analysts

- To meet the constant, quarter-by-quarter demand for growth in revenues, company branches out into products or services that it wouldn’t have originally considered part of its brand experience

- Company delivers revenue growth over the short term

- Customers who made the brand big in the first place become somewhat alienated by the lack of focus in the brand

- Some of these customers stop buying

- Growth slows

- Analysts write that growth is slowing

- Company gets worried that growth is slowing

- The quick fixes put in place to drive short term revenues are now weighing the brand down

- Company makes “gutsy” call to get back to what made it successful in the first place – recapturing the original brand experience that has been lost

- Customers return to the “revitalized” brand

- Everyone’s happy, for now.

Laura’s post tells the story of Starbucks, a company that found itself going through a version of the above.

Here’s a question I’ve asked myself about this cycle that seems to perpetuate itself with brands (especially those that go public):

When is it time to stop growing?

Some would say growth is the ultimate goal of all businesses, but as you can see, growth at all costs tends to be pretty costly.

Your company should always be focused on growth, but overextending or overexpanding your brand may end up being counterproductive. 

Your brand may reach a point where growth slows, and you shouldn’t ruin the brand for the sake of trying to achieve the growth rates you enjoyed during the growth phase of the brand.

Maybe your company needs to launch a new brand, or maybe it’s time to sell high and move on.

Brand Equity is often your biggest asset. Wrecking it to please the street for a few quarters isn’t a good long term business proposition.

“You want a new engine with that oil change…?”

Measuring the wrong thing can be deadly for your business.

Everytime I drive into my local drive through oil change retailer, I feel like I’ve walked into a low budget electronics store where everyone is on 100% commission.

For those of you who haven’t had the experience, while the technician is changing your oil, the other employees come to your window two or three times to offer you additional services that your car might need like a fuel injector cleaning, radiator flush, and so on. These services are typically overpriced and your car may or may not actually need them.

Now I’m all for having employees offer multiple services to clients to drive incremental revenue -- but their dogged, relentless pursuit of that one extra sale in the in oil change bay is probably pushing some customers not to come back. 

It makes me wonder if some businesses are measuring/teaching/rewarding the wrong things.

In this case, the local oil change franchise seems to be measuring:

Incremental sales revenue per car, achieved by aggressive sales tactics

Perhaps they should be measuring:

Incremental sales revenue per car, achieved by aggressive sales tactics

MINUS

Lost oil change revenue from clients who made one visit in the last 12 months, refused extra services, and did not return.

I wonder if there’s a profitable niche out there for car owners who actually want just an oil change when they go to get their oil changed?

I wonder if clients would pay a premium for faster, hassle free service where nobody tried to hard sell you anything else?

The lesson I took away from my experience is that businesses need to watch more than just one metric to gauge overall success.

That, and customers have long memories.