Branding | davefleet.com

Posts Tagged ‘branding’

When your Customers Become an Issue

10.11.30

All my life I aspired to own a particular car brand. Where I grew up, there weren’t many around (it wasn’t the most affluent area) and I’d always loved the way they looked. So, I set my sights on owning one.

Now that I’m in a position where I’m considering which car to get, I no longer want that brand. Why? Not because the quality of the cars has changed – I still like them.

I don’t want that brand because of the other people who drive them. Whenever I get tailgated, it seems to be someone in one. Whenever I get cut up, it seems to be by someone in one (ok, a slight exaggeration, but it’s a very noticeable trend). I also frequently see drivers of that brand weaving aggressively in and out of traffic.

How does a company respond when its own customers, not its products or services, become an issue?

My thoughts: The solution certainly isn’t a purely branding-based program. Ads aren’t going to convince me – I might see an ad showing someone driving responsibly, but every time I’m out on the road I’ll see evidence to the contrary.

My initial inclination would be through a concerted effort to change the behaviour of customers through ongoing education – research to highlight peoples’ perceptions of irresponsible drivers; ongoing safe driving information for customers; partnerships with insurance companies etc.

What do you think?

Posted in: communications

Tags: branding, communications

6Comments

Do Damaged Brands Have More Opportunities In Social Media?

09.07.27

Do problems with your brand mean more opportunities in social media?

I spend a lot of time thinking about how companies can use social media tools to enhance their communications efforts.

Some involve a new take on traditional outbound or inbound marketing.
Some are conversational, building relationships rather than “selling.”
Some focus on customer service and solving pain points for people.

It occurs to me that to some extent, the effectiveness of two of the options above may depend on the state of your existing brand.

Caveat: This is by no means the only factor involved in this decision, which is why companies need to approach social media from a strategic perspective (with full consideration of multiple factors) rather than a tactical one.

If your brand is healthy and people generally think positive things about your organization, well-targeted communications along interruption and destination-based lines may be well received. However, if your brand has little equity and people are distrustful, it may be that you have more to gain from other social media approaches than healthy brands.

Why?

Because the bar is set low.

Wooden corporations can benefit greatly from allowing some personality within their online activities. As I often say, people don’t want relationships with brands; they want them with people. (Note: I’m not talking about slick artwork and design; I’m talking about real people.)

Similarly, if your brand is on thin ice, online customer service improvements can be received with open arms. Peoples’ expectations are so low that just solving problems (essentially, taking them from a negative to a neutral state with the product/service) can have positive effects on your brand. Companies like Dell and Comcast bave benefited greatly from this approach.

As I noted recently, it’s when times are tough that you can differentiate your company.

What do you think? Do you think companies have more to gain from social media when their brand is suffering?

(Image: Shutterstock)

Posted in: branding, communications, social media

Tags: branding, communications, customer service, marketing, pr, public relations, social media

30Comments

Does Your Organization Have Multiple Personalities?

09.05.21

Whether you like it or not, your customer service is now part of your company’s public relations. In reality it has always been that way but now, with the variety of online tools that let individuals have a louder voice, many more people can hear about your customer service successes and failures.

Customer service is one of the many ways you can put social media tools to use – identifying customer issues early and resolving them to create happy, satisfied customers. Whether it’s through focused tools like Get Satisfaction or through a coordinated listening and engagement program, there are plenty of ways to go about it. On a daily basis we’re blown away by the power of tools like Radian6 for coordinating this kind of effort.

Respond to customers online and they can be blown away that you’re listening. Frankly, most people don’t yet expect it. We’ve seen from our own clients that the response you can get from effective online service is powerful.

What happens, though, when your offline customer service function doesn’t live up to the expectation for service standards you’ve set online?

You end up with an organization with multiple personalities.

Online, your company is friendly, responsive, and goes beyond the minimum to set a gold-level standard. Offline, your call centre staff are assessed on turnaround time on calls, and are focused on getting you off the line as quickly as possible.

The person who gets prompt, friendly, personal service online one day and then the next day gets put on hold to a call centre in India for 90 minutes will have an even more negative perception of that phone experience due to that contrast. What’s more, they’re likely to continue to rely on your online service in future, by-passing the other options.

Is that the kind of consistency you aim for with your brand? I hope not.

What about the customers who experience this disconnect? As Todd Defren notes, the response is likely to be something along the lines of:

“Treat me like a STAR one day, and give me a nightmarish experience the next day, just because I’ve reached out via a different channel? F* you! I’m gonna tweet about this — you are a fraud!!”

If you’re starting to tune-in and listen to conversations about your company online, pay close attention to what people are saying. Are they consistently complaining about your offline customer service? If they are, while you stand to benefit from outreach through social media tools, you need to take a long, hard look at the rest of your customer service operation.

Posted in: monitoring, pr, public relations

Tags: branding, customer service, listening, monitoring, pr, public relations

8Comments

What Does The Agency Of The Future Look Like To You?

08.09.30

Sapient, a business consulting and interactive services firm, recently released the results of a US-wide survey that asked corporate Chief Marketing Officers what they wanted from their advertising and marketing agencies over the next year.

Here are the top ten results: