Brand Management Articles
Internal Branding – the Key to reconnecting your Customers and Employees
Customers drive sales and profitability. So how do your employees interact with and engage customers? How would your customers describe their experience? Do your customers have an expectation on how your employee will represent your brand?
So how does an organisation manage its customer experience to ensure its people, processes and culture are reinforcing customer expectations? A key foundation of customer experience management is internal branding.
Internal branding in essence is ‘living’ and ‘delivering on’ your organisation’s brand promises. It is an organisation-wide initiative that enables all employees to understand how they can personally impact on a customer’s experience and contribute to building the company’s reputation and brand.
Brand is Image and Image is Brand….
For those that believe brand and image are separate and in no way linked may need to rethink their position. In the media recently have been two prime examples of how brand and image are closely interrelated, albeit almost the same thing. Brand in its simplest context are those attributes that makes one product or company stand apart from another. Image is how products and companies present themselves, through logos, colours and artefacts.
The definition of brand needs to go one step deeper because those attributes that make a product or company stand out from others stems from something beyond image and below the surface of what we see – that part of the iceberg that lays underneath the waterline. These are normally considered core values. That is, those values that help us create a relationship with products, services and companies so we then grow to know and trust them.
Getting Paid NOT to use a Brand!
Creative agencies have long used “personification” as a technique to develop and describe a brand. Describing inanimate products as people allows consumers to understand and relate more closely with the product.
Taking this further many organisations appoint brand ambassadors or spokespeople that represent the attributes that they would like consumers to associate with their product or organisation. A good example of this was Gillette who associated themselves with the world’s best performing athletes. In 2009 Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry were Gillette’s global ambassadors. Securing these three ambassadors cost Gillette millions!
Are you helping to put a man on the Moon?
There is a well-known story linking NASA and employer branding during the rush to place man on the moon. In this story, it is suggested that whilst inspecting the NASA facility prior to take-off, President Kennedy came across a janitor in the hallway. Casually asking the janitor what he specifically did in the facility. The janitor’s response was quite remarkable. Not “I clean the ablutions and mop the floors”. No, the janitor showed an organisational-centric response in saying “Mr. President, I am helping to put a man on the moon”. Is your employer brand so strong that all people within your company are aligned and committed to your organisation vision?
When saving a $ will cost you a Fortune
Over the last 15 years there have been a plethora of companies that driven by cost saving have chosen to outsource their help lines to overseas locations. The lure of cheap labour and the dramatic reduction in communications costs has made outsourcing Help Centres increasingly more financially attractive. Sadly, outsourcing Help Desk Services is now prevalent in many Industries as service providers seek to reduce their costs.
As a customer of a major Australian Telco I recently spent 3 hours on the phone to a gentleman in India called Raj and by the end of the conversation I was no closer to getting my issues resolved. His English was ordinary his product knowledge almost non-existent, worse still he had no understanding of how important my broadband is to me. By the end of the conversation the Telco’s brand had been damaged beyond repair. There is no doubt the Telco had saved money by outsourcing the service in the short term but what about the long term?
Retention: Why it’s not just about the Money!
In a recent conversation with a business owner, he stated “employees are greedily seeking jobs that offer the highest salary and there is little that will prevent them from being poached or switching to another employer in favour of a higher salary”. I disagree and recent research supports my position.
The influx of Gen Y into our workforces demands that retention strategies must evolve to meet new expectations and needs. Recent research suggests that employees may be attracted by higher salaries; however retention rates can be dramatically improved through strong employer branding and consistently delivering on your Employer Value Proposition (Moroko 2008).
Brand and Deliver
If you had two minutes to describe your brand, what would you say? Do you even know what your brand stands for and whether it delivers on its key promises? Brand strategy consultants recommend that you should be able to confidently say yes to these questions. Global financial crisis or not, successfully identifying what your brand stands for and ensuring your brand is well managed is important to position your business to take full advantage of a market upturn.
Taking advantage of tough conditions by building brand loyalty
There’s no doubting that Australia has largely dodged the GFC. On the whole, our economy continues to recover, thanks largely to iron ore demand from China. And whilst life is rosy in the mining sector, many other industries are struggling to recover. Recent interest rate rises and falling consumer confidence is causing many businesses to be cautious.
Tough market conditions do however present opportunities for all businesses. Whilst many companies are retreating away from investment, smart companies are increasing theirs.
Building Brand Value for Both Customers and Employees
According to many experts we are now in the decade of the brand. However, it may be more accurate to say that we are in the decade of brand management. After all, brands have been around for a long time.
For sometime now, The Right Group has advocated that companies should get their brand in order internally before they communicate externally. This point of view has often been met with resistance, particularly as traditionally the development of brands has been focused on external advertising and promotion and has been driven by the marketing and communication departments.
Measuring Brand Equity
Brands today play an increasing number of important roles. They improve consumers’ lives, influence their purchasing behaviour and enhance the financial value of companies. More importantly though, they differentiate your product or service from other products and services designed to satisfy the same need. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the products or services of a seller and differentiate them from those of competitors.