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.

Many organisations fall into the trap of developing an advertising strategy with the intention of communicating how wonderful and customer-centric the organisation is. While the advertising direction may be in-line with the organisation’s brand, where it falls down is where what is being promoted is not being delivered.

The result of this is that both customers and employees are disconnected with the organisation, as UK oil company Total experienced. The company ran an ad campaign featuring the perfect employee called Steve who spends his time running around helping customers with heavy loads, childcare and car maintenance with the tagline ‘You’ll find people like Steve at all of our service stations’. The company did not reinforce this customer expectation with training and additional support to help employees, leaving both the employee and the customer frustrated and disappointed.

Internal branding today is all about connecting employees with an organisation’s brand and ensuring the internal brand experience is authentic. Just ask one of the 46,000 employees of The Dow Chemical Co. about the authenticity of their internal brand. They will most likely point you to the ‘I Am the Human Element’- an internal campaign which celebrates the contributions and successes of their employees, helping the organisation achieve its vision.

FedEx is another example of an organisation that has focused on building a strong internal brand and as a result is considered one of the world’s most admired companies and trusted employers. The company’s workforce not only know and believe in the values instilled by their ‘People-Service-Profit’ internal brand, but they can cite chapter and verse the actions they and others have taken to deliver the FedEx brand and what it means to them. This level of employee engagement delivers significant benefit to FedEx in terms of high performance and strong profits.

So perhaps it is time to consider the benefit to your organisation of building a strong internal brand. Recent transitional times with a turnover of employees, changing management styles or the merging of departments may have had more of an impact on your internal brand than you realise.

Reinvigorate your employees on what your organisation stands for and build passion for your brand promise. Not only will you reconnect with your employees and improve engagement but you will also reconnect with your customers and improve profitability.

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.

The lines between image and brand were recently blurred when QANTAS launched a campaign over Twitter asking customers what their dream luxury in-flight experience would be.  Whether the timing of this campaign was intentional or not, QANTAS customers used the medium as a platform to comment on the airlines current operational and industrial dispute issues.  The attempt to garner some support and goodwill towards the company was entirely misdirected.  Instead of creating a polished image of QANTAS the campaign really exacerbated the internal issues and drew attention away from QANTAS’ key brand message.  Evidently, this exercise has been dubbed “the Hindenburg of social media” but goes to show that when something is not right at your core, where your brand draws its meaning from, then no amount of “image polishing” that can fix it.

Another example of how image and brand are interrelated is shown in the current plight of Kyle Sandilands.  Love him or hate his brand message is about sensationalism and as such in his need to be “sensational” he can go very awry.  His recent public outburst cost Austereo 60% of their sponsors which estimated to be worth $8 million.  The bankable image of the man has truly tanked and we are seeing glimpses of what he truly values.  It was reported that Holden was the first sponsor to leave Austereo citing disconnect in values of the shows and the Holden brand.  Next to follow were The Good Guys.  What sponsors are starting to see is Kyle Sandilands brand, and values. Sponsors are then making judgement calls on whether his brand is congruent with theirs.

So whereas QANTAS tried to use a competition campaign to polish its image in an attempt to gloss over what was happening in the company on an operational level, the sentiment felt by its customers did not change – customers wanted more.  How was QANTAS going to address the issues the company faces whilst still being “the spirit of Australia.  The opposite occurred with Kyle Sandilands.  His real and overtly sensational self bubbled to the surface from his core and tarnished his incredibly bankable image.  These examples highlight the very tenuous but also very real link between image and brand because really the two cannot be separated; your brand is your image is your brand….

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!

The strategy was simple Gillette wanted to have their brand associated with the world’s best performing athletes, they wanted to be viewed as the best performing, clean cut, international, multi-racial, multi-sport, global superstars. Through association many of the characteristics of the brand ambassadors were projected onto their products. As the tag line stated “Gillette the best a man can get”

This approach works wonderfully well when your ambassadors are viewed positively. It is however a two edged sword. Interestingly, two of three global ambassadors for Gillette fell from grace within a very short period of time. Tiger Woods ran into a fire hydrant outside his home and was soon exposed as a sex obsessed philander. Weeks later Thierry Henry found himself in the center of a storm of negative publicity after using his left hand – his shaving hand – to illegally propel France into the World Cup Finals.

Using an ambassador to endorse your product is not without risk and the Gillette experience highlights how closely aligned a brand’s fortunes are to their chosen ambassador.

Very recently we have had situations where undesirable people (people not chosen as ambassadors) have decided to support, wear or endorse a company’s brand.  In the USA Abercrombie & Fitch (a popular clothing brand) have offered to pay the cast of “Jersey Shore” to stop wearing their clothes on their television show.

The clothing company says in a news release that it’s concerned that having the people on this television program seen wearing its clothing could cause “significant damage” to the company’s image.

This kind of unwanted endorsement potentially creates an entire new revenue stream for people of undesirable profile. Mangers may well exploit their client’s negative image and deliberately associate them with desirable brands. It is entirely possible that we may well see more people being paid not to associate with brands than people paid for their positive endorsement.

Social media and reality television mean that there will be more people with negative images who will enjoy their 15minutes of fame. Having an undesirable brand ambassador attach themselves to your brand creates a raft of new issues for you and your brand.

This reaction by an employee at the ‘coal-face’ of the organisation, and as far removed from astronauts and technicians as you can imagine, indicates an ideal alignment and engagement with NASA and its organisational vision. This employee effectively communicated that he knows, was driven by, orientated towards and also engaged with the organisational vision. He also knew and accepted his role in helping the organisation meet its vision and strategic aims. It is also imaginable that the janitor felt that he was part of something, indeed one of the most memorable achievements in human history. Are your employees part of something?

Porter (1974) defines organisational commitment as the degree to which individuals identify with, accept and believe in the organisational goals. Furthermore it entails individuals accepting goals and values of the organisation, and showing willingness to work hard and continue association with the organisation. In essence, it is having people that are proud and dedicated to your organisational greatness (Cohen 2003). Outcomes from organisational commitment can include increased retention, reduced employee turnover, reduced absenteeism and tardiness (Mathieu and Zajac 1990).

Many companies are far from placing men on the moon, however companies can draw value from formalising its organisational vision and having a strong employer brand. Strengthen your employer brand and give your employees something to align to and give them a reason to work hard for you. Employees unfortunately don’t come to work every day simply to increase your bottom line. If employees feel that they are part of an organisation that is “going somewhere” it seems logical that their motivation and engagement with the firm will be stronger.

A well defined vision must also be strategically communicated to your internal and possibly also your external stakeholders. This is not merely printing posters, creating mottos and posting them around the office as this does not engage or interact with the audience which you should be targeting. ‘Strategically’ suggests that you know who your key stakeholders are and that you effectively deliver that vision to them in a meaningful and engaging way. Reinforcing to trade suppliers that you are aiming to be number-one in workplace safety is far less effective than if you project it to potential employees. Traditionally a role adopted by communications managers, sharing the organisational vision is the responsibility of all departmental managers, supervisors and “coal-face” personnel. The NASA example is testimony to this.

Organisational commitment and employer branding are the trump cards to play as part of your retention strategy. Having an organisational vision is a pillar towards building not only your company brand but also your employer brand. Ensure that your vision is formalised and strategically communicated across your organisation. This is not a task purely assigned to communications managers, however across your management team to ensure that they have the appropriate tools, approach and competencies. The interaction between your employees and their supervisor/manager is a leading driver of employee engagement.

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?

The reality is that most customers have very few issues with their telecommunications provider. The only real interaction the majority of customers will have is when something goes wrong.  It is when something goes wrong that the Organisations have a chance to prove themselves. As a long term customer I was expecting the organisation to deliver on their positioning line or brand promise of “making life easier”

I can assure you that my friend in India did nothing to make my life easier, on the contrary after 3 hours on the phone and a still unresolved issue with my broadband I was ready to tell everyone that would listen my unprompted opinions of the Telco in a very frank and forthright manner.

All organisations will have things go wrong, no Organisation is perfect. It is when things go wrong that your customers find out what your Organisation really stands for. A helpline is a very important touch point for a stressed customer. It is these moments that will define a customer’s ongoing relationship with an Organisation or a brand. If your Organisation exceeds your client’s expectations in their hour of need you probably have a customer for life.

Conversely, if you disappoint your customer in their hour of need you are providing them with the trigger to switch providers. The reality is that you will lose business and some customers will never return. It is at these critical moments that your brand is defined in the eyes of your customers.

You can also rely on the fact that for each customer that you disappoint they will tell many others, and the speed at which their disappointment can be shared is unprecedented.  The use of Social Media means that a single adverse customer experience can be shared with thousands of people within minutes.

Organisations should, understand the lifetime value (LTV) of their existing customers, and ensure that they have considered the potential impact of negative customer experiences before they make the decision to outsource overseas.

Saving money on outsourcing in the short term could cost you a fortune in the long run.

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).

An Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is the first phase of Employer Branding, whereby your differences and desirability as an employer are actively promoted internally and externally (Moroko 2008).  Employer Branding and the promotion of an EVP can be advantageous when companies show consistency between their Employer Brand and the employee experience, company culture and company values.  An EVP is also an effective way to ensure that employees believe in your brand, thereby increasing motivation and loyalty to your organisation (Mitchell 2002). 

Companies such as Virgin Blue are finding long term solutions by developing their Employer Brand and attracting the right talent to their workforce.  Fred van der Tang, CEO of Randstad described Virgin Blue as having an attractive EVP with a reputation for strong workplace culture, varied job roles and a high degree of job satisfaction (HC Online 2011).  Such a positive and attractive EVP can help companies establish a competitive advantage as an employer of choice.  These principles of employee attraction are well known, and can be used in retaining talent and thereby sustaining your company growth, cost management and business performance in the future. 

In forming an EVP it is important to understand what are the expectations and needs of future and current employees.  Workforces are inherently a mixture of individuals from differing demographics and psychographics.  Hewlett (et al 2009) asserts that the number of Gen Y employees and also Gen Y executives in the workforce today has increased dramatically.  This influx of younger employees has resulted in an attitudinal change in workplaces (Hewlett et al 2009) and hence drives a need to evolve retention strategies and change EVPs from monetarily oriented to non-monetarily oriented.  Research suggests that salary is neither the prime motivator nor the key to staff retention and incentive schemes for individuals are suggested as intensive to establish and low in impact (Ready & Conger 2007).  Employers can provide other forms of remuneration such as equity based schemes and company-wide incentive schemes where company success is shared across departments. 

Non-monetary benefits can also be promoted as part of your EVP in order to attract and retain employees. Recent research amongst employees at UBS, Time Warner, Booz Ellen Hamilton and Ernst & Young suggests that retaining Gen Y employees can be achieved through mixed rewards systems (Ready & Conger 2007).  This can include work flexibility and enabling contributions to the community, which were reported as trumping salary incentives. Examples of flexibility include allowing graduates to do a gap-year vacation prior to commencing work.  This gap-year is partly funded on the proviso that new recruits engage in community development during this period. 

Mentoring is an effective strategy for both Gen Y recruits and the retention of aging Baby Boomers (Ready & Conger 2007).  Time Warner introduced a reverse mentoring program whereby younger staff mentored Baby Boomers on the use of social media and Baby Boomers offered mentorship to younger recruits on values, management, leadership and skills development.  Companies such as Bankwest are appointing talent managers to identify and mentor potential employees of the highest calibre (Beyer 2011). 

New employees often seek challenges early in joining the workforce (Hewlett et al 2009).  Offer progression to employees via work on cross functional projects and secondments.  Align your organisational values with corporate and individual KPIs.  Establish a bonus structure, whereby employees are rewarded across the organisation and based on achievement of company KPI’s. 

There is no quick-fix or overnight solution for these retention issues.  Evidence suggests that long term commitment to Employer Branding, supported by an EVP that is consistently delivered upon will assist in attraction and retention in a competitive job market.  Consider retention strategies that match the evolving workforce and their psychographic need through offering job flexibility, community involvement, mentoring, and mixed reward systems.  Don’t be distracted by the immediate need to focus on growth and expansion plans, take a step back and review your employer brand before paying attention to your growth plans. This will build you a framework for future growth and will deliver stronger returns. If your value to potential and current employees is unclear, you will continue to experience growing pains.  Further, if you cannot offer a complete package of both monetary and non-monetary benefits, you will struggle to win the talent war that is looming.

There is widespread misinterpretation about what the term “brand” actually means.  A brand is the distinguishable personality behind a product, company or service that dictates how it interacts with its key stakeholders (consumers, competitors, alliances, employees etc). Coca-Cola, as an example has a defined product personality offering good times, celebration and availability (“Always Coca-Cola”) to its stakeholders.  Consumers are loyal to this brand not necessarily for its tangible benefits of taste, but for what it promises and thereby delivers.

Your company brand comprises of your internal culture, desired image and what vision your organisation aspires to.  Brand is commonly one of the most valuable company assets and has significant economic value (Abimbola 2010).  Companies such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Bunnings, McDonalds and Toyota are examples of companies that can easily describe their internal culture, image and vision.  Furthermore, they successfully “brand and deliver”.  Senior leadership within these companies inspire employees to live and breathe what their brand stands for.  Employees are also committed to the brand through cohesive behaviour. They know precisely what their brand stands for and how to behave in a way that matches their desired brand positioning. 

Performing a brand audit is a good way of reviewing your company’s alignment to culture, image and vision.  Through internally and externally reviewing opinions on your company, your company image can be established with misalignment gaps noticeable.  It is then an opportunity for your company to assess if this is your desired image and if changes are needed in your brand strategy, or internal alignment.  It can also reveal any mismatch between your daily operations and what your brand promises to stakeholders.   

The Bunnings brand is an example of a brand that promises and strives to deliver to consumers good customer service, low prices every day and a wide range of products.  By delivering on these promises, Bunnings is able to attract and retain the best people, build successful strategic alliances with suppliers, distinguish itself from competitors and appeal to value-conscious consumers. 

Performing a brand audit does not imply that there are impending problems with a company and its brand.  Rather, companies that can define their brand and execute a well-planned brand strategy enjoy more success in terms of talent attraction, employee engagement, consumer loyalty, market competitiveness and organisational development.  Disciplined brand management allows companies to “brand and deliver”.

A key ingredient to developing a strong brand is the ability to consistently deliver on what you stand for.  Consistency reduces customer confusion and builds trust and loyalty.  Avoid “Bait and Switch branding” whereby you promise the customer one thing, only to deliver another.  Banks are a fine example of “Bait and Switch” branding.  Customers are looking for a bank who puts them first, who truly understand their needs and deliver on this. And banks spend an awful lot of money and resources promoting this very promise.  However, the moment of truth beckons and we are left disappointed when we are kept on hold unnecessarily on the “help” line, phone calls are not returned or not being able to actually talk with a person as distinct to an automated voice.  This is an all too regular illustration of not aligning your business with your brand. 

Branding is commonly left to the marketing department to manage, and this is where the issues begin.  Branding is too important to be left to the marketing department; it affects all parts of an organisation, including all personnel.  Ensuring an organisationally pervasive brand management platform will promote company-wide buy-in and alignment.

Tough market conditions do however present opportunities for all businesses.  Whilst many companies are retreating away from investment, smart companies are increasing theirs.

According to Harvard Business School Professor, John Quelch, “Instead of cutting the marketing budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to tough conditions.” He also states further that “successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in tough times; they adapt them.”

Many organisations simply examine the sales forecasts and cut spending across the board during a period of economic slowdown without considering how these cuts will impact on communication. Companies that do not ‘speak’ to their customers during tough times disengage them and find themselves vulnerable once the economy has regained momentum.

When your customers choose to spend the fewer dollars they have, you want them to choose your organisation not your competitors. The process of acquiring new customers is more costly than retaining existing ones, so it is of upmost importance that you hold on to your existing customers in a stagnant market.

It is well documented the impact employees can have on a customer’s experience with a company. In these tough economic times you need to be even more in tune to your customer’s needs and the ‘moment of truth’ brand experiences your company has with your customer’s every day.

To differentiate your customer experience from that of your competitors in the current economic climate, consider the following:

• Vigilantly focus on customer needs – in a changing economy, a customer’s basic needs don’t disappear, but priorities can shift and you need to look for creative and innovative ways to satisfy those needs. It is more important than ever to know what is going on in the lives of your important customers and how you can better assist their business.

• Reinforce your brand attributes at every interaction – It’s important to remember that in a risk-adverse climate customers cling even stronger to the brand in which they are most familiar. Your brand attributes are a framework for your business decisions and interactions with our customers. Remind customers of why they should choose your brand at every interaction and opportunity.
• Communicate frequently – the pace of decision making can pick up when the economy slows so get information from the front lines to operating people as quickly as possible and keep customers informed.
• Look for more ways to deliver best value to our customers – think outside the square, work smarter with reduced budgets and look for new ways to provide more value for less expense.

Current and prospective customers are still forming opinions and gathering experiences regardless of whether you are proactively managing your brand or not. Believe it or not tough market conditions actually provide exceptional opportunities to improve your strategic position.

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.

However, our research indicates that many employees not only fail to identify with the company they work for, they become unsure of how to uphold the company’s brand promise. Our advice is to avoid “bait and switch” branding messages, whereby companies espouse promises to their customer, but fail to deliver on these. 

Banks appear to be experts in “bait and switch” branding.  Branding themes around understanding customers, putting customers first and acting on customer feedback leads to customer disappointment.  Not because customers do not want such outcomes, far from the case.  More to the point, banks have failed to align their businesses with their brand.   Customers are reeled in and tossed back out to sea!

But it appears that the tide of business opinion is turning. Increasingly, senior management is recognising that there is little value in investing large sums in advertising and design, if the reality of employee behaviour undermines those well-honed external messages of product and service superiority. The imperative to align and manage a company’s brand internally before external communication is now being widely accepted and embraced.

The return on investment of an aligned workforce, coupled with the competitive advantage that can be gained through the recruitment and retention of the best people in the market through the development of a strong Employee Value Proposition (EVP), has led to a refocusing of effort and investment from the external to the internal.

Brand should and must be seen as a ‘whole of business’ concern and in particular, a human resources activity. It is about selecting the right people, developing their skills, building commitment and nurturing talent within the organisation.

Many of the companies we work with view their brands as central to the development of organisational value, and with assistance from The Right Group, are developing their brand alignment and ‘living the brand’ programs, which focus on integrating communications, human resources and other functions. When this is done effectively the brand becomes valuable for both employees and customers.

Being able to clearly differentiate your brand is essential to continual business growth and profitability. By differentiating your brand you are basically capturing the hearts and minds of your customers by creating a preference for your brand over a competitor. It is this preference that translates to increased value. A consumer’s preference for one product or service over another is reflected in the way they think, feel and act with respect to your brand, and this can also be affected by the price, market share and profitability the brand derives for your company. It is this interaction and the value endowed onto your product or service by the consumer that is known as your brand’s equity.

It is important to make the distinction between brand equity and brand valuation. The later is about estimating the total financial value of a brand and on average can equal approximately half of a company’s market capitalisation. Brand equity is a measure of perception whereas valuation attempts to translate this in dollar terms.

Brand equity, however, is just not limited to your consumer. A true, and more holistic, measure of brand equity will also take into account how your brand interacts with employees, suppliers, investors and other stakeholders (community groups and government for example). So realistically, brand equity is a function of all the interactions and touchpoints your company has with its internal and external environment.  In other words, creating brand alignment.

As a company’s major enduring asset, measuring brand equity is fundamentally essential for any business. It provides a health check to better understand how the brand is positioned in the mind of your stakeholders. In this regard, your brand should be treated like any other asset of the business – measure its performance and impact on profitability. There are many elements that can measure the health of your brand. The main components (or pillars) of brand equity include:

• Association – the degree to which your brand is seen as different from others and the breadth of its appeal. Do people see your brand as unique and hold it “top of mind”?
• Loyalty – are your constituents a brand advocate?  In other words, this measures whether or not they recommend you product or service to other people.
• Trust – measures how well your brand is regarded and respected.
• Recall – measures how familiar and intimate people are with your brand which aids repeat purchase.

It is usual to engage in external market research to go to field and collect responses from both consumers and non-consumers of you product and service. Sometimes it is the views and opinions of the non-consumers that can be most valuable. Intercept and telephone are the most effectively method of collecting this type of data because it can generate the greatest opt in form survey respondents. Online survey, whilst more cost effective, can have lower response rates because consumers will have to want to complete the survey.

Looking at the best global brands for 2010, five or more of the top 10 brands have been brand leaders for decades. Companies like Coca Cola, IBM, GE, McDonalds and Disney stay leaders because they invest the time to accurately measure and understand the perceptions around their brands; and not just with consumers. These companies will regularly use the information they gain from measuring brand equity to continually reinforce and revitalise their brands so they stay relevant in peoples mind. Moreover, the information will provide insights for creating strategies that seek to continue the positive associations, create and maintain brand advocates, establish stronger trust, and easily recall company’s brands by individuals. Actions like these become increasing important for companies who are faced with brand degrading situations. Companies like BP and QANTAS may find great value in measuring their brand equity especially within the context of safety, trust and customer service.

Therefore, if your company is looking to increase its brand equity start by measuring where and how the brand currently sits today. Then look to take action by consistently conveying the brands meaning by focusing on what the brand represents, the benefits it bring individuals, the needs the brand can (and does) satisfy, and how the brand’s products and services are superior to that of competitors.