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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

There is widespread…

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…

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…

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…