Branded Customer Service

The New Competitive Edge

Janelle Barlow, Paul Stewart

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781609943233
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Customer Relations
• Index: Business

Branding is an integral part of modern business strategy. But while there are dozens of books on branding products and marketing campaigns, nobody has applied the logic and techniques of branding to customer service -- until now.Branded Customer Service is a practical guide to moving service delivery to a new level so that brand reinforcement occurs every time customers interact with organizational representatives. Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart show how to infuse an entire organization with brand values and create a recognizable style of service that reflects brand promises and brand images.

15

Part I
Linking the Big World of Branding to Customer Service

Because of the huge sums of money invested in brands and the billions of dollars of shareholder value they represent, marketing professionals know a great deal about the subject. They know how branding works, its components, and what it takes to create a brand leader.

Brand fads appear from time to time, not so dissimilar from Andy Warhol’s fifteen-minutes-of-fame concept. Yet there is a sufficient mystery that leaves even the most rigorous marketers in awe of successful brands, especially the immediately recognized ones that have maintained their appeal over long periods of time.

This section of the book establishes a backdrop against which you can evaluate how to brand your service experiences. You will be introduced to language that cuts to the quick in determining if your service is on-brand or off-brand. You will also become acquainted with organizations that have done well with their service branding—and those that have not.

At the end of part I, you should be able to decide whether you want to take the next steps in linking your service delivery to your brand and what those next steps should be.

1
The Branding Imperative

Branding is one of the hottest topics in business today. It has become the business buzzword. Indeed, some refer to it as a Branding Revolution.¹ The reason couldn’t be more straightforward and underscores a clear business message in today’s crowded marketplace: your brand defines the unique point of differentiation for your products and services and is, perhaps, your only real opportunity to stand out.

Branding: a way of doing business

The paramount role that brands and branding now play has been accompanied by major shifts in the field of marketing. Brands are seen to be much more than names or logos. Brands are as much a way of doing business as they are a reputation or identity.17

The London-based branding agency Brand Guardians describes the linkage this way: “Branding is about performance. Branding represents different things to different people. But in the final analysis, branding is a tool for delivering your business objectives: a means to an end, not an end in itself.”²

Judgments about brands are structured with logical evaluation and laced with emotion. Some brand experts believe that a brand is predominantly an emotional judgment. UK marketing agency OgilvyOne’s research, for example, suggests that as much as 66 percent of the preference for a brand is driven by emotional elements—even if consumers believe they are making rational decisions.³

Because brands are largely perceptions, even though organizations today increasingly count brand strength as a key corporate asset, it makes sense to argue that brands are not exclusively owned by organizations. They are co-owned by consumers and organizations, equity partners in their shared relationship. This perceived co-ownership leads consumers to believe they are “owed” delivery of what they have been promised.

off-brand

Janelle walked into a Rite Aid store. Over the entrance was a big, riveting sign that read “The Customer Is # 1.” After picking up some items, Janelle went to stand in the only open check stand line, a queue that had three people in it. The customer whose items were being rung up was surprised at the price of one of them. She said, “Oh, I didn’t realize it was that price. I don’t think I want it if it’s that much.” The clerk sighed and picked up the intercom telephone to page the manager. “I need some help with the cash register. Could the manager please come to the front of the store?”18

Everyone waited while the line grew in length. The manager did not arrive. The clerk once again got on the paging system to announce to the entire store, “Would the manager please come to the front of the store. I need to reverse an item out!” Again, nothing. In the meantime, the customer was beginning to show signs of embarrassment as the line continued to grow. She knew she was holding all of us up.

Still nothing happened. The line now had eight people in it. The clerk, in exasperation, then shouted, not even bothering to use the intercom, “I need the manager right away. The customer thinks this item is too expensive.”

The manager slowly sauntered to the front of the store, ignoring the long line of customers and the very embarrassed woman. The manager reached inside her smock and pulled out a key that she stuck into the cash register to release a lock. Now the clerk could reverse out the item. Without a word to anyone, the manager then proceeded to return to the back of the store.

As Janelle walked out the store, she once again noted the banner, “The Customer Is # 1.” Right!

Companies promote their services and products by elevating consumer expectations and then act surprised when customers report that they feel like they got a bucket of cold water tossed in their faces. We believe it is reasonable and even predictable that consumers will feel this way because delivery of promises is frequently so different from how they are sold or how they look in ads or on Web sites. On the other hand, a simple and friendly hello using a customer’s name and a quick response to an e-mail can send a nonverbal message that reinforces a larger more complicated promise: “We are big enough to meet your immediate business needs while we are small enough to know you.”19

Brand researchers have come to a profound conclusion with farranging impact: marketing must involve more than advertising and public relations. Branding success is no longer predominantly measured by how many consumers recognize or are aware of brands and their logos or slogans but by how strongly consumers feel connected to brands.

In fact, if advertising recognition is the sole criterion for marketing success, ad agencies are not doing a very good job. A recent survey by the brand consulting company Emergence found that of twenty-two taglines (McDonald’s “You deserve a break today” is an example of a tagline) of the companies spending the most on advertising in the United States, only six were recognized by more than 10 percent of those surveyed.⁴ Even when recognized, many advertising slogans are stated in absolute terms, such as The Customer Is # 1 or The Customer Is Always Right or 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed. The head of Emergence, Kelly O’Keefe, suggests that such statements don’t work because a large proportion of the public believes they are mostly hype.⁵

Brands: a compelling point of differentiation

Branding occurs when a distinct head and heart response happens in relationship to a company symbol or logo. This reaction is the purpose of branding because positive thoughts and feelings inspire behaviors such as speaking favorably about services and products, joining clubs that relate to brands, paying higher prices, tolerating errors and shortfalls, and purchasing more of branded products and services. Today’s brands are likely to be seen as living entities complete with personalities. Elaborate stories are built around them that companies hope are elicited with a minimum of stimulation every time a consumer has contact with their brands.20

The first step in branding is to create a compelling, consistent, and sustainable point of differentiation. Differentiation, in the words of brand experts Young and Rubican, “is about making the brand greater than its individual parts.”⁶ Your competitors by and large possess your “individual parts.” The task of branding is to figure out how your combined offerings create a value proposition that is unique.

Without this differentiation, products, services, and entire organizations enter what some refer to as the “gray zone,”⁷ where customers are unable to distinguish what you do from what everybody else does. They cannot describe your offerings in a few simple words. Neither do they feel connected to your brand, edging you perilously close to becoming a commodity. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. As Patrick Gourney, former CEO of the Body Shop, points out, “Lack of differentiation is not something you notice straight away as a brand owner, but it creeps up on you and then it’s too late.”⁸

Historically, companies have used differentiation to influence consumer perceptions, expectations, and purchasing decisions primarily through the power of advertising and public relations. After all, when executed effectively, marketing attracts the right customers from a targeted market segment and delivers them to the organization. The organization must then begin to take advantage of these marketing successes. One of the best ways to engage customers in long-term relationships is to consistently deliver, both logically and emotionally, the brand promise. When this happens, brands are noticeably intensified. An alignment will occur between the assurance about “who you are and what you stand for” and the reality of “what you do and what you deliver.”21

Your brand in action

No doubt, traditional value aspects of branding have changed and will continue to do so. The old image appeal of brands, for example, no longer attracts in quite the same way as it once did. But there is no conclusive evidence that branding has lost pull—when it is done well. In fact, based on her research, Harvard professor Susan Fournier contends brands continue to “serve as powerful repositories of meaning…employed in the substantiation, creation, and production of concepts of self in the marketing age.”⁹

Consumers “own” their brands: the case of Starship

When brand meanings have been established and are alive in the hearts and minds of customers, they feel possessive toward “their” brands. This becomes very evident when companies try to tamper with them. A poignant example happened when the Auckland, New Zealand, District Health Board decided in early 2003 to do away with Starship, a much-loved hospital. Starship is a specialist children’s hospital that has built a stellar reputation of strength and compassion for treating children with life-threatening illnesses. It offers its young patients, and their families and friends, a unique experience that alleviates the fear and sadness associated with most intensive medical care. Its taglines are “Giving children the best possible chance” and “Family centered care in a child focused environment.”¹⁰

When given the much broader responsibility of delivering the best possible health services across the full spectrum of health care, the Auckland Health Board had a new modern facility built to house both Starship and a number of different specialist hospitals. Part of this standardization process involved changing the names of the hospitals, including Starship. After it became known that Starship would become the bland-sounding Auckland City Hospital Children’s Services, the nationwide reaction was swift, unanticipated, and vociferous. A highly charged public debate erupted with stakeholders of all types (former patients, parents, staff, and the general public) rejecting the name change and criticizing the health board.22

Nothing articulated the issue better, nor provided a more compelling explanation of what brands are about, than this letter published in a New Zealand national newspaper.

Our family has been traveling frequently to Auckland for two years, for cancer treatment for our eight year old daughter. The emotional value to us, knowing Holly is being treated and cared for at Starship, is huge. The word encompasses times of hope, fear, worry and sadness for ourselves as well as other children and families we have met there.

So, yes our attachment to the name is emotive … But what makes it a world-class facility is the emotive stuff which the staff excel in—the things we have trouble putting a value on—such as compassion, patience, love and commitment. Mr. Brown [Auckland Health Board] is quoted as saying there is nothing special about the children’s hospital … this narrow view is not appropriate for the chairman of a district health board as it signifies he is not in touch with the nature and the purpose of this facility.¹¹

Brands are names, logos, beliefs—and experiences

Any brand is clearly more than just its name. Brands are the values, beliefs, and service experiences that underpin them as the Starship case so poignantly expresses. When put this way, it is easy to see how customer service is a brand in action. A belief that Starship’s staff would continue to deliver to a specific set of values was solidified in people who had personally experienced the hospital. In Starship’s case, the customers obviously feared that with a name change, the experiences associated with the brand would be lost as well.

The history of branding as it relates to the customer experience

Somebody once said that the history of branding could be sum...