Brand – your reputation delivered by your people
Customers will evaluate your brand based on their experience – and the expectation you create through your marketing.
Imagine, your team of marketing and brand specialists has just completed the plan to build your brand equity over the next three years.
They have agreed to next year’s advertising and promotion activities. They pat each other on the back on a job well done. They are absolutely certain that the plan will excite the market. As they open their bottle of champagne to celebrate, they can sense the sweet smell of success.
But they have only done half the job of building a strong brand – the ‘outside’ job. And if your company does not invest in the other half – the ‘inside’ half – it will not get maximum ROI on its investment in branding
Your brand is much more than your visual image, and your advertising and promotion. Fundamentally your brand is your business strategy. It determines your uniqueness. A critical element of the business strategy is that it must be differentiated, and authentically delivered by the behaviours of your employees when they are in contact with your customers.
Your brand is your ‘trust mark’. It is your reputation.
Whatever the promise, it’s the experience that counts. And a key part of the experience is what staff deliver – either personally through direct customer service, or indirectly by creating and maintaining a fulfillment process.
Interactions between customers and representatives of the brand – the employees – can either reinforce or sabotage the brand.
The opportunity branding your culture provides - getting more value from your marketing spend.
Companies often spend millions to engage and excite the market about their brand, but too often they invest too little in aligning their culture and the behaviours of their people with the brand promise.
If the brand experience that customers have with your employees does not match your brand promise, then trust will be broken. You will not only lose customers, but you will erode the value of your brand in the process.
In fact, research shows that 40% of marketing spending is wasted because employees unwittingly undermine the brand promise.
If we look at this from another point of view, when the brand experience delivered by your people to your customers matches your brand promise, your company will be well on the way to building a sustainable, strong brand.
Research across a number of industries showed that employees have an impact of up to 20 times more than advertising in building brand loyalty!
Building a branded culture has more benefits. When your brand promise matches the experience that your employees have with your company, you will build a strong employer brand. This creates a virtuous cycle, where the best talent will seek employment with your brand. Success breeds success.
In short, intangibles – culture and people – make the difference.
How are you ensuring you’re making the most of this opportunity?
Branding your customer service - delivering on-brand service to enhance the power of your brand.
Customer-facing staff need to be intimately acquainted with the service brand they represent.
It is only in this way that they can deliver customer experiences that are uniquely authentic to their organisation.
People think of brands as logos, advertising messages, and product offerings. Brands, of course, include all these, and they also answer fundamental service delivery questions, especially when the brand is a service brand.
Customer-facing staff must deliver the promise that the brand makes to consumers. Unfortunately, interactions between customers and staff can frequently and easily undermine the brand. TMI has worked extensively in this area and has built an excellent organisational methodology based around the premise of Branded Customer Service written by TMI’s Janelle Barlow (USA) and Paul Stewart (NZ).
Creating an on-brand organisation can involve multiple interventions – across all touchpoints of the service culture. Branding your customer service is an approach that must be as unique as your brand. It’s not a matter of taking a programme off the shelf, as all companies are different.
TMI understands that your brand is unique. We can collaborate with you to ensure that your service delivery style actually reinforces the emotional subtleties of your brand.
TMI’s Branded Customer Service consultants can help you and your business to deliver a uniquely authentic experience for your customers.
Branded organisational culture - shaping organisational culture and instilling alignment around values and the brand.
Your brand is your identity as perceived by the world outside, as well as inside your organisation.
When well defined and implemented with integrity, it is a powerful statement about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for. It sits at the very core of your organisational culture and serves as a guiding light for your customers, as well as your employees.
Branded Organisational Culture links the dynamics of organisational culture with the psychology of brand – combining two powerful concepts in a unique and profound way to help bring your brand to life from the ‘inside out’.
Using the power of branding inside the organisation to shape its culture, and strengthen the right habits and behaviours.
Closing the gap between aspiration and reality.
Engaging and aligning everyone to the strategic positioning of the business, practising ‘on-brand’ behaviours in their dealings with one-another, as well as customers.
We can focus on bringing your mission, vision and values to life through the brand - HR Branding
your recruitment and selection practices - Recruit On-Brand
your internal communications - Communicate On-Brand
your performance management practices - Manage On-Brand
Over the years we’ve worked with major international brand names, helping to shape their cultures.
What can we do for your brand?
Employeeship - Instilling new vitality and purpose for enhanced performance through empowering ‘bottom-up leadership’.
Staff who feel empowered and supported will be better equipped to deliver high performance.
The Employeeship concept, first published in 1992, is a management philosophy and consultancy process helping you to shape a healthy and vibrant culture in support of your strategy.
When we consider the key components of effective relationships, it is often characterised by mutual responsibility, loyalty, initiative and trust. Employeeship helps define and implement the habits, behaviours and actions needed to build a strong and effective organisational culture, where synergies exist and the total becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Successful businesses around the globe have experienced the simple and powerful practices of Employeeship, helping them to build stronger cultures. TMI Consultants are there to help you explore the potential in your organisation.
