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Back to News & Views Exclude the cleaning lady at your peril
Sunday Times Business Times : 25 September 2005
SEAN McCOY and VIKKI JACKSON
MILLIONS of rands are spent each year on advertising and brand-building activities, but for the most part these budgets are targeted at external audiences.
Much effort is injected into communicating a unique brand essence and values that are intended to differentiate and provide a basis for delivering the brand promise. But this is where it stops for many companies, which fail to ever actually deliver on the brand promise with any level of consistency.
Much money and effort may be poured into building a company's helpful, friendly image, but this can be damaged by one scowl from a receptionist or shop assistant.
Employees must live the brand or they will in time contribute to wrecking the company's image.
Just think about it. Would you feel comfortable buying a car from a dealership with a dirty showroom? Suddenly the dealership's cleaner has become more crucial to the company's image and service than its skilled mechanics or friendly salespeople.
In the same way, brands that promise better and more efficient service than their competitors are simply opening themselves up to ridicule, at best, and contempt at worst - no one likes a liar.
The real differentiator now is in the customer's total experience of your brand, from the sum of interactions with it.
The success of most of the top brands is in large part thanks to their acknowledgement of the important part that their employees play in building their brands in the minds of consumers. They actively create cultures that promote employee satisfaction, which ultimately leads to better service and a stronger brand.
Perceptions are created within seconds, but they can take a lifetime to change.
McCoy is a director of strategic brand consultancy HKLM (Harwood Kirsten Leigh McCoy) and
Jackson is a director of HKLM Connect
Are you aware of the attitudes, opinions and loyalty of your staff
and the effect this has on your business?
How much 'real' knowledge do you have of your Customers'
opinions of your brand, your service, your business?
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