10 things you hate to hear when talking to a brand organisation

BNET UK recently posted a list of the 10 most annoying customer service phases (below).

Sadly, the list will be all too familiar to most of us

Why don’t brand organisations focus more attention on the brand experiences being delivered by their call customer service staff?

It isn’t complicated.

....an organisations that operates a service department with motivated staff who are empowered to deliver a brand experiences that delights the consumers will win.

... an organisation with unmotivated staff who work to a company policy/script will not.

If you want to win in this space take a look at brands like Zappos, Joie de Vivre and Apple.

They get it.

• They delight consumers.
• These delighted consumers buy again and become advocates.
• Their business results speak for themselves.

BNET’s list:

1. If you’re not completely satisfied…
2. Sorry, you’ve called the wrong number…
3. Your call is important to us..
4. Please listen carefully. Our menu has changed.
5. To be honest..
6. Sorry about the wait..
7. It shouldn’t be like that..
8. That’s our policy..
9. I can’t do that..
10. We’ll call you back..

Great internal communication is a vital part of a successful brand organisation

This video, from ABT in Australia, is a great spoof about how some companies handle internal communications.

The trouble is that sadly a lot of companies do get it wrong, resulting in front line staff not delivering to the consumer what has been promised in the marketing.

You know the story.

Brand X launches a swanky new ad promising that they care about you (their customer) blah blah.

The next time you telephone them you go through an automated answering service and eventually end-up talking to someone that can't deal with your question and/or gives you the clear impression they don't really care.

Does this sound familiar?

This is clearly brand suicide.

Brands must ensure they deliver what they promise. If they are really smart they will go one step further and actively find ways to delight consumers.

Motivated staff and good internal communication play a vital role.

Ignore it at your peril.

Marketers must build Experience Brands to win in the 21st century

This is a very interesting Slideshare presentation from Jack Morton.

It echoes a lot of the stuff I talk about.

Here are some extracts from it and links to my previous postings:

"Brands are defined more by what they do than what they say" [Actions speak louder than words]

"Experience brands understand that the consumer experience has to carry through to the experience of actually using the product or service" [Never in the history of brands..]

"Experience brands do things that get people talking about them" [Delight consumers to build advocacy]

Great stuff.

The message is simple

To win in the 21st century brand marketers need to think very seriously about how to build an organisation that delivers and delights consumers.

A good place to start would be to gather all key stakeholders

...map out the Path to Advocacy

...do gap analysis

...work-out how you are going to delight consumers so they buy again and may be tell their friends.

This is an effective way to build a competitive advantage and sustainable long-term growth

Brand success starts with motivated employees

Running a successful hotel isn’t easy. I have stayed in many that are terrible… but (sadly) few that are excellent.

I recently saw an interview on Bloomberg with Chip Conely (CEO and founder of the Joie De Vivre boutique hotels in California).

It sounds like he has created a winning organisation that has loyal consumers who actively advocate the brand (a pretty good measure of success).

He says it is all about the employees; and how happy employees are great for the consumer and great for the company. His inspiration was Maslow ‘Hiercarchy of Needs’ (above) .

A challenge he has is to motivate 1000+ cleaners that clean the loos 5 days a week! He achieves this by working out how to provide recognition and meaning to their lives (stuff at the top of the pyramid).

He also looked closely at companies like Apple and South West Airlines. (Brands I frequently eulogise about.)

A key step he then took was to change the company culture by firstly changing the mission statement to “Create Joy” and secondly by training everyone on how to find simple moments to give joy to the customer.

I love this kind of stuff.

If you work for a brand organisation that is serious about delighting the consumer then maybe you should watch his interview and/or buy his book.