I had an interesting discussion over coffee with an executive in the waste management industry. We were talking about brand promises. Specifically, how do we ensure our front line people faithfully deliver the brand promise everyday?
He shared with me a story about how his wife had tripped in dimly lit hallway of a local restaurant. Her fall resulted in broken bones and a period of unconsciousness. (Since her husband is a reader of Mind Share, I’ll take this moment to wish her a speedy recovery.)
The restaurant manager sprung into action, calling an ambulance and assisting in everyway he knew how. He gave the husband his business card and said the restaurant will take care of everything. If the story had ended here I would be writing to tell you how this restaurant manager epitomized customer service and ultimately the delivery of the brand promise.
Unfortunately, and perhaps unknowingly, the restaurant brand took a decided turn for the worse. After the trip to the emergency room, doctor visits and follow-up care, a representative of the restaurant’s corporate office/insurance company contacted the executive. The first words out of the representative’s mouth were, and I paraphrase here, “Sir you must have misunderstood the manager. He did not say that we would take care of everything.”
With one phone conversation the brand perception of this restaurant changed. This brand damaging event did not need to happen. Failure to provide brand education to everyone in your organization and your contract suppliers can wreak havoc on your reputation.
Training every employee in the proper way to treat a customer is essential. Training your vendors to deliver your brand promise is a completely different challenge. When we partner with a third party supplier it is critical that we have the brand promise discussion as a component of the overall deliverables. Here are few a thoughts that can help reduce the odds of getting that angry call from a loyal customer.
- Make sure project managers, supervisors and all front line people understand the brand promise.
- Empower your team to make decisions quickly and remedy mistakes before they escalate.
- Coach staff on how to be empathetic to a customer’s pain.
- Timely and regular communication, internally and externally, can actually turn a negative situation into a positive experience for your customer.
- Senior involvement tells your customer that they are important.
- Secret shopping your vendors is a great way to audit the delivery of your expected products and services.
We all spend a great deal of time, thought and resources to ensure that our brand is communicated. Sometimes we forget customer touch points extend far beyond the sales, marketing and project managers. The last thing we need is for one of our customers to trip over failed communication because we kept a department or vendor in the dark about our brand promise.
Tags: Brand Evolutionary, Brand Promise, Internal Communication, Vendor Relations
