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November 11, 2005
A Branding Touchpoint Primer: Everything Matters
Organizations touch their audiences in many ways, across multiple "Touchpoints." These Touchpoints are all of the physical, communication and human interactions that your company's customers experience over their relationship with your company. Here's the thing that many organization's seem to have trouble grasping: every Touchpoint is a brand statement.
In brief, this means that Brand attributes - both positive and negative - are communicated at every Touchpoint, including things such as your VRU, customer service interactions, advertising, billing statements, marketing communications, online experiences and virtually every other point of contact. Lessons learned? In brief, everything matters. So be consistent in what you say, how you say it, and how it looks. And always keep your customers point-of-view in mind. Pretty straightforward, in theory. It's the doing that can trip you up...
Posted by MCorp. at 11.11.2005 16:09 | Permalink
Comments
And most of those touchpoints are made by your employees' interactions with the customer (the cashier, the receptionist, the call center operator, etc.) It is amazing how much focus and attention (and money) companies give the branding process (typically done with expensive consultants) and, yet, their employees are left clueless.
Why can't companies with such immense resources get it right?
Because most marketers and branding agencies don't focus enough on the main way a brand is presented to the marketplace...via the company's employees. And being "too big to pull it off" is no excuse.
Hertz is a great example of that. Every one of my Hertz experiences in every single city is evidence that a large company can get it right. Every Hertz employee I've encountered acts as if the company's mission is tattooed on their brain. (An even more amazing feat when you consider Hertz is owned by conglomerate Ford.)
It's not new information that internal branding is essential. Yet, it is where most companies fail. If employees don't live the brand...the brand will die a slow and painful (and now with blogs, a very public) death. If employees don't live the brand all this other expensive branding voo-doo is going to profit only the consultants.
Posted by: Jonathan Dampier at November 23, 2005 12:00 PM
Jonathan,
You bring up a very interesting point here with how large companies don't focus enough on using the employees to build their brand.
Far too often we see large corporations spend millions in advertising, when they could be using a percentage of those funds for employee training, emphasizing the customer experience.
Brand awareness is one thing via advertising, but building a strong, respected brand starts with the employees and how their "touchpoints" positively reflect the brand to their customers on a consistent basis.
Posted by: Patrick at November 23, 2005 4:28 PM