The Power of Positive Customer Experience

Intro, Part 3 - Corporate Brand Personality

Research by Forrester (Burns, 2012) shows us that there is a direct correlation between customer experience and increased revenue.? The research showed a high correlation between consumers’ rating of a firm in the Customer Experience Index (CXi) and their willingness to buy from the company again. In addition, it significantly affected their likelihood to recommend that company, and the higher the score the less likely that customer is to go elsewhere.

In simple terms, better customer experience can drive millions of dollars in revenue benefit. The Forrester Research demonstrates that companies that move from below average to above average in the CXi are likely to have more customers who are willing to buy from them again. They found that if only a fraction of customers make another purchase in the same year, the effect on revenue can range from $15 million for retailers, to as much as $788 million for wireless service providers. Hotels and airlines also rank highly in terms of benefit from above average CXi.? It may appear to be more relevant to the hospitality sectors perhaps than some other corporate environments, however as one leading UK-based client in the Construction industry told us, they specifically wanted access to our case study for a top luxury London Hotel because they were keen to achieve a level of customer service that replicates the standards of service in the luxury hotel market, and to add a level of personality that they had not focused on before.? They added that the Construction industry has not focussed on this much needed area of business and brand traditionally and they wanted to break the mould.

As Forrester suggests, create your own spreadsheets to show the difference it would make to your revenue if even 5% more customers were to purchase again from you, or perhaps 10% were to recommend your company to their contacts, resulting in a purchase. Creating a first-rate and consistent customer experience can achieve significant impact to the bottom line.

You may agree that this is obvious. However in our work with large organisations around the world, we constantly find there is insufficient focus and appreciation of the real impact of a great customer experience. There is generally a lack of effective employee training in this respect, particularly at customer touch-point level. Often companies provide customer-service training at these levels but fail to reach the depths of what will make the difference to embedded behaviours. The level of understanding of what it is that I am expected to do and why is it important to me and the business is therefore missing. In addition, leaders and line managers are unaware of how to clearly promote and encourage the importance of living the brand with their teams. Yet arguably all this represents the biggest opportunity for business growth and increased market share facing organisations today.

We have to be mindful however that customer experience needs to be a special experience now in order for it to really make a difference. The bland and the basics are not enough anymore. As Shaun Smith from Smith+Co says,? “Price sensitivity has increased and it now takes a unique customer experience which goes beyond satisfaction and creates a real bond with the customer in order to regain the competitive edge”. [Smith, 2010]

This book is intended to provide a thought-provoking look at how people behaviour could be diluting your corporate brand investment significantly more than you think; some ways of measuring that and some options to address this potential imbalance.? My content is based on several years of experience in helping organisations to improve the people brand element of their corporate brand and understanding their specific challenges. I will provide you with some insights into the brand problem and gaps we face today in our businesses, common specific challenges via case studies and practical information from the Walking TALL Methodology to help you to implement some processes that will bridge the gap between your corporate brand and the one projected via your people. My intention is to provide a practical guide, to aid your awareness, thinking and resulting strategic action that all stakeholder experiences with your organisation need to be impactful, meaningful, consistent and in-line with the corporate brand messages that you invest in so heavily.

I will provide in some detail, the Walking TALL methodology for managing the people element of your brand and internalizing the values for individuals.? Walking TALL has been utilised by many global organisations to motivate and engage their people to ‘live the brand’ and address the challenge and imbalance. It is based on defining an individual’s core authentic brand, refining that brand and packaging and projecting it effectively in a way that reinforces the corporate brand and values.?? The only way we can really get individuals to ‘live the corporate brand’ is by addressing the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor and giving them something that they themselves can make sense of and utilise in their everyday lives and interactions, not just at work.

?SUMMARY

?Corporate branding today is about more than it has been before. We have always had the Corporate Brand definition in the middle (example: Mercedes the brand); then Customer Experience at the next level with the specific product and the service (example: Mercedes SL 500 and its performance as the product, the car showroom, customer service etc.). Now there is effectively another layer needed to maximise corporate brand investment – that of authentic people behaviour (the attitude of the car salesman, his interest in you the customer, his behaviours, etc.) that will ultimately become more and more powerful in defining who your company is, what you stand for and whether I want to do business with you or not.?? This book addresses that additional external and critical layer – the Personal Brand of your people and the personality of your corporate brand. It looks at the considerations, refreshed focus and new practices needed to achieve the necessary balance in today’s competitive and demanding business world.

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Copyright Lesley Everett 2024

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