Where Brand Promise and Operations Intersect

The Customer Experience: Where Brand Promise and Operations Intersect

Recently I had the privilege of leading a discussion with executives from leading brands at the recent Customer Experience Exchange Retail event in Miami, FL.

This esteemed group and I discussed how it is no longer enough to compete on product or price alone. Your customer’s experience is the only true differentiator that drives loyalty and turns your customer into an advocate for your brand. Customer loyalty is earned when your company can successfully align customer experience operations with its brand message.

Your brand must deliver on its promise — not just with its products and services—but at every touchpoint during each journey. When that happens, your customers will take notice and their trust in your brand will grow. With increased customer trust comes an increased share-of-wallet.  Conversely, lack of alignment can have a negative impact on customer retention and loyalty.

I also shared valuable consumer insights from research recently conducted by COPC Inc. which was very telling, such as:

>More than two-thirds of consumers do not think companies are exemplifying their brand promise at every touchpoint

>Companies are losing significant business by providing disappointing customer care and failing to live up to their brand promises

In addition, I shared an example of how customer journey mapping helped one retailer uncover misalignment between their brand promise and execution within their operations.  Here is the COPC Inc. Customer Journey Map that we discussed.

This exercise provided intelligence about where issues were occurring with each critical touchpoint of the buying process. With this information, the retailer was able to make significant operational improvements to deliver on its brand promise and ultimately improve the customer experience.

A brand is not just about marketing.  Organizations need to take a close look at their operations to determine if they are delivering on their brand promise, and if the organization has the operational ability to do this.