Don’t leave it to chance. Why are brand touchpoints critical to a company’s success?
WHAT IS A BRAND?
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. What you promise a customer and what they experience must be aligned. When customers experience brand touchpoints that do not match your brand promise, people feel that disconnection deeply.
WHAT IS A BRAND TOUCHPOINT?
A brand touchpoint is any single interaction a customer or employee has with your business. This includes interactions with your website, how a person answers the phone, how you dress, your marketing materials, the weight of your business card, the cleanliness of your office and vehicles, and so on. It’s in these many individual interactions that a company’s success is decided.
IT’S NOT JUST A BROKEN LOCK, IT’S ALSO A BROKEN BRAND PROMISE
Imagine you are in a nice restaurant or hotel. In the conscious, rational mind, a broken lock on a washroom door is simply that: a broken lock on a washroom door. But in the subconscious, emotional mind, much more is at stake. A broken lock can leave a customer feeling vulnerable and nervous — potentially exposed. If your hotel is promising luxury or relaxation, a broken lock is a jarring contradiction. The resulting disconnect between brand promise and customer experience creates emotions such as distrust (“They promised one thing, I’m getting another!”), impatience (“I’ll bet this is just one of many things that aren’t living up to their promises!”), and resentment (“I’m not getting what I paid for!”). It’s not just a broken lock, it’s also a broken brand promise.
Who hasn’t experienced being on hold with a company, only to hear the generic message, “We value your loyalty, but we are experiencing higher call volumes right now”? This happened to me just earlier today; I was on hold for 35 minutes. What a waste of my time! I definitely didn’t feel like a valued customer.
There are simple solutions that could improve this experience, and it’s baffling that not all companies adopt them. For instance, offering a callback service with an estimated time of return call would be great. Alternatively, allowing customers to schedule a callback through the company’s website at a convenient time would be very helpful. Additionally, as soon as a representative connects with a customer, they should ask for the customer’s cell number to ensure they can call back if the line gets disconnected. While waiting on hold is never ideal (in a perfect world, the company would hire more staff), these measures would make customers feel valued. They show that the company is making an effort to provide excellent service and prioritize the customer’s needs.
Mistakes happen, and things can be misaligned with your brand promise because no one has pointed it out (like this amazing abbreviation I saw for “Assorted fruit”), or you have become blind to something as it’s always been that way, or you are too close to it to notice. This is why engaging in Impresa’s Brand360 Touchpoint Assessment service can greatly elevate your brand. We assess how you want to keep people feeling as they move through EVERY touchpoint to determine which ones live up to the promise and which ones need a little TLC.
WHO CARES ABOUT CONSUMER EMOTIONS
Some brand owners question the importance of these misalignments, especially since they primarily occur in the unconscious mind. After all, who cares about feelings? “95% of all purchasing decisions are subconscious,” writes Behavioral Psychologist Susan Weinschenk, arguing that we’re not the rational, logical beings we think we are. “If you want to really reach people, if you want to communicate with them, if you want to persuade them, you need to figure out how to talk to the subconscious part of their mind. The big reason is that people are driven by subconscious urges… the biggest of which is emotion. Emotion is what really drives purchasing behaviors, and, decision making in general.”
Your customers will have hundreds – if not thousands – of interactions with your brand touchpoints over the course of their relationship with your brand, in good times and more importantly, in bad. As they say, if your consumers complain, they want to stay with you – the silent complainers are the critical ones because they will leave your brand and complain to others, who will not take the risk and leave you as well.
Each touchpoint is an opportunity for you to build the experience you promised intentionally. To earn their loyalty, you must be consistent with every possible touchpoint – large and small. Even after they have bought. That’s why we have started the “TINYAward” – “Thankyou It’s Now Yours” for brands that don’t follow through with the after-sales care. Each month, this is awarded to brands who sell you a vision and don’t follow through by asking how your product performed, whether we can improve your experience, and whether we are exceeding or at least meeting your expectations.
DON’T LEAVE IT TO CHANCE
It’s a familiar story: a company makes a misstep, and suddenly, it’s a story filling news and social feeds everywhere. Customers increasingly turn to social media to vent their frustrations and spread their opinions. They distance themselves from the offending company (typically by taking their business elsewhere) and encourage—if not demand—others to do the same. In a culture of explosive and potentially damaging opinions, reputation management is a crucial concern. The best way to avoid this type of negative social association is to focus on eliminating bad reviews before they happen.
Consumers and employees are savvier and better connected than ever before. Equipped with equal parts brand awareness and a strong sense of what is required to earn their trust, loyalty, time, and money, they are now more willing to reject a brand that fails to deliver on its promises.
Companies have struggled during COVID-19 and the current recession. They are reaching out to old clients to try to win them back. The people in the cartoon above know the ‘marketing game’. Treat potential customers, current customers and staff with respect, and be genuine and honest with people. You want them to trust you; companies need to earn that trust.
