In today’s business world, understanding the delicate balance between your brand and the customer experience is paramount to your organization’s success. This often-overlooked partnership is the backbone of your business. To truly grasp its significance, we first need to differentiate between brand and customer experience, as these two elements have the power to create satisfied customers and a strong, enduring brand.
Branding has its roots in the practice of labeling cattle to identify ownership. Many people associate a brand with visual elements such as logos, colors, and design. But branding goes deeper; it’s part of your organization’s DNA. It encompasses values, culture, innovation, communication style, systems, customer interaction, protocols, ideals, leadership, and relationships. All of these factors collectively shape how your brand is perceived and experienced.
Customer experience, on the other hand, represents the sum of all customer interactions with your company. While your company creates touch-points, the customer determines how satisfying those interactions are. It’s important to note that customer service is just one aspect of the overall customer experience.
Both brand and customer experience share a focus on the customer’s needs. While they differ in some respects, they converge in their shared goal of delighting the customer.
The secret to becoming a great company lies in aligning your brand with your customers’ values and desires. While this may seem like a costly endeavor catering to diverse customer needs, it’s about identifying the attributes that matter most to different customer groups and creating products and services that resonate with these preferences. This strategy is evident in successful brands like Apple and Mercedes, which have seamlessly integrated their products into their customers’ lifestyles by offering a range of options that meet diverse needs.
These successful brands have adopted a model called the Rater Model, shaping both their brand and customer experience around key elements:
- Responsiveness: The consistent delivery of promises.
- Assurance: Employee knowledge, courtesy, and the ability to build trust.
- Tangibles: Physical elements that meet customer expectations, including design, physical locations, and branding.
- Empathy: The level of care and attention given to each customer.
- Responsiveness: Staff willingness to provide help and quick service.
Both brand and customer experiences revolve around the idea that customers are not a burden but rather a source of valuable feedback for improvement. They should be at the core of your company’s culture, systems, and processes.
To delight customers and build a strong brand, you need to be adaptable. Customer needs are constantly evolving, and in today’s global marketplace, customers have more choices and a bigger voice, and to stay relevant, brands must be fast, agile, forward-thinking, and adept at responding to changing customer preferences.
Staying relevant can mean adopting technology, embracing sustainability, establishing a digital presence and adapting to mobile platforms, among other evolving factors. Being among the first to lead in these changes and becoming a trend setting pioneer can be a competitive advantage.
Getting all this right means as an entrepreneur you must be able to correctly map your customer journey by understanding how your brand or offer fits in your customer’s decision-making journey and the touch-points that you need to activate to make sure you influence them to choose your brand. This journey is highlighted by 4 main steps-
- Strategy Development: Where does the customer fit into your overall corporate strategy?
- Brand Development: How do you define the touch-points needed to create clarity about your brand?
- Customer Definition: Understanding who your customer are, their motivations, pain points, spending habits, and how your product can best meet their needs.
- Branded Customer Experience Journey: Aligning your strategy with various market scenarios to meet the customer at the point of their need, allowing your business to adapt and remain relevant.
To get all these aspects right, you need well-functioning systems and a corporate culture where every team member works toward the common goal of delighting the customer. Leverage customer feedback to pinpoint areas that need improvement. Address customer complaints quickly, as unresolved issues can become associated with your brand. Responding promptly to customer concerns and continuously improving other aspects can help you ride out occasional hiccups.
As an entrepreneur, guard your brand zealously. It’s defined by what your customers say about it. Keep your finger on the pulse, follow trends, ask questions and use customer feedback to shape your brand’s value and differentiation. Ultimately, your brand’s promise should be delivered through the customer experience.
Should you wish to build a brand built on meeting customers at their point of need, we’re here for you at Springboard Capital. Whether it’s financial solutions, advice, or networking, we’ve positioned ourselves as an extension of your business – a reliable partner with tailored solutions. We also offer various loan products such as Business Loan, Emergency Loan, Asset Financing, Salaried Loan, Loan against Logbook, Import Duty Financing or Title Deed Loan, to help grow and manage all operations. Contact us today at 0700 944 444 or WhatsApp us through the button below, or email us at info@springboardcapital.co.ke.
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Article based on Tom Sitati’sBizSmart Webinar Presentation –Tom earns a living as both an architect and brand strategist. Blending the two areas means he always asks the “why” question from a customer experience, business growth, and a human impact point of view. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture honors degree from the University of Nairobi, is a board registered Architect with BORAQS Kenya, an MCIM Chartered Marketer (UK) and earned an MA in New Media and Society from the University of Leicester (UK).
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