Posts Tagged brand touchpoints
Employee Training for Brand Touchpoint Delivery
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Touchpoints on April 15, 2011
Last week my wife and I traveled to visit my daughter at college. Stopping at a Dairy Queen about half way for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up is part of the routine. One of DQ’s signatures is, of course, The Blizzard, and I’m a big fan. A Blizzard, for those unenlightened few, is simply a cup of soft vanilla ice cream hand-blended with your choice of ingredients like Oreo cookies, M&M candies, Reeses candies, etc.
No doubt, DQ has identified at least a few important brand touchpoints for employees to deliver during their preparation of this brand-defining, flagship product: complete blending of ingredients, clean presentation of the cool treat, and a warm smile. It’s likely there are others, but I imagine these are the very basics.
On this particular visit, our DQ server completely failed to deliver on those basics, which left me with a less-than-stellar impression about that DQ location specifically, but also a bit of tarnish on the DQ brand overall. The product was virtually un-blended and the rim, upper inside, and outside of the cup were splattered with ingredients. It was an unappealling mess.
Clearly, the employee had not been properly trained on the nuances of making and presenting a perfect rendition of The Blizzard. It made me wonder what else he hadn’t been trained to properly do. That’s a problem of local franchise management to be sure, but also for corporate management who is charged with defining and managing delivery of the DQ brand identity. I mentally compared this experience with the obvious care my local Starbucks barista takes in preparing a perfect cup of coffee and it occured to me who’s paying closer attention to important brand-defining touchpoints, and who’s likely more sucessful as a business.
Are your employees completely steeped in your brand identity and the brand touchpoints required to properly deliver that identity to your customers? Are you sure?
Managing Brand Touchpoints: What If You Only Had One Customer?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on April 14, 2011
What if the entire success of your business depended on one customer, alone? What kind of heightened focus would you have on delivering the best all-around brand experience possible to ensure that customer remained your customer?
It’s hard to think this way when the reality is you likely have tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of customers. But the same reality is that each of those customers is a single entity or individual, each one exposed to your brand — and those of your competitors — positively or negatively, based on how the brand’s touchpoints are delivered.
In a previous post, I referred to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s new book, Onward, which became available last week. In it, Schultz made one interesting observation about the problems plaguing Starbucks which lead to a brand revitalization focus in early 2008: company management was consumed with managing the big behemoth into which Starbucks had grown rather than focusing on the ”ones” (the individual neighborhood stores and customers) which drove its business. Starbucks had simply forgotten that the ones add up. To fix this, Shultz rededicated himself and the entire organization to refocus on the ones and improving the delivery of the smallest details of what makes Starbucks uniquely Starbucks.
So, what if one customer — one person, alone, was responsible for the success or failure of your business? How different would the brand experience be that you deliver? How much closer attention would you pay the the various brand touchpoints that make and keep that customer a customer and that make your brand distinctively what it is?
Something to ponder over your next cup of coffee.
Starbucks Gets the Value of Brand Touchpoints
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Identity, Brand Touchpoints on April 8, 2011
Starbucks knows a thing or hundred about clicking with its customers. Not only have they mastered the art of serving coffee to the masses, but they also pour a consistent brand experience with every single cup.
But it hasn’t been easy.
Starbucks celebrated its 40th anniversary on March 30, but as recent as 2008 (before the recession), reaching that milestone was very much in jeopardy.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, has a new book just out, Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul. I haven’t read it yet, but the title promises an inside look at the extraordinary emphasis Schultz placed on getting back to the soul of the Starbucks brand when he returned to lead the company in 2008, after turning over day-to-day operations control in 2000.
No doubt, the company continued to flourish through the first half of the 2000′s. By 2006, company stock touched $40 and locations swelled to more than 12,000 worldwide. But a funny thing happened on the way to this success: Starbucks apparently forgot their brand identity — the soul that made them distinctively, uniquely Starbucks among the increasing tide of competitors. Store traffic dropped. Spending per customer declined. Same store sales comps stumbled. And the stock price fell into the single digits. Staff was let go, and many stores were shuttered. As 2007 was winding down, things didn’t look so good for Starbucks.
The problems were many, including growing too fast, poor employee training, not monitoring costs, and operational shortcuts. The net effect was disenfranchised Starbucks loyalists. Lots of them.
(Re-)enter Howard Schultz. In early 2008, he told a gathering of employees at Starbucks headquarters, “We have to find and bring the soul of our company back, find our voice.” Yahtzee!
For years, Starbucks enjoyed a distinctive voice, and the rewards of speaking with it. They did the heavy lifting of crafting a strategic brand identity, and then implementing that identity throughout the hundreds of brand touchpoints that defined the Starbucks brand experience.
However, from 2000 until early 2008, they failed to live up to that brand identity and nearly paid for it.
So, what’s the lesson for us mere mortals in the business world? Do the work of crafting a distinctive brand identity, and then deliver that identity by actively managing the brand touchpoints that drive business. And stick to it.
Only Nine Months Left in 2011. Are You On Plan?
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on April 6, 2011
Where’d the first calendar quarter go, already?
As the ink dries on 2011′s first quarter, are you at least on (if not ahead) of plan? If not, there’s plenty of time to do something about it.
Honest question: when was the last time you cast a really critical eye on the ways customers, prospects and influencers interact with your brand(s)? I mean not just the obvious touchpoints like quality and pricing, but the nuts and bolts like telephony systems, service centers, product warranties, product feature sets, facilities, etc. Any or all of those brand touchpoints — and likely hundreds more — could be having a very big affect on how your business will pan out when we tally things up at the end of 2011.
It starts with developing a strategic brand identity. Then it requires identification of all the potential interactions your customers, prospects, and influencers have with your brand. Next is a systematic prioritization of the role each of those brand touchpoints plays in the formation of a brand image – the fundamental driver as to whether a prospect becomes a customer and a customer becomes a devotee. Finally, the preparation and implementation of a plan geared towards effectively managing those brand touchpoints in harmony with your strategic brand identity.
The concept is simple. The implementation takes time and energy. But the benefit is a much higher chance that the answer to the question in the headline is a resounding, “Yes.”
If you needed more incentive to get moving on this now, consider this: what if your competitors each got their act together and started more effectively identifying, prioritizing, and managing their brand touchpoints? Where would that leave you at the end of 2011?
Brand Touchpoints Drive Your Brand Image
Posted by Mike Paffenback in Brand Touchpoints on April 4, 2011
Visited a local italian restaurant not long ago. Good food and good service, which was to be expected for the mid-range prices they were charging. What wasn’t expected, though, were the folding tables and chairs (think church potluck supper decor and you have it). This little disconnect made me pay closer attention to everything else about the place – the tableware, wall decorations, lighting — all of it. I’m not certain the image the restaurant owners were trying to create, but I don’t think it was “Wednesday night church supper.”
The image for all brands — yours and mine — is formed as a direct result of the experience folks out there in the real world have as they engage with the brand. Brand touchpoints.
Some business owners and brand managers have sweated over every conceivable brand touchpoint to ensure they’re in sync with the brand identity they’ve strategically crafted. They’ve identified them, prioritized them based on their affect on brand image, and then actively manage them to ensure they’re properly delivered.
Most, like my restaurant friends, have done only a superficial job, focusing on the obvious touchpoints of product, advertising, and customer service at the expense of not considering all the other possible, perhaps just-as-important, touchpoints. The result is a disconnect between the desired brand identity and actual brand image being formed.
If you haven’t created a formal brand identity and don’t actively manage your important brand touchpoints in support of that identity, then you’ve lost control of the brand image that your target audiences will form about you. Simply, brand touchpoints drive your brands. And your business.
So, what are you doing about it?