Maximize the Experience, Maximize the Brand

Here's a little secret most marketing firms don't like to be known: Brands become known through positioning and promotion. They become valuable through performance.

While any company or product can ride the wave of a catchy ad campaign for a season, it will only last if the expectation set by the promotion is met or exceeded in the actual delivery to the customer in product, service or experience. It only makes sense, then, to be very intentional about the way customers are communicated with, delivered to, and made to feel throughout their buying or ownership experience.

At VantagePoint, we work with clients to assess every way they touch their customers. Each unique way is called a TouchPoint – and we can always predict there are more of them than our clients initially realize. For instance, what is the first TouchPoint a customer or prospect experiences when they actually come to visit for the first time? Did you say the receptionist's desk? Maybe not. It might be the parking lot. And it might not even be the parking lot. Did you send directions? Guess what? They printed them out. They followed them. If they weren't clear, they're coming for a visit and they're probably frustrated.

We believe that almost all TouchPoints fall into one of these general categories:

Communications. This includes websites, printed material and ads, business correspondence, emails, radio or television commercials, speeches and public presentations, first touch phone etiquette, etc.

Personal Interactions. Anytime someone from your company is face to face, either in person or via telecommunications, you have an Interpersonal TouchPoint. The sales process is often very significant in this category.

Products/Services. The way the product or service is designed, presented, performs, or is packaged is often the most emotional aspect of business. The actual product or service is the central reason why customers buy and therefore must be right for you to be successful.

Business Environment. These are the outward expressions of the way a company does business. It is the physical building, the décor, the parking lot, the dress, the expressions of culture, the expressions of personality and any other tangible way the company expresses its essence.

Business Mechanics. These are the interactions required to conduct commerce such as billing, shipping, etc.

Identifying a company's TouchPoints is obviously just a first step. It is what happens at those places the customer is touched that matters. The principles for managing a company's TouchPoints are:
  • Intentionality. TouchPoints should be managed with purpose, so that the exact message, and the exact impression that you desire is clearly perceived by the customer.
  • Repeatability. Does the customer – or do different customers – have the exact same experience regardless of location, time, employee, or purpose for interacting with you? If an experience is not repeatable, it cannot be counted on to help build your brand. Worse yet, it may hurt it as many times as it helps.
  • Impressibility. The TouchPoint should leave an impression by its uniqueness and/or excellence.

Brands are built one interaction, one impression at a time. Your brand is too valuable to be left to chance. VantagePoint's Organizational Performance group has developed the TouchPoint Improvement Process (TIP) to help you sort through the process of identifying, managing and improving your TouchPoints. Call me today at 864.331.1280 to get started.

Phillip A. Begley
VP of Organizational Performance

Insights from Your Customer's Customer

One of marketing's key roles is to align its organization and products with what the customer values most - and hopefully do this better than the competition. Sounds pretty simple, right? While no smart marketer would argue this, it still begs the question: why do so few business-to-business companies do it well?

One reason for this could be that marketing generally finds itself isolated from the customer, with sales and customer service personnel having the lion's share of customer interaction. So how can you keep your pulse on what the customer values?

There are numerous means to get critical customer feedback - online surveys, focus groups, customer councils and sales force feedback, to name a few - and all of these are legitimate. But let me suggest another. How about asking your customer's customer? With permission from your direct customer, find out from their customer what they value most. In doing so, you will uncover some valuable insight that will create an even stronger value proposition to your direct customer, making them even more successful.

VantagePoint recently helped a client do just that. This client sells its products to distributors (their customer), and when they went one step further to find out what the contractors wanted from the distributor, we worked with our client to help the distributor develop a contractor program that was wildly successful. Sales skyrocketed 34 percent, all because it delivered so much more value to the contractor.

Be intentional about gaining insights from your customer's customer. Chances are you will obtain not only some great insight but the opportunity to strengthen your value prop to your customer. Good Luck!

Craig O'Neal
President/CEO

Saving "At Risk" Customers After a Bad Experience

Saving a customer who's had a bad experience with your company should be easier than ever. It takes about six months for the relationship to completely sour after a problem occurs, a Satmetrix study has found.

A call or visit from you, a customer service rep or even your CEO can "make it right," and strengthen loyalty in the process.So when a customer experiences a problem, red flag the account and make efforts to go the extra mile a few times in the following half year.

Source: Customer Service Advantage, 7/22/05

Different Points of View

Companies may want to invest in research to understand the real reasons buyers leave. A clear perception gap exists: Seventy-four percent (74%) of customers say they leave because of poor service. Yet only twenty-two percent (22%) of companies claim that's the reason.

Source: www.crmguru.com

Competition Promises To Be Fierce

What's your top priority for the rest of 2005?


Source: Harte-Hanks survey of 235 marketers