Ever cursed the brand, it might be a bank, or utility, that puts you on hold for 10 minutes, passes you from call centre to call centre, forces you to input personal data to impersonal machines (eg IVRs), whilst all the while telling you “your call is important to us”?
I know I have, and what irks me most about this experience is the sheer guts of it. How dare they compound my misery. As Bruce Willis might have said (but probably didn’t) in one of the Die Hard films “Don’t **** in my pocket and tell me its raining”
The issue here, of course, is that the Call Centre Manager/Director made a call somewhere along the line. Probably under pressure from his boss/wanting to please his boss/trying to cut costs, they recognised the issue (clients who wait too long get annoyed), but failed to apply the solution (hire more customer care agents) and foolishly thought their clients could be bought off with a clearly insincere statement. If the company really cared about the customer’s call, it would answer it quickly, wouldn’t it?
The result, normally, of low customer satisfaction scores is higher churn (which is a measurable loss of revenue) or weaker brand bonding (which isn’t).
In companies where the brand is truly embedded, the above is unlikely to happen.
In my experience the difference is all about execution. Anyone with a ppt presentation can write a strategy. It takes persistence and stamina to execute one properly.
Here’s an example of a brand with conviction – ie that executes.
Its a brand that is more successful in its home market than Coke, Google, Mercedes, Apple, BMW, Nokia…more popular than IBM, than Nike, you get the picture….
Its a mobile phone brand, Digicel Jamaica:
http://www.digiceljamaica.com/
Of course those of you who have had a look around the site probably notices that I am an ex employee, who must be biased, no? Maybe so , but I believe the evidence overwhelms any bias I might have: 70%+ market share, very low churn; exceptional ARPU (as a % of disposable income), exceptional positive awareness and recommendation, etc…
It must be because the competition is poor, then? Well, it may not be as competitive as the UK, and the competition has been weak in the past, but they are no pushover:
http://claro.com.jm/index.php?option=com_phones&Itemid=28
http://www.time4lime.com/country_home.jsp?countryName=Jamaica&index=8
The secret of success is simply the commitment to execution. When the company launched in 2001 no-one was about to reinvent the mobile phone sector. Orange, Starhub, Smart (at their relative peaks) and a few others had already provided ample inspiration for how an operator should act.
Just build a demonstrably superior product (ie the network) and deliver it in a branded lifestyle package. No inspirational strategy required, a tiny bit of market research would give you the answer. (Apologies to the inspired technical team who built the network, but this blog is about brand).
The interesting bit for marketeers and brand folk is in the little details of the execution. Some examples:
- Make the senior management visible and approachable.
One example was the giving away of millions of (Jamaican) $ in scratch cards. 50 or more senior managers across the country would give away scratch cards to taxi drivers, store owners, or other people they would meet in their day to day life every week, over a period of years. You could reach maybe 10,000 people a year like this, but you could be sure that they would tell another 5, who would tell a few more. Over 5 years you might just recruit a few hundred thousand evangelists like this…
- Make the customer experience as pleasurable as possible.
Hire the friendliest, most outgoing people in store, and at the call centre and train them well. Simple strategy, tough to execute.
- Promote as many people as possible internally, from the ‘coal-face’ of the business, customer care
Example – Usain Bolt is sponsored by Digicel. The person who looks after him at Digicel is the Head of Sponsorship. She used to be a call centre operative. Now she deals with Olympic Gold medal winners and Premiership footballers.
…of course there are many more examples, too many for this blog, but I trust the point is made.
The payoff for Digicel Jamaica is ARPUs superior to the prepaid ARPU of UK networks, super low churn, and a brand name that is consistently voted the nation’s favourite.
Thanks.what a lengthy and in depth article but full of useful information
It was a very interesting post thanks for writing it!