​When I talk about your brand, I mean the external perception AND the internal perception. It is just as important to know what your employees think of your brand as it is to know what your customers think of your brand.  After all, the interaction your employees have with your products and customers will affect the consumer buying process.

Let’s start with your customers

Do you know what your customers would say about your brand?

Your brand’s identity is not what you think it is or should be. It’s not what’s written in the employee handbook. It is whatever your customers say it is.

Given this little fun fact, don’t you think it’s time to see what they have to say? Before you spend time writing goals for a new year, a better use of time would be to see how this past year faired from the perspective of those you served.

Did your customers all receive a consistent experience with your brand? Were they all pleasant? Did they all invoke a desire to purchase from you again?  Is every experience creating a referral making machine?

Here’s a tip (inside a tip): The best investment you can make is on one single customer, not with trying to attract a gazillion customers.  With every customer experience you need to be creating a referral making machine.  Every referral they make costs you zero (0) marketing dollars.  You put the leg work in up front with your amazing products, your educated and empowered employees and customer service that will knock their socks off.  Then, the business will grow.

Let’s take a look at this from an employee perspective

I mentioned two key words above about your employees; educated and empowered.  Your job as a leader is to ensure that they understand the mission and vision of the brand and continue to uphold it in everything they do.

I’m going to ‘assume’ that you’ve educated your employees.  I’m not privy to the inner workings of your products so I’m going to move on to the next component; empowering.  An empowered employee feels obligated to speak up when something isn’t right.  They feel empowered to do so because they have buy-in with your mission and they care about reaching both their individual goals and the business/department goals.

If you haven’t heard a lot of feedback about your brand from your employees lately, it’s time to schedule a pulse check.  Ask your employees what they feel the perception of your brand is.  Ask them if they feel like every employee in every department has buy-in.  If you’re a manager and not a business owner, it’s important to remember that even though other departments may not be within your scope of responsibilities, the overall company goals are within your scope so that means that you need to feel empowered enough to speak to your boss about cohesion within departments.

Employees effect the customer experience.  One customer’s experience affects whether or not they become part of your unpaid sales force.  You cannot afford to not understand the perception of your brand.  Understanding what others thinks of your brand will enable you to understand where to make pivots in product development, marketing and employee training.

For more information on how to create consistent customer experiences with your brand, visit: www.larekpointconsulting.com/customer-service-training

Need More?

 

Need a little more guidance planning for the success of your business? I'll let you in on a secret - I need guidance all the time!  Really!  The absolute best thing I have ever done for my business was to decide not to do it all alone.

That's why I built the DoverDrive Experience.  I know what it's like to carry the weight of a growing business on your shoulders and feel the pressure of having to know everything at all times.  It's exhausting and impossible.

Inside the DoverDrive Experience, you're getting learning/doing content shared with you EVERY week.  That means you create a cycle of business development.

You see, the biggest mistake that business owners make is that they only work ON their business when something isn't going right or when they don't have enough business to meet financial goals.  The truth is, if you work on yourbusiness continuously, you'd have less problems and less periods of feast or famine.

Join us inside the DoverDrive Experience and let's get started GROWING your business.