PR is a very powerful weapon in the communications armoury of any
organisation - but it is absolutely useless if at the point of delivery
- the moment of truth - the customer experience is at variance with
expectation.
Almost every chief executive or senior director with whom I have
discussed current business imperatives has agreed that customer loyalty,
however defined, is the real current goal. What few have yet grasped -
although they do once the concept is explained - is that every single
employee in their organisation is in some responsible for this
outcome.
There is much healthy debate on whether or not customer satisfaction is
a valid measure and on what constitutes customer loyalty - how can this
be the same across all industry sectors?
There is, however, no doubt whatsoever that the creation and sustaining
of a ’loyal’ customer base is the goal of all organisations with a
commercial motive. The fact that 75 per cent of a company’s stock price
is directly or indirectly affected by your image and reputation, and the
total perception of your company comes from a dynamic, rather than
static, encounter means that whatever your views on satisfaction and
loyalty, companies ought to seriously consider their approach to brand
management.
Many companies are putting in place so-called ’customer service’
departments whose primary role is to placate irate customers or deal
positively with the currently less irate ones who just need help.
However, if this is simply a cardboard cut-out front-end and the
fundamental business processes aren’t in place to support it, what
happens?
Today’s consumer (and employee/investor etc) has wider expectations and
is more knowledgeable than ever before and should your (ostensibly)
non-customer facing processes collapse, or not recognise that they
deliver part of the total brand experience, public relations departments
will be working overtime.
To help understand this, consider that the way people relate to you
personally in business is based on conscious and unconscious statements
you make about yourself - your personal PR. The way you dress, your
phone manner, your efficiency, the way you phrase a letter, greet
people, even the company you keep, all affect the impression you make on
others.
From a corporate viewpoint why should this be any different? Your
corporate identity and offices, how do you treat people on the phone,
what is the level of organisational efficiency, and how do you treat
your correspondence and your reception area and process?
The major difference is that while you and you alone are in control of,
and responsible for, the personal impression, there are many people and
processes involved in the corporate impression.
Mark McCormack once said: ’none of us is perfect, we know that from time
to time things will go wrong, but it is the impression already made
which allows us the freedom to be occasionally less than perfect.’
A real ’root and branch’ brand management system involving the whole
organisation’s processes is the heartland and future of true brand
management.
The reality is that it is people who deliver on most brand value
promises - and unmanaged brands are extremely fragile.
Ian Ryder is director of communications and public affairs at
Hewlett-Packard.
