Brands have multiple touch-points and they need to be managed consistently if the brand is to grow. The claims on a website need to be backed up by the experience a customer has when they walk into a store and how they feel when they eventually use a product. If everything’s saying ‘wow’, the chances are they’ll go and tell their friends and come back for more. But if inconsistency creeps in, so will doubt and it doesn’t need to be extreme for it to have an effect. And that brings me to the subject of this post – if you have automated phone answering, what do the options customers are presented with say about you?
Lots of companies talk about putting clients first. But do they really? If ‘sales’ is the first option then new business is at the top of their agenda. Likewise, if it’s ‘accounts’, being paid is probably the most important thing to them. So what happened to customers coming first?
Phone options are a pretty basic test but hopefully it shows that if you’re going to make a claim, you need to be able to back it up with something tangible. Customers are smart and what’s more, they talk to each other, so if you’re claiming to be the fastest/slowest/tastiest/shiniest/tallest/greatest, the total brand experience needs to deliver it.
Mapping out your brand’s touch-points needn’t cost a fortune. Give a handful of your clients a nice notepad and a decent pen and ask them to write down every time they think about your brand or come into contact with it and how they felt. It’s not a perfect method, but it’s better than guessing and assuming how they feel. And what’s more, it will show that you’re going someway to putting them first.
