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Protect Your Brand At All Costs, Starting with Customer Service

Here's a look at two reasons why protecting your brand is imperative.

It’s important for customers and potential customers to be familiar with your brand if you want to attract and keep their business. It’s just as important to protect your brand by consistently providing great customer experiences.

Here’s a look at two reasons why protecting your brand is imperative:

 

  1. Brand Recognition Cost

    Let’s consider the cost to gain brand recognition for your product or service. Capital is required to establish a presence with your target market. So, ask yourself: How much does it cost to get in front of our customers?

    Developing a successful brand recognition strategy requires time and effort. There is usually a cost attached to you and/or your marketing team’s time and effort? Once your strategy is developed and ready to roll out, consider the actual advertising costs. For larger companies, this can be millions of dollars, for small businesses like yours it can be hundreds or thousands. Make sure you back up the cost of brand recognition with excellent customer experiences.

  2. Reputation Cost

    It’s amazing to see the number of companies that receive negative comments about their product or service on social media platforms, like Twitter. Try searching for “poor customer service” and review the results. Some of these companies have national and international brands. YouTube is another medium customers can (and will) readily use to speak about their dissatisfaction with companies.

    Should one of these complaints go viral, the company’s reputation could take a huge hit. As Duct Tape Marketing contributor, Nicole Beachum explains: “When someone praises your company on a social media platform, it is important for you to respond to them and thank them for their feedback. Even more importantly, when someone voices a complaint about your services, your response is critical. Within hours, your response to your disgruntled customer can go viral—even obtaining national attention (something you definitely don’t want).”

    So consider, how much damage to your reputation can stand? What is the cost to put out a particular “fire”? What might the impact to future revenue be? How will competitors take advantage of our particular situation? These are questions to consider in regards to the importance of protecting your reputation by creating excellent customer experiences.

Always remember the importance of protecting your brand image. With every customer interaction, your brand’s reputation is at stake. Customer facing personnel (i.e., sales, service, etc.) are all crucial to keeping your company’s image intact. One negative tweet or video containing a bad customer experience can quickly spiral out of control.

Photo: Errol D. Allen, Founder of Errol Allen Consulting; Source: Courtesy Photo
Photo: Errol D. Allen, Founder of Errol Allen Consulting; Source: Courtesy Photo

Be sure to educate everyone within your company on the importance of creating great customer experiences. Constantly remind them of how are important they are to protecting your company’s reputation. Share information regarding the cost of brand development with all employees. Today’s customer has many available options to express how they feel about your products and services. Strive to ensure that your brand is protected by providing great customer experiences.

 

This article has been edited and condensed.

Internationally known speaker, author and customer service expert Errol Allen provides practical advice and solutions garnered from over 25 years of hands – on experience. He possesses a multi-faceted perspective of organizations through the various positions held during his corporate tenure with companies such as ADT Security Systems, TCI Cablevision, The Houston Post, Excel Communications and GEICO Insurance. From the phone to the field, Errol has serviced customers himself and understands that a “systems” orientation is crucial to providing excellent customer service. Connect with @consult53 on Twitter.

 

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