{"id":21427,"date":"2019-04-04T05:23:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T09:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=21427"},"modified":"2019-10-02T22:10:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T02:10:53","slug":"branding-cx-surprising-way-work-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/branding-cx-surprising-way-work-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Branding and CX: The Surprising Way They Work Together to Form Customer Loyalty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brands are everywhere. Everybody feels like they understand what brands are. However, when we ask the fundamental questions of \u201cWhat is a brand?\u201d and \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d, there&#8217;s a surprising amount of variation in opinion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Branding is a critical topic in <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\/\">Customer Experience<\/a>. We discussed where branding and Customer Experience interact and prioritize <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/brand-or-customer-experience-what-comes-first\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in a recent podcast<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We also explained how the two concepts are crucial to creating brand and <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-experience\/customer-loyalty\/\">customer loyalty<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Which Came First The Chicken or The Brand?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People often ask me when it comes to branding and Customer Experience, which one comes first? What&#8217;s most important?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The answer is they are both important, but branding comes first, and Customer Experience follows. Here\u2019s why branding comes first and the difference between them.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Branding<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> makes the promise in the marketplace. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Customer Experience<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> delivers against that promise. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the Customer Experience is successful in delivering on the brand promise, that is a Branded Customer Experience. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, Apple delivers a Branded Customer Experience. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-21428\" src=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Branded Customer Experience\" width=\"447\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123-800x600.jpg 800w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/123.jpg 1432w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I go into Apple, I feel that the \u201cstore\u201d is on brand, from the way they dress to the way they act to the absence of tills. It feels like the brand promise they made me in their marketing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another example\u2014and cautionary tale\u2014is Aviva insurance brand Norwich Union, \u00a0an insurance company in the UK. Norwich Union had a slogan, \u201cQuote me happy.\u201d They used advertisements of people that were ecstatically happy and rolling about the floor laughing their heads off because they were so pleased with the quote they received.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NbVG5yzlYKo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not surprisingly, the Aviva Insurance company ditched the campaign a few years later \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignlive.co.uk\/article\/norwich-union-forced-ditch-quote-happy\/625890\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">amid claims that it was failing to live up to its promise.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d \u00a0After all, when was the last time you were ecstatic about buying insurance?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Practicality Wins Over Philosophy in Branded Customer Experiences<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Norwich Union example leads to my next point. Your brand promise and brand value should be practical. Sometimes organizations fail to grasp this concept, and it leads to problems delivering a Branded Customer Experience. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, I was chatting with a mobile phone company. We were talking about their brand values, and the team from the mobile phone company said one of their brand values was \u201cRed.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Red? What does that mean? How do your call center employees deliver on a brand value of \u201cred?\u201d The answer is they can\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, colors are for logos, not for brands. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A brand is an inspiration for your Customer Experience. Therefore, it must have a practical application if you want the Customer Experience to deliver on it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our global Customer Experience consultancy is named after this concept. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond Philosophy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> means that having a philosophy is excellent, but you must be able to do something with the philosophy. Otherwise, it\u2019s useless.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In simpler terms, when Bert Scroggins phones into the call center to complain, your philosophy should inspire that interaction with some practical application in the Customer Experience. If you have somebody working for you in a call center or in a store, what do you want them to do? It\u2019s the doing where the Customer Experience exists not the high-falutin\u2019 theory behind it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Don\u2019t get me wrong. You need the high-minded ideals. But you also need to have at least one foot in reality. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>What is a Brand?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can think about a brand in two ways. There is the organizational perspective and then the customer perspective:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>From the organizational perspective<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a brand is a series of symbolic decisions, like a logo, the colors, the character you want to anthropomorphize. These decisions are necessary for consistency. However, too many firms treat that as the brand, and it&#8217;s not. That\u2019s just the beginning. \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>From a customer perspective<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a brand exists as a network of memories in the mind of your customer. Managing a brand is managing customers\u2019 memories. It means you should have ideas that you want to be associated with your brand. Then, you have to form consistent and repetitive memories in the minds of your consumers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Think about the brand for Volvo. Many of us will think of the word \u201csafety\u201d because for decades Volvo hammered that message into our brains over and over (and over) again. Now we associate the concept of safety and Volvo in our memories. That said, Volvo didn\u2019t make the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/safest-cars-america-iihs-crash-test-2018-2017-12\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insurance Institute for Highway Safety\u2019s Top Safety Pick honor for 2018<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Maybe the other brands have caught up with them. However, Volvo, at least to some of us older types, is still associated with safety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>The Staggering Importance of Memory to Your Brand <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Volvo brand is built on associating the word \u201csafety\u201d with their cars. Memory is a crucial factor for a brand, and brand loyalty, for that matter. If you didn&#8217;t have a memory of an experience, then, by definition, you can&#8217;t be loyal to a brand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Loyalty means you&#8217;re going back to something; you&#8217;re going to use something again. The word \u201cagain\u201d implies you know what you&#8217;re doing and returning is based upon your previous experience. Therefore, loyalty suggests memory, making your customers\u2019 memories really (really, really) important. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we talk about where Customer Experience interacts with branding, experiences are profound. We remember clearly and deeply experiences we&#8217;ve had with something. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you have a list of brand values, how does that translate to the customer? The answer is it doesn\u2019t. Your brand values mean nothing to your customer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What your customer is going to remember, what&#8217;s going to be built into that networked memory structure in their brain, is the experience they had, and their expectations based on what they&#8217;ve learned. As a brand or Customer Experience manager, you must manage what people remember. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Professor Daniel Kahneman talked about the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customer-loyalty-isnt-what-you-think-it-is\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peak-End Rule<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which describes how memories are formed. People remember the peak emotion they felt\u2014and that could be positive or negative\u2014and they remember the end emotion they felt in an experience. Those two points form a memory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>So, What Does This Mean to Your Customer Experience?<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>You need to evoke the proper emotions.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Emotions are the most significant influence on the outcome of a Customer Experience. You should ask yourself the following:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What emotions are you evoking?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are those emotions the ones that you want to evoke, meaning they drive value for your organization?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Look at it from the customer memory perspective.<\/b> What do we want people to remember about our brand? Now, to be fair, brand management from that memory perspective is unsexy. It is built on consistency and a narrow focus around a few key elements. Delivering on that in terms of messaging and experience over and over (and over) again is managing memory. It is a slow, repetitive process, but it works.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Keep your promises.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0A brand creates the promise in the marketplace, and the Customer Experience delivers against that promise. They should be in line with each other. The brand promise should be practical, something you can do in the call center, in the store or in the way you market. \u00a0You must consider how you will have the promise manifest in reality. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I don&#8217;t think organizations consider enough how to implement their high-minded ideals for the brand. However, this implementation is essential to your Customer Experience. Customer Experience is the practical application of your brand. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And it should not be red, because no one knows what that means. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b><i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-21091 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Podcast-web-banner-1-300x137.jpg\" alt=\"branding\" width=\"300\" height=\"137\" srcset=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Podcast-web-banner-1-300x137.jpg 300w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Podcast-web-banner-1-200x91.jpg 200w, https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Podcast-web-banner-1.jpg 876w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/i><\/b><strong><i>Hear the rest of the conversation <\/i><i>on Branding and CX on The <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/podcast\/\">Intuitive Customer Podcast<\/a>. These informative podcasts are designed to expand on the psychological ideas behind understanding customer behavior. To listen in<a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/understanding-customers-mental-budgets\/\">,<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/brand-or-customer-experience-what-comes-first\/\">please click here.<\/a><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to benchmark your organization\u2019s performance in the new world of behavioral economics against other companies, <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/intuitive-customer-self-assessment\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">take our short questionnaire<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. \u00a0Once you submit, we compare your answers against what we know about the market and send you a free personalized report about where your organization is today. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs and podcasts:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/how-to-manage-uncertainty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-artdeco-is-focused=\"true\"><em>How To Manage Uncertainty<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/how-do-customers-decide-if-their-experience-is-good-or-bad\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><em>[Podcast]<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/why-address-customer-irrationality-before-late\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><em>Why You Must Address Customer Irrationality Before It&#8217;s Too Late<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/customers-make-strange-decisions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><em>Why Customers Make Strange Decisions<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-21018 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/20180813_FT_LeadingManagementConsult_UK_Siegel-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"customer experience\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/our-team\/colin-shaw\/?utm_source=linkedin&amp;utm_medium=pulse&amp;utm_campaign=n2n\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Colin Shaw<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0is the founder and CEO of<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/189lvWr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Beyond Philosophy<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, one of the world\u2019s leading Customer experience consultancy &amp; training organizations. Colin is an international author of<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/IrQ8uB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0six bestselling books<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0and an engaging keynote speaker.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter\u00a0<\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1hxF3H7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">@ColinShaw_CX<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brands are everywhere. Everybody feels like they understand what brands are. However, when we ask the fundamental questions of \u201cWhat is a brand?\u201d and \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d, there&#8217;s a surprising amount of variation in opinion. Branding is a critical topic in Customer Experience. We discussed where branding and Customer Experience interact and prioritize in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":21429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}