Three Simple Steps to Differentiate Your Brand

     To state a truism, it is an incredibly competitive world that we live in. And you need to keep your brand visible from the clutter with smart, sustainable tactics.

How do you stay relevant and differentiate your brand from the hundreds of others currently in the market?

In the past, companies have traditionally used the following two tactics to stay relevant. But these may be getting old and irrelevant to changing markets:

• Competitive pricing strategies

Why this works: Your consumer is constantly looking for a better product at a lower price. Who would say ‘no’ to buying a tablet PC for $750, marked down from $800? Certainly not me. Product companies are at war with each other daily to see who is priced better, and with more features.

Why this doesn’t work: Pricing is a dynamic factor that needs to be changed on a daily basis to keep up with the competition. Every day there is a new player in the field, with better features at a lower price. Try to undercut your competitors on a daily basis, and you might just end up losing out on a significant amount of earnings

• Constant innovation

Why this works: Everyone loves a good idea and a better product. That’s how companies like Apple survive, despite pricing their products above the competitions’. As a consumer, don’t you always want the most updated and technology-forward gadgets?

Why this doesn’t work: If great ideas were that easy to come by, every company would be at the top of its game. Although there are companies that innovate continuously, most companies tend to be incremental improvers – fixing a glitch, removing cost, upgrading features, and keeping pace with the market. Besides, sometimes existing products can be exactly what the customer wants, but because of lack of information, or bad or indifferent customer service, they back out of the buy.

It’s time we discovered newer strategies to drive sustainable brand differentiation. Let’s look at some of the following:

 1. A 100 percent focus on the customer’s requirement

Companies have begun to realise that brand loyalty is becoming a thing of the past if the focus is just on product and price. Delighting customers in surprising ways at every moment of truth via new business models and engagement models is now essential.

Although tried and tested tactics never fail to generate results, loyal customers now expect every experience to be well-rounded and focused on solving their problem, want or need. In today’s world, nobody has the time to waste on advice they don’t want. Deflecting a customer with something they don’t want right from the minute they walk in will annoy them sufficiently for them to walk off. Generic offers, or “solutions” won’t bring the customer back to buy again

2. The extra step, and extra smile, in customer service

Peter Fader, professor of marketing at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative says “We have a ‘customer is king’ mentality, and we have come to expect world-class treatment.”

Customers want to be sold products by company representatives who know what they are talking about. The fact is that customers are probably more educated on your products and services before they even approach you to buy – the profiliation of information on the web and social media. Thus the buying behaviour and the skills required of your sales and marketing team must be radically different now. They must be outcomed based. You need to help the customer buy… not sell.

From a service perspective the requirement is simple, you must shift from reactive to proactive. Or where impossible to be proactive react in surprising ways.

3. Keeping up with social media

Your customer does, and will follow you online. At the very least, they’re going to want to peek at your online presence. Interesting online games, quizzes, product knowledge and questionnaires are a few ways of reaching out to them and keep them engaged from the start. Social media can result in you losing business without even knowing it. Consumers today simple ask the world wide web’s opinion (via social networks) whether they should buy from your company or not. There is no shortage of opinions that are provided in response. What’s the sentiment of your company on the web and how are you engaging in these discussions?

Although this might seem like a tall order, don’t despair because there are organizations that manage to pull it offand so can you! Companies like Southwest Airlines, whose airline crew goes above regular service and instigates impromptu airport games and activities when flights are delayed. Or some hotel chains belonging to Hilton, where warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies are supplied to customers regularly .

How many of the above is your organization following?

In one of next blog posts, we’ll explore the steps you can take to transform your company into a uniquely differentiated customer-centric organization.

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A Weapon called CX

   We live in a hypercompetitive world where the battle for the customer’s wallet will continue unabated. And only those who play the game better will win.

Some organisations differentiate themselves on price and others on product features and quality; however, those advantages get nullified without fulfillingcustomer experiences (CX). In this scenario, arguably, it is investments in transforming CX to branded CX that yield the most significant benefits to organisations.

BRANDED CUSTOMER SERVICE

Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart in their book “Branded Customer Service” talk about how many organisations look at CX as a cost, where the approach is tentative and the prevailing practices show scant respect for the customer; then there are others who have a better CX disposition. Some see it as a necessity which is manifested in policy, and take a tactical approach to CX totally dictated by a script; and there are those who see CX as a differentiator, where CX-related learning is imbibed, customer issues are resolved quickly and CX performance is measured.

However, it is companies where CX is a living expression of the brand, led by purpose with empowered employees eager to create change, who will rule this hypercompetitive world! This implies cogency and alignment in organisational thought relating to CX.

ALIGNING THE ORGANISATION TO CX

CX is an outcome of many arrows getting aligned! It’s about a differentiating strategy and impeccable execution. It’s about a fine balance being achieved across the value constellation! Themes that run through success stories are similar while of course, being different in their own ways:

• In the case of Titan it’s a combination of a trustworthy brand, design superiority and investments in equipment to ratify quality, running across all the industries they are in – namely watches, jewellery, eyewear and accessories.
• At Bata, it’s about targeting the middle-class without ambiguity; design and durability as levers of appeal and ensuring right-sized stores at the right locations.
• At Bajaj Auto, it’s about their positioning around powerful bikes, delivering more value for money and sharp execution across the value chain including a world class plant to deliver desired quality levels.
• Zappos.com an online shoe and apparel portal in the US has created a culture of creating “wow” for the customer with every interaction – a 24X7 call centre with no scripts, free shipping both ways and a 365-day return policy. It grew to a billion dollars of revenue in eight years and records 75 per cent repeat business.
• Metro Bank in the UK turned banking on its head by focusing on creating unparalleled retail experiences for its customers, where visiting a branch suddenly became enjoyable, opening up opportunities for showcasing and selling many more products to satisfied clients. They are open seven days a week, starting early and closing late to facilitate “store” visits.There’s also what you don’t want to see.
• A hotel chain repeatedly inviting a devout vegetarian to a non-vegetarian food festival despite many protests from the customer.
• A DTH provider denying service to a HNI (high networth individual) customer because information available in the system is incorrect and incomplete.
• A credit card company repeatedly attempting to sell a card to an existing customer despite a string of complaints.

In essence, it’s about a differentiating strategy and how it comes together across the value constellation to deliver outstanding CX. And of course, we must be equally conscious of the price to pay when our customers encounter bad experiences!

After all, in India we’re more vocal about our dissatisfaction than anywhere else in the world with 96 percent of us choosing to speak out and talking to 35 others. Ninety percent of us also like to reward providers of good service with repeat business, that too at a premium price. Underlying that is creating comfort for customers across all their touchpoints of interaction.

TOUCHPOINTS

The market comprises millions of customers, potential customers and organisations, connecting through four touchpoints – the Contact Centre, Social/Digital Media, Face-to-Face Interactions, and the Product/Service itself. It is critical for organisations to have a holistic view of the customer because strategic leverage will come out of wrapping great experiences around products and services and it is finally about customers and employees being co-creators of differentiating, enriching customer experiences.

OUTSIDE-IN

Finally, it is also about looking at the customer equation a little differently. In the words of Prof. Ranjay Gulati of Harvard Business School, “Focusing your business simply on giving the customer what he wants can be dangerous. An outside-in mindset allows firms to identify needs far more sharply as they are continuously exploring unstated customer needs and how to address them.” And Apple, an example quoted so often that it doesn’t need repetition proves that beyond a doubt, doesn’t it?

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in The Deccan Chronicle, Bengaluru, on Monday, June 18, 2012 in the Technomics section, Page 13.

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Common pitfalls observed in social media customer engagement strategies

     When you think about brands like Zappos and Southwest Airlines, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

It’s probably the fact that brands are becoming more than active on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and are highly successful at engaging with their end customers. Visit any of their social media streams, and you’ll find a number of conversations developing between the brand and their customers – and they make it all look so easy!

But that’s just the problem.

While we’re all familiar with the success stories of how brands use social media channels to put a finger on the customers’ pulse and generally to engage with them, do you ever think about the pitfalls of maintaining these communication lines? How can you ensure that you don’t end up making some common, brand-erodingmistakes in your efforts to leverage the power of social media?

Here are some tips:

• Don’t manage your social media accounts like other channels:Email, chat and telephones are largely one- on -one channels of communication. Quite often, these channels use scripted responses to increase productivity.But what makes this work is the fact that these channels allow a customer to restate or repeat his questions – in fact, as many times as he gets a satisfactory response.But when you’re talking about social media channels, the scenario is very different. These channels are transparent – and archived for the world to see. Scripted responses often make brands look “un-engaging and synthetic” – especially when different questions by diverse customers are met with the same response!

• Avoid diverting social media conversations to other channels:Are you primarily using your social media accounts to divert customers to your inbound or email channels – particularly when dealing with complaints and grievances? Not a good idea!
  While this may work for confidential communication channels(like email, chat or telephones), this approach can backfire in the social media space. Remember, a customer contacting you via social media channels might have already tried to resolve his issues through conventional channels. He’s perhaps here on your social media page because his problem was not resolved elsewhere. Diverting him back to a conventional channel can only end up annoying him further – something you should avoid at any cost.

• Understand which support window suits your business best: Decide whether using your social media accounts for offering support is aligned with your industry’s needs. Some brands specifically mention their customer support hours on their social media accounts. However, they also continue to service customers over the phone and via email practically 24×7. Real Time customer support on social media channel for Travel & hospitality, IT services industries might not work well, as customer issues in these verticals need real-time attention, than near real-time attention. Similarly delayed responses can only send out wrong messages about your social media strategy not to mention the damage caused to your brand and customer expectations.

• Avoid a siloed approach to social media:With increasing volumes and complexity in customer support issues, a silo based team often becomes a hassled approach with an additional cost. For instance, brands create a dedicated group to manage their social media accounts, typically under their marketing team. These groups are great at managing your brand on Facebook and Twitter. But are they also skilled in handling one-on-one customer engagements, sales opportunities, and customer complaints? Perhaps not.This is why it’s best to have these teams work alongside other customer service groups.Make sure your customer complaint resolution groups are well-integrated across all engagement channels with only the front-line engagement teams kept separate, if required.

So think closely about how you’ve been handling your social media accounts – do you feel you’ve made some the mistakes we talked about here? Can you think of instances where a customer has been left frustrated after an interaction with your brand through a social media channel?

If yes, perhaps it’s time to do things differently.

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Why Customer Experience Can Make or Break You

    Imagine a day in the life of a consumer (me):

I walk into a store to buy a gadget from Brand A. I notice that Brand B has a gadget with similar features on sale, at a significantly lower price. As a customer, I realize Brand B “is good enough” it gives me what I want at a lower price, and I decide buy that instead. There is no possible reason that I would stick to Brand A.

Or is there?

If this were the case in every potential buying scenario, what accounts for customer brand loyalty and translated into ground breaking sales for companies like Zappos, FedEx and Apple? Apple certainly doesn’t give you the cheapest products, and the competition might outperform FedEx.

The answer is simple: A Game changing Customer experience.

There exist a handful of companies in the market that understand the importance of giving their customers an experience few others can claim to match. Let’s look at Zappos shoes. One of their core values is ‘to provide the best customer service possible’. This covers a 365-day period within which shoes ordered on their site can be returned and replaced. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg –their customer service executives often go beyond the scope of regular customer service to satisfy a customer. Zappos got what they wanted and are one of the world’s top companies in customer service. And they certainly didn’t achieve this magically… they followed one simple principle: give your customers more than they expect.

As Jim Hays (Innovator Integrators) says: “There should be no surprises unless they are surprisingly delightful”

With today’s cut-throat competition, constant price fluctuations and more products out by the hour, what “extra something” helps your organization stand out to your customers? Companies like Apple bank on constant innovation. But it’s impossible for every company to function like that. Most, in fact, end up being incremental improvers – tweaking their product when an upgraded feature has been released in the market, and ensuring that the price point stays on the same level as the competitions’. This incremental improvement sees everyone running a race at the same pace.

The truth is, to customers everywhere, the impression of a company and memory of a previous experience, good or bad, influences decisions above and beyond day-to-day discounts and deals. In a consumer research conducted worldwide, over half the respondents said they were willing to switch brands or companies just to get better customer service. Adding to that, 9 out of 10 customers said they would probably be repeat customers if they had a good experience with a company[1].

Any company can hardly afford to ignore those figures. Your organization can capitalize on these numbers and work towards giving your customer a better experience. But before we get there, let’s answer a few basic questions and see what your company is doing right (or not):

• Are you, as an organization, making an effort to reach out to the customer, proactively, and not just on issues, but in ways they have never expected?
• Are you engaging the customer, instead of bombarding them with mainly one-way communication (like advertisements)?
• Do you and your employees genuinely understand the “outcome” your customer wants from your product or service, and know what things can create negative moments of truth along the journey to that outcome?

If your answer for all the above is ‘no’, then look out for my next posts for an idea of how your organization can improve your customers’ experience.

[1] 2011 Global Customer Service Barometer, American Express

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Achieving Sustainable Competitive Product Differentiation

      It’s an incredibly competitive world and you need to keep your product visible with smart, sustainable tactics. How do you stay relevant and differentiate your product from the hundreds of others currently in the market?

Here are a couple of well-worn tactics that companies have been using for years:

• Competitive pricing strategies:Why this works:Your consumer is constantly looking for a better product at a lower price. Who would say ‘no’ to buying a tablet PC for $750, marked down from $800? Certainly not me. Product companies are at war with each other daily to see who is priced better, and with more features.
  Why this doesn’t work: Pricing is a dynamic factor that needs to be changed on a daily basis to keep up with the competition. Every day there is a new player in the field, with better features at a lower price. Try to undercut your competitors on a daily basis, and you might just end up losing out on a significant amount of earnings.

• Constant innovation:Why this works:Everyone loves a good idea and a better product. That’s how companies like Apple survive, despite pricing their products above the competitions’. As a consumer, don’t you always want the most updated and technology-forward gadgets?
  Why this doesn’t work: If great ideas were that easy to come by, every company would be at the top of its game. Although there are companies that innovate continuously, most companies tend to be incremental improvers – fixing a glitch, removing cost, upgrading features, and keeping pace with the market. Besides, sometimes existing products can be exactly what the customer wants, but because of lack of information, or bad or indifferent customer service, they back out of the buy.

However there are newer strategies entering the market to drive sustainable differentiation, the most impactful is:

1. A 100 per cent focus on the customer’s requirement:Companies have begun to realise that brand loyalty is becoming a thing of the past if the focus is just on product and price. Delighting customers in surprising ways at every moment of truth via new business models and engagement models is essential.
   Although tried and tested tactics never fail to generate results, loyal customers now expect every experience to be well-rounded and focused on solving their problem, want or need. In today’s world, nobody has the time to waste on advice they don’t want. Deflecting a customer with something they don’t want right from the minute they walk in will annoy them sufficiently for them to walk off. Generic offers, or “solutions” won’t bring the customer back to buy again.
2. The extra step, and extra smile, in customer service:Peter Fader, professor of marketing at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative says “We have a ‘customer is king’ mentality, and we have come to expect world-class treatment.”
   Customers want to be sold products by company representatives who know what they are talking about. The fact is that customers are probably more educated on your products and services before they even approach you to buy – the profiliation of information on the web and social media. Thus the buying behaviour and the skills required of your sales and marketing team must be radically different now. They must be outcomed based. You need to help the customer buy..not sell.
   From a service perspective the requirement is simple, you must shift from reactive to proactive. Or where impossible to be proactive react in surprising ways.Keeping up with social media:Your customer does, and will follow you online. At the very least, they’re going to want to peek at your online presence. Interesting online games, quizzes, product knowledge and questionnaires are a few ways of reaching out to them and keep them engaged from the start. Social media can result in you losing business without even knowing it. Consumers today simple ask the world wide web’s opinion (via social networks) whether they should buy from your company or not. There is no shortage of opinions that are provided in response. What’s the sentiment of your company on the web, and how are you engaging in these discussions ?

Although this might seem like a tall order, don’t despair because there are organizations that manage to pull it off and so can you! Companies like Southwest Airlines, whose airline crew goes above regular service and instigates impromptu airport games and activities when flights are delayed. Or some hotel chains belonging to Hilton, where warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies are supplied to customers regularly .In the next blog we’ll explore the steps you can take to transform your company into a uniquely differentiated custmer centric organisation

How many of the above is your organization following?

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www.aegisglobal.com/blog/

http://www.facebook.com/aegisglobal
 http://twitter.com/aegisonline
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http://www.aegisblogs.com

CSR and Value – Making the Connection

     When enterprises around the world realize they are at the receiving end of environmentalists’ wrath, they immediately took up random social projects to allay their reputations.Negligible visibility into the real value of these well-meaning ventures means they often fail without any tangible benefits to the environment or the organization. Because of this, social projects and value were often perceived to be on two ends of a spectrum.

The fact that there is still no defined goal and methodology for social responsibilities makes the situation a little more complicated. However, it is commonly agreed upon that the result of any corporate social activity is expected to create positive value for the organization, environment, and society at large. This can only be done if companies go more in-depth into this functionality, along their culture, business strategy and underlining thought to take up initiatives that are more than just PR fluff.

The companies which understand this are the ones that go extra mile toinnovate and customize their socialpractice.They realize that CSR is a tool for the organizations to generate the following:

• Value creation through operational and humanitarian excellence.
• Value integration through risk management and skill sharing for community development
• Value redistribution by creating new business opportunities, enhancing shareholder value and creating livelihood opportunities

And the benefits of these are quite tangible. All this clearly leads to innovation of business operations, sustainable and shareholder value creation. It also includes the societal factors in an effort to address long-term positive impact over short-term systems that may be detrimental to the environment. Through this, there is an economic growth of the business including the socio-economic factors. And last, but not least, organizations can increase their connectivity through partnerships and associations.

Corporate Social Responsibilities provides value to organizations, society and ecosystems through 3 different aspects of value:

1. Value Creation
2. Value Integration
3. Value Redistribution

1.   Value Creation:

Organizations can co-create value with customers to meet and exceed customer expectations. By includingcustomer thoughts, organizations are providing them with superior value through a delivery platform that is both customized and innovative.For example, in 2008, Walmart ran an ad campaign designed to raise awareness about the environment and the eco-friendly product choices consumers could make. This worked out to be beneficial for both consumers, who were on the brink of wholeheartedly embracing environmentalism, and for Walmart, who could push sales of their more environment friendly products.Engagements like thislead to economic growth for both the clients and organization itself. At Aegis we co-create value with our customers and provide them superior value through our global delivery platform and a class of service that is customized and innovative to meet and exceed their expectations.

 2.   Value Integration

Value integration helps provide value for the clients, the organization and the environment. It helps in tapping untapped markets and building partnerships along the way – providing inclusive progress for the business and for people within and outside of the organization.Therefore the profit is second-handed for business expansion leading to diversification into different sectors of industry, solutions and geographies.

3.   Value Redistribution

Redistribution of value mainly addressesthe human supply chain through diversity inclusion. Inclusive progress leads to improvements in employee retention, performance and further business expansion. It sensitizes employees to other cultures and backgrounds of the society therefore transforming the outlook of people within, to co-create for the society.

To extend support beyond employee and to the larger society, Aegis launched its Sustainability and Diversity & Inclusion framework.

Organizations are obviously seeing the benefits of the value gained by Sustainability and Diversity initiatives.When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett visited India in 2011 to popularize their “Giving Pledge”, they propagated that the effort was not CSR, but rather, CSC –a corporate social ‘Compulsion’.

So, it is a necessity for organization to put proper practices into place. However, as an enterprise dedicated to providing both employees and customers with good experiences, leaders need to take into account the real value being generated. With intelligent research and actions, organization could view drastic improvements to their internal functioning and external environment.

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