Promises Made Must be Kept

Brand Promise. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But what does it really mean to make and support these statements, and what is the cost of less-than-perfect delivery? In truth, achieving the outcomes that delivering on this can accomplish requires near-flawless execution in making, delivering, keeping, and reinforcing the brand promise.

While appropriately positioning the organization and the development of a branding and messaging platform are critical first steps, there must also be steadfast, across-the-board organizational commitment to developing and implementing the structure, systems, and staffing needed to effectively deliver on the promise.

Our experience shows us that the benefits of making and keeping a brand promise are well worth it. Here’s a quick primer on our point-of-view:

Defining (and Making) the Promise. Your promise needs to be relevant, compelling, believable and achievable – and supported by the values that drive your organization – to make a deep connection with your target audiences. To define it, you must understand your organization, your customers and your competition.

Delivering the Promise. The responsibility for delivering the promise message falls primarily on the sales and marketing team, while management and employees in the field deliver on the elements of the promise on a daily basis.

Keeping the Promise. Your success hinges on the competency and commitment of line staff, IT, call center, outsourced vendors, etc. to deliver on the promise at each Touchpoint. So much of your relationship with customers, and of your ability to keep your promises to them, will depend on the precise coordination and structure of your systems and staff. Leverage the processes, procedures and systems needed to effectively communicate with each other, and your customers will experience the positive results.

Feedback: Have we kept our promise? The only way to know that you are making, delivering, and keeping the right promises is to continually get feedback from your customers. Utilizing Customer Listening Tools – including those in MCorp’s Customer Experience Mapping toolkit – can be qualitative, or it can be a formal, quantitative process for measuring gaps between customer satisfaction, attitudes, and needs. Finally, processes must be in place for easily and systematically collecting, reviewing, and acting upon this feedback.

Those organizations that successfully connect with customers and deliver on a relevant promise reap huge, quantifiable benefits in areas such as retention, loyalty, customer NPV (“Net Present Value”) and LCV (“Lifetime Customer Value”). The flip side for those organizations which promise one thing and deliver an experience that just doesn’t match up is the cynicism, increased churn, and reduced loyalty and satisfaction which can negatively affect relationships with both internal (employees) and external (customers, analysts, partners, etc.) audiences.

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© 2009 Michael Hinshaw and MCorp Consulting. All rights reserved. This article was originally posted on Touchpoint Insights, the MCorp Consulting blog. Touchpoint Mapping®, Brand Mapping^SM and Loyalty Mapping®  are registered trademarks of MCorp Consulting.