Consistent with the model Brand Customer Experience

Consistency between a company's brand and model of delivery of operational services is crucial in the search for extraordinary customer experiences. Consistency is a critical element in the successful design of any business operating model for the provision of services.

Two simple examples of "coherence" can clarify this.

A luxury travel agency advertises itself as an expert to identify the "best fit" between your desires and vacation properties worldwide. Yet, when consumers ask specific details associated with a hotel (ie, how convenient is the hotel with the Guggenheim in Bilbao?) It quickly becomes clear that the service representatives are not skilled enough, nor sufficiently familiar with the destinations of travel support a high-end clientele. There is a clear discrepancy between the identity coherence "luxury" brand and the experience or the training of service representatives.

In another case, a large credit card company advertises its world-class service. However, billing disputes can not be resolved by phone or web, which require written correspondence with the support of evidence collected by the consumer by the merchant. Truly world class companies handle such requests by phone and to intercede on behalf of the client with the merchants, requiring the trader to provide the test, rather than the consumer. As the bar for the service is already set very high, a new competitor trying to attract high-end consumer must match or exceed competitors' offerings. Promising high-end, so no delivery, has a deleterious impact on loyalty rather than set low expectations and consistently meet a clear standard.

Consistency encourages self-selection among potential customers, increasing the likelihood that investments in advertising, marketing and sales payoff in revenue growth. A strong brand identity clearly reduces the cost of goods sold, driving the large pool of potential customers who are difficult to convert into paying customers.

A clear brand identity that is married to a coherent strategy also establishes a level of service expectations that can dramatically decrease the number and intensity of customer complaints, thereby reducing the cost of exception handling tremendously. Consumers who know how to shop in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart will have lower expectations than the fashionistas fanatics to clean and polish the second Manolo Blahnik at Century 21. Sure, they're only paying $ 250 to $ 725 Pumps watersnake Tuccio, but they want perfection in that band slipped off.

The lack of consistency can occur in relatively subtle ways, but these discontinuities is collected from consumers, consciously and unconsciously, creating a faint unease or discomfort which reduces the propensity of the customer for repeat business. Deviations from standards of honest customers create, at least, excessive marketing costs, to the extreme, this lack of repeat business translates into negative word-of-mouth and the final collapse of the business. Restaurants, bars and discos are the classic canaries in the coal mine for this phenomenon. Without a solid core of repeat business (or very high, without repeating the tourist traffic), a restaurant without this word of mouth can not generate enough traffic through advertising alone to remain open.

Consumers compartments easily their expectations and are very comfortable moving their requests as they enter different expectations paintings. Parents can eat at The Fat Duck in Bray (selected best restaurant in the world in 2005) a night and take the family to Outback Steakhouse the next night, still displaying both of those experiences as diverse as entirely satisfactory. The consumer can drive the Maserati Quattroporte in Central Park for a hotdog $ 2 and receives no dissonance, because their expectations are bifurcated properly. Travelers can easily be in the Taj, New Delhi, and the field one night under the stars in the upcoming Rajasthan. Consumers are not, generally, to ask the ultimate in luxury and refinement of all experience are simply asking that every experience fit within an appropriate framework of expectations.

A company's brand identity is one of the most powerful ways in which this framework set of expectations. The service environment of the support of the mark is another critical factor. If the brand identity is diffused or dissonant, and service standards are not aligned, then the consumer is not able to establish a framework of expectations that fits and does not establish a pattern of conduct "good faith" on this company . Repeat business is diminished and the consumer does not provide positive feedback on the word-of-mouth buzz that is so important to long-term revenue growth.

By establishing consistency between the identity of the brand and model of service delivery companies can begin to define a strategy that will lead to extraordinary customer experiences.

, Lotus Pond Media ......