branding

The power of one

or ‘How One Person Can Make or Break a Brand.’

So how does a company make or break its brand? This was the thought that preoccupied me following a recent encounter with my company’s primary bank.

Public relations and branding are often (or at least it seems) seen as silver bullets in the quest for the perfect customer experience.

I’ve heard various forms of these arguments - from the ‘If you make it something that they aspire to they’ll want it;’ to ‘Association is key and then you get the media to write about it;’ and of course the other extreme of ‘Advertise enough about the brand and we’ll get those customers flocking to us!‘

Of course I’m exaggerating a little in the examples above, but the bottom-line is that many of my clients and indeed many businesses and brands out there today, imagine that a great brand takes nothing more then making sure the fundamentals of brand-building and public relations are executed well.

What we sometimes forget is that fundamentals of a brand include each and every member of the team.

That’s right - everyone in the company from the janitor to the CEO is a brand ambassador. And there are few things that can dismantle if not totally undo a radical, well executed and effective public relations or branding campaign quite so fast as a bad employee, or one with a bad attitude.

So, back to the story.

This bank - which prides itself on being global and thinking local - had a great reputation. Nice offices. Friendly folk … but absolutely crashed and burned on customer service when it came time to deliver.

I had at that point been looking for a bank to do business with for Arcis Communications, and having been recommended by an adviser of mine approached this bank - lets call it H.

So here I am, sitting at H’s office and wading my way through a ream of forms. A friendly customer care consultant was of course on hand to help me - problem was that I knew more about their systems then she did! This included what forms were required, what forms were not required and what could and could not be done for a business like mine by H.

Now the part that stung me the most was that this bank in particular charged more for their service fees then many of their competitors - a point they insisted was due to the premium services, peace of mind and ease of doing business that they offered.

So I get past the submission process.

Which wasn’t the end of the nightmare. What was supposed to be a simple 7 day process of getting an account and having my new cheque books couriered to me dragged on for weeks.

No concrete answers. The customer care consultant started dodging calls and was flippant to the point of being rude when queried on the delay. Constant requests for the wrong documents - which added to my costs and wasted even more of both mine and my team’s time. Delays in getting the cheque book - which H subsequently lost in transit - which resulted in my own suppliers experiencing delays in their payment.

You can understand the frustration that finally saw me approaching the bank with letters of termination for the new account as well as my personal accounts with the bank in question.

In addition to that, I had spoken to the person who recommended the bank to me and several of my associates and they were considering pulling their business out of the bank as well - both personally and professionally. The potential of an account error of this magnitude happening to them was too real.

It was at this point - where I had abandoned all pretenses of believing their explanations, suggestions and requests - that the customer services manager from the front office of the bank and the bank’s branch manager stepped in.

Working with us, the manager personally assured me that the issues would be resolved within 48 hours. In the meantime she had worked with the customer relations manager to allow for all my suppliers to be paid without the need for a cheque.

Now this point was significant as H was known for its security and adherence to policy - which made such a transaction virtually impossible.

Less then 12 hours later I received a call from the manager, the issues were resolved and our cheque books arrived the next day. What’s more, I was asked to write down what had happened so that they could ensure that it did not happen to anyone else (to the best of their abilities) and also provided with access to the manager to ensure that I had no more challenges from them.

To make a long story shorter, I’m still a customer of the bank.

The fact that they took the time to address what to them was a very small account - they had no idea of the other associates that I had or the other businesses housed there - made an impression on me.

What really worked was that among other things:

1. They admitted their mistakes
2. They made no further excuses
3. Senior members of their team - in this case the bank’s branch manager and then its front office customer relations manager - took the time to quickly and effectively solve my problems
4. They followed up for several weeks after that to make sure everything was alright

I’m recommending them to other businesses today. They’re not perfect but at least they’re doing more than just advertising how good they are.

They’re walking the talk … at least one of them. And that’s all it took.

So, what examples do you have of how just one person made an impact on how you viewed a brand or company - for the better or worse?

© 2008 Journeys Through The Line.