ExperienceCurve by Karl Long

When I say Brand Integrity, I’m not talking about some kind of altruistic mission, I mean every customer experience with your company should “ring true”, it should be expected, it should not be unexpected (unless of course surprise is part of your core value proposition). Integrity in the customer experience means, things look like they should, sound like they should, feel like they should, and behave like they should. See Power of Product integrity by HBS for some examples from the car industry

Here’s a great example of how letting some vehicle maintenance slide can influence the opinion of a brand:

Many people will say, you can’t manage everything, the idea that the execs in charge of branding for Crystal Springs can’t be blamed for an unmaintained delivery vehicle. But they can be blamed for every employee knowing that “clean and pure” are core aspects of the company and every aspect of the company should signal that. Maintaining brand integrity is as much about making sure every employee knows what is important or “what not to fuck up” as it is about advertising and promotion.

This is somewhat similar to my experience with a comcast DVR that has an unbelievably frustrating bug, that on certain recordings it forgets how to fast forward, and skips backwards to the beginning of the program, and I can do nothing but watch the same 15 minutes again and then sit through all the commercials.

Brand is a Promise that the Customer Experience Fulfills

Your brand is a promise, a promise of predictable future action or state, if I give you money you will perform this service, if I give you money I will feel a certain way. All customers have a quite deep down need to “trust” a company, and in the end trust is about predicting behavior. Trust is so important to us, it is essentially run by our subconscious, and we come to conclusions extremely quickly as to whether we trust someone or something. In a previous article web users judge sites in the blink of an eye, I highlighted how web users formed an opinion about a we site within 50 milliseconds, that’s like one frame of a TV show.

So trust is built initially through visual cues, because of human gut reaction “he/she/they look trustworthy” this is why branding tends to be a very visual process focusing on logo, design, look and feel, colors, all communicating something we can trust. That coke will be the real thing, that the bank won’t lose our money, that the software manufacturer will help us reach a new level of self actualization through creativity.

Courtesy of ploom.com/probe/ - Thoughtful Observations on Communication Design

Trust may initially be built through visual cues, but we humans then look to behavioral cues, is the behavior we predicted through visual cues actually taking place? In other-words the best way to predict future behavior is to observe current behavior. This is why marketers are always to focused on “getting to trial”, because that’s when the promise will be fulfilled, through the customer experience.

Four Aspects of Brand & Customer Experience

The way a customer experiences brands can be broken down into 4 different perspectives (talked about previously on Brand Behavior:

• Product - Much attention paid to this aspect of the brand, product management, package design, logos
• Communication - Another favorite of FMCG branding/marketing, you see this at the point of sale, the advertisements, collateral materials, brochures, logos
• Environment - Not quite paid as much attention by traditional marketers, some standouts include Starbucks, Apple Retail Stores, Casino Designers, Virgin, British Airways, some Supermarkets
• Behavior - the most overlooked aspect of how customers experience a brand, behavior of people, interactive systems, the crystal springs truck

Overlooking “Behavior” as a core aspect of the Brand and Customer Experience, is a hangover from FMCG marketing, behavior of people and things didn’t matter much when you were trying to differentiate cereal on a shelf, and that is still a worthy task, but in our increasingly service based and experience based economy, can companies afford not to focus on all the aspects of the customer experience?

Bite Size Customer Experience Management - Customer Experience Blueprint

Customer Experience Management seems to be such an enormous task, that many companies just ignore it because so many stake-holders own so many aspects of the customer experience, and the last thing we need is another Chief Anything officer. That’s why I added the byline “don’t fuck this up”, instead of trying to manage the entire customer experience, try figuring out what just one or two things that your company should be “trusted” with. This is different for every company, black smoke pouring out the back of a UPS truck is not going to undermine the brand, as much as it did for Crystal Springs. Once you figure out the one or two things your company should be “trusted” for, map out the customer life-cycle and all their interactions, from being a prospect to being a repeat customer. For every point in that customer life-cycle, note what the customer is going to experience or interact with from the standpoint of product, communication, environment, and behavior, and at that point you need to make an evaluation, is this supporting the key things we should be “trusted” with? Some categories of things to look for when evaluating the customer experience are:

• Product - Package Design, Placement, Logo (from a process standpoint: Finding It, Buying It, Opening It, Using It, Getting Support)
• Communication - Instructions, Brochures, Uniforms, Signage, Packaging, Presentations, Sales Collateral, Interactive Tools, emails, Templates
• Behavior - Phone Scripts, Interactive Tools (including IVR), Sales People, Delivery People, Vehicles
• Environment - Signage, Space, Interaction (I really need an architect to help me out here)

Related Articles and Resources:

ecommerce | Trust & Trustworthiness

The Stanford Web credibility Research Center

The Hierarchy of Customer Experience - Design Management Review

An excellent report that was a joint research effort between Sapient and Cheskin was is available called the “eCommerce Trust Study” from ‘99, I have a PDF of this but am reluctant to put it on my site. Email me if you would like a copy and i’ll forward it to you. . You should also check out the excellentblog from the good folks at Cheskin.

Mary Jo Bitners Book “Service Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm” has one of the best examples of “service blueprinting”, which is what my Customer Experience Blueprint is based on.