In my last blog, I talked about branding things! Things with which your customers interact. “Things” is a little vague; so let’s clarify. Your branded assets include things like your office, trucks, people (uniforms), website.
What about branding your product? What are the stepping stones of branding your service that you’ll be delivering to your customers? This gets really complicated really quickly; so how can we simplify it?
While I’m using the telecommunications industry as the example, the same principles apply by and large to any service or industry. Let’s start with the strategic analysis of the brand.
Step 1: Customer Analysis
Here are the questions to ask yourself:
- What are the current trends in the telecommunications industry?
- What is affecting your business?
We all know some of those major trends: Landline disconnections and streaming TV, for example. But now let’s add motivation questions.
- Which customers are motivated to use cell phones in which parts your geographic footprint?
- What are the unmet needs of your customers?
Brainstorm these questions with your team, and figure out answers relevant to your brand. In the end, you’re shooting for stellar customer service – making each customer happy beyond expectations.
Step 2: Competitor Analysis
What are your strengths compared to all your competitors including these new Internet competitors? What are your answers to the “cell phone problem”? What are the strategies to attack the segments we have previously identified? And last but not least, what are your vulnerabilities?
Examining your vulnerabilities is hard; you have to strip away your bias, take a step back, and look at the big picture. Be honest with yourself. Be objective. Analyze yourself like you would your competitors. Which leads nicely into…
Step 3: Self-Analysis
Granted, it’s not easy to scrutinize your own company and brand. You’re trying to nitpick and turn everything inside-out to find ways to improve on weaker areas, or capitalize on things you know you excel at.
Ask yourself and your customers: What is the current image of the brand? What is the brand’s heritage? What does your product provide? What are its strengths? What doesn’t it do that it could or should?
Final Step: Determine Your Organizational Values
Too often, companies spend all their energy focusing on how to better things for their customers without taking a hard look at how to improve things for the actual company. Your organization’s values will, in large part, determine what you do for your customers and how.
What are the positive attributes of your leader or leadership team? It might be something as simple as: “We always go the extra mile!” or “We’ll make sure the customer is always satisfied.”
Still Not Sure What Organizational Values Look Like?
Here are the Stealth values to give you an idea! We exist to help others, we are passionate about what we believe in, we are perpetual students, we love a good challenge, we like to stretch boundaries and evolve to the next level of everything. We are driven by relationships because relationships drive communication, and good communication drives success — and that’s what we work to achieve.
What about you? When was the last time your company did any of the above? What was the outcome? Drop me a line to let me know.
