Emotional Connection

Is customer service a function of the sales department?  Is service delivery under the umbrella of brand?  Who's job is customer service, anyway?  Is there more to it than product returns and delivery problems?  Does the web complicate matters? More chances to serve customers in the information revolution Wikipedia defines customer service as follows: The provision of service before, during and after a purchase. Takeaways:  One - Customers are gathering intel about your brand before you even...

It may be an innocuous-sounding creedo, but in my opinon, Know Thy Customer is likely one of the top three Truths a brand should live by.  I'll talk about the other two Truths I hold dear in the next two posts. I'm what many would call a loyal customer.  In the past eighteen years, I've purchased the same brand of vehicle (with the exception of one transgression in my youth).  Since footing my own rent and buying my own groceries, I've always bought the same brand of butter.  And I only buy one brand...

Consider for a moment some homespun memories from your childhood.  Maybe a fond one is about that vacation to the Grand Canyon, your family traveling in an RV with sounds from an eight-track flowing through tinny speakers and the fights you had with your brother over who got shotgun.  Maybe another includes weeks spent on the beach shore, waking to the sounds of gulls and the briny scent of the ocean.  It all depends on your unique family and where you grew up, I suppose.  Perhaps a memory that...

Master of trivia, I’m not. Nor am I one of those who remembers movie lines – however classic – beyond the epymonyous “Luke, I am your father.” and the less-remembered but fun “Cyrus, this here is your barbecue, and it tastes good.” espoused by honor-bound Nicholas Cage in ConAir. But I digress, for I do have an interesting bit of trivia that’s niggling at the corners of my mind. According to emarketer.com, a full 61% of survey respondents say that they checked online reviews,...

We all know about audience segmentation, profiling, personas. There’s a myriad of methods to categorize targets utilizing metrics that can be captured, assessed, and generalized based on statistical data and probability. Ad nauseam. One advantage of a deep understanding of your audience, of empathizing with their experiences both joyful and sorrowful, anticipating their needs and their receptor points, being sympatico with your customers – is critical insights that state of “oneness”...

I've been giving a lot of thought to branding lately.  More specifically, consumer affinity with brands and the impact the current economic climate might (does) have on their emotional connection, and ultimately, loyalty with brands.  Let's choose the service industry for this academic discussion - banking in particular.I, for one, have had my share of negative experiences with banks.  I've historically chosen big regional banks for their supposed security and progressive attitude toward...