Aligning the Customer Experience With Your Brand Promise

Aligning your company’s customer experience with your brand promise is vital in creating customer loyalty. Your brand promise sets customer expectations, and the experience you deliver determines if you’ll meet—or fail to meet—those expectations.

As an example, imagine a company claiming "speedy service" (they even put in their company’s name) but they consistently delivering slow responses. This disconnect KILLS customer trust. And as I say all the time, trust is everything when it comes to customer loyalty. Or a company that boasts Class A office space posts a sign like this that communicates anything but Class A. On the flip side, brands like Disney thrive because their experiences—meticulously clean parks and attentive staff—mirror their promise of magic (most of the time). One day or same day delivery mirrors Amazon’s brand promise of being the world’s most customer-centric company. And Ace Hardware’s brand promise of having helpful hardware folks is mirrored in the fact that their staff really is amazingly helpful and knowledgeable. So it should be no shock that these brands are trusted by their legions of fans.

So Here Are Five Actions you can take to Align the Customer Experience with Your company’s Brand Promise

1. Define Your Brand Promise Clearly
   What do you want customers to feel and say about you? What would you want a customer to tell someone else about their experience with your company no matter how they interacted with you? Be as specific as you can because this clarity can guide pretty much whatever happens your company.
2. Design Experiences Through the Customer’s Lens
   Make it about them, not you. One of my favorite examples is buying a product from the Apple store. Before the team member helps you set up your iPhone, or iPad or whatever you’re buying, they have YOU unbox the product as part of the experience. The packaging itself is well thought out to enhance the experience. Another example of designing the customer experience through the lens of the customer is Zappos. They know that their customers want to feel no stress in buying the right pair of shoes. So they’ve become known for effortless returns. They understand their customer’s lens.
3. Pay Attention to the Details
   Every detail speaks. From a clean lobby to a user-friendly website, align every detail with your promise. If, for example, your business is all about creativity, make sure that every detail at every touchpoint communicates creativity.
4. Empower and Train Employees
   Your frontline employees are your brand ambassadors. Equip them with training and authority to make decisions that uphold your brand. If a restaurant, for example, prides itself on creating delightful dining experiences, employees should be empowered to immediately replace a dish that a customer’s unhappy with, and maybe offer a drink or a dessert on the house. No permission necessary.
5. Hold Everyone Accountable for Delivering on the Brand Promise
   Reinforce brand expectations through coaching, feedback, and celebrating success. If you let mediocrity slide, you risk eroding your brand. ANYTHING that compromises your brand compromises customer trust.

So, there you have it. Five actions you can take to align the customer experience with your company’s brand promise. When your company does this well and you do it consistently, customers don’t just buy your product—they buy into your brand. And that kind of loyalty is what we’re all looking for.