Therefore it’s not surprising that a lot of buzz in the branding world is focused on the customer experience.

Forrester, a leading independent research firm, recently polled over 7,700 US consumers about how they feel about their experience with 154 leading North American consumer brands.  They asked these three core questions:

1.       How enjoyable were they to do business with?

2.       How easy were they to do business with?

3.       How well did they meet your needs?

Based on their responses, Forrester calculated Customer Experience Index (CxPi) scores.   The report showed that only about one-third of brands earned “excellent” or “good” CxPi scores and the rest ranged from “okay” to “very poor.” Retailers and hotels continue to be the two highest-ranking industries, while health insurance plans, TV service providers, and Internet service providers (ISPs) continue to be ranked lowest. Forrester recommends that companies:

1.       Define a clear customer experience strategy

2.       Focus on activities and processes that differentiate

3.       Build a customer-centric culture

4.       Define metrics that will help them track progress all year long

While I agree with these recommendations, I think the order needs to be changed and the #1 approach needs to be “building a customer-centric culture.”  Spending time and resources on building a culture where your employees live and deliver the brand is the most efficient and effective way to ensure a cohesive brand experience for the customer.  Brand behavior cannot and should not be forced – it needs to be interpreted.  The parameters of the customer experience should be defined based on a set of core principles that the brand stands for and employees need to be hired based on their ability to live these principles.  The principles need to be true and authentic because if employees don’t believe it, they will not deliver it, and ultimately customers will not experience it.

So ….to help boost your Customer Experience Index, step back and ensure that you are linking what you say with what you do.  And if you are not, dust off those guiding principle/values, etc. and see if you are being true to who you say you are.

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Our marching orders:

• Create a personal connection with every employee.  The more an employee feels connected and cared for by their leader, the more likely they are to carry out the leader’s intent.  Use every interaction to reinforce your message.
• Choose action over perfection.  Waiting too long to be certain you have the right plan can threaten your ability to beat the competition.  Sometimes, “the worst decision is no decision.”
• Be sure you consistently communicate the importance of achievement of organizational interests, above individual interests.  Be sure to lead in a way that rewards team behavior, not individual success at the expense of the whole.
• Does your team know the strategic intent of each initiative they’re tasked with?  For best results, ensure the team knows the ultimate goal and is allowed the freedom to develop the solution based on their own experience, knowledge and current context.

A special thank you to our new friend, Jack McGuinness, from Relationship Impact who sent along today’s article.

bit.ly/hrjn7b

And a big THANK YOU to all of those featured in Apple’s Think Different campaign, including the great Martin Luther King, who have dared to change the world!  (Also, keep an eye out for our favorite brand leader…Sir Richard Branson…as he dangles above the crowds by a Virgin billboard.)

…Richard Branson. What a ROCKSTAR!

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That is all.

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Making it work for us:

• We all need to find ways to inspire and motivate the top performers in our workplace. Doing so will allow them to use their great minds to further the company’s inspired purpose and embody the corporate values.
• Highly engaged employees stay for what they can give. Disengaged employees stay for what they can get. Which would you rather have supporting you?
• Delivering on promises drives customer satisfaction, and our employees are the faces of our promises. Engagement and empowerment from the inside out is imperative for the success of our company!

How will you make it work for you?

http://bit.ly/g5hwBN

Here’s what we think:

• Every organization should strive to deliver a higher purpose end-result – one where value is not driven by profit, but about personal, everyday fulfillment.
• If you are inspired by your work and what it stands for, you will be inspired to go above and beyond what is expected of you.
• Historically, companies that have made it a priority to make meaningful connections have enjoyed decades of prosperity.
• The millennial generation will continue to demand creative and authentic energies from their workplace. While it may seem idealistic to some,  we think that they are ensuring sustained success for their future and their business’ future.

What did you take away from this article?

Check out this Washington Post article about how Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, helps his employees set hard goals for themselves, and how this has helped his company grown and profit in different ways. http://wapo.st/gH3eWE

Here’s what we took away:

• This year, challenge your employees to generate hard goals for themselves that reinforce your company’s Inspired Purpose and Guiding Principles. Then, help them realize those goals.
• By creating a culture of high achievers, you will achieve more than you would have ever thought possible.
• If you believe your employees are your greatest asset (and aren’t they?), this is a way for you to bring creative and inspired thinking into your workplace. And maybe, someday, you’ll get to your moon!

What do you think?

Always a student of the link between organizational culture and brand, that day I noticed several conscious cultural norms that reinforced the brand of the Marines.

Nomenclature—The Marines are very careful about their word choice.  I never heard a Marine use a pronoun when referring to another Marine.  For example, instead of saying, “he went into combat,” they would say, “That Marine went into combat.”  We were also told that as opposed to other branches of the service that truncate ranks (ie., staff sergeant and sergeant first class would both be called “sergeant” in every-day talk), Marines always use the full rank because it acknowledges that they have earned each promotion.

Training  & Giving Up a Sense of Self– Each Marine goes through 10 months of intense training before they are ready to perform their job.  Training is as intellectual as it is physical, and Marines say it is a transformation that cannot be undone.  Once made, a Marine will forever live by the ethics and values of the Corps.  There is no such thing as an ex-Marine.

I also learned that unlike other services, you join the Marines to be “A Marine.”  You don’t get to say what duties you want to perform…you’re just chosen to do what the Marines need you to do.

Elitism – The Marines’ numbers are limited to 202,000 troops.  They’re the smallest branch of the service and they like it that way.  It’s hard to get into the Marines.  In fact, during the Vietnam War, the Marines were the only branch that did not participate in the draft.  If you need further proof of the sense of elitism in the Marines, let’s review their motto:  The Few, The Proud, The Marines.

If these traits seem familiar to you, it’s because in Jim Collin’s Built to Last, he writes that companies with sustained business success have a “cult-like culture” and points to several attributes of winning cultures:  training, elitism, nomenclature.  (And after a quick look on Collin’s website, I found he has done consulting for the Marines…how about that?)

But it isn’t just the fact that the Marines have a strong culture that makes them a strong organization.  It’s the LINK between the culture and the brand that has created the aura surrounding the Marines.  It’s the sum of the recruiting advertisements, the news stories of courage, and people’s individual experiences with Marines that build the brand.  If, when I had spent the day with Marines, I hadn’t felt “honor, courage and commitment” from each one of the Marines, there would’ve been a  disconnect from what I expected.  But I was thrilled to interact with men and women who were living examples of the ads I’ve seen on T.V.

Semper Fi!

With respect to the LeBron James brand, its evolution over the next few years will be interesting. His entire platform was built on the notion of him being the “King” of not only Cleveland, but the entire NBA. Also, he was extending the idea of his fans as witnesses to his greatness. By fleeing to Miami and leaving Cleveland he could potentially lose the entire premise that his brand has, until now, successfully played upon. The Miami Heat, his new team, already have a bona fide superstar of their own, Dwyane Wade, to which the hearts of the Miami fans already belong. James must be weary not to contract the “A-Rod syndrome”. (Although Alex Rodriguez is arguably the most talented player in the MLB, he will always play second-fiddle to Derek Jeter, the heartbeat and fan favorite of the New York Yankees. With this under consideration, signing with the Heat presents a perilous situation for James’ previously contrived brand platform of him being the “King” of the league.)

Moreover, LeBron James seems to be attempting to emulate the brand of arguably the most famous professional sports star in American history, Michael Jordan. Jordan’s brand was launched due to his prowess and championship pedigree on the court, being dubbed “His Airness”. With James departing Cleveland without winning a championship to join the superstar triumvirate that has been assembled in Miami, many fans of the Cavaliers, and the NBA as a whole, see this move as an admission by James that he cannot, or does not want, to get the job done being the lead man on a team (as Jordan did six times). This could potentially serve as another blow to LeBron’s brand, being as the Jordan brand he is attempting to emulate was fundamentally built around Jordan’s transcendent ability to achieve at the highest level and perform when it mattered most, something James has been questioned about numerous times.

In short, it seems as if LeBron James’ decision to sign with the Miami Heat pokes several holes in the masterfully-crafted brand that he has worked to build since he entered the league seven years ago. Regardless of how his move to Miami plays out basketball-wise, in terms of winning championships, the lack of congruence between LeBron James’ personal decisions and his brand platform could hurt his global image and brand in the long run. It will be interesting to see how James’ recent move will affect his brand in the years to come.

For the past few months, I’ve been closely following the development of BP’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and, as most of the world, am outraged by the devastation it has caused. But, there’s also a deeper issue that fuels our anger: we feel swindled that we bought into BP’s image of being ecologically and socially responsible.

In 2000, BP unveiled its new green and yellow Helios logo. On its website, the radiating, sun-inspired symbol is compared to “the living, organic form of a sunflower,” and “heat, light and nature.” Compared to the strong, harsh, geometric logos of competing energy companies, BP’s look was fresh and welcoming. It unrolled advertising campaigns with clean sleek graphics that would seemingly lead us into a new age of green living. The content of its website reinforced its brand with heavy focus on its code conduct and core values to work responsibly, support the community and preserve the environment by setting high standards with a commitment to integrity.

BP did a great job of convincing the public of its ethical image for years. Most consumers felt so assured by BP’s marketing that few questioned BP’s operations and practices until the recent Gulf spill even though the facts have been easily accessible on the internet and in the media. In 2009, OSHA issued a record-breaking $87 million in penalties to BP North America for its failures to correct potential employee hazards. Between 2007 and 2010, BP’s oil refineries received 760 citations for “egregiously willful” safety violations while the other 53 refineries received only one such violation. Its latest offense: violation of consumer trust. 

 Branding is about more than looking pretty—it’s the essence of a company’s culture and values. It’s holistic. It’s substance with style. As we Belmonsters love to preach, a key component to successful brand implementation is ensuring that employees and internal practices align with their company’s core principles. As evidenced by BP, a company that does not live its values both internally and externally will eventually manifest its inauthenticity, resulting in loss of consumer confidence and credibility.