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Article
The Operations Behind the Brand
By
Ben DiSylvester
Executive Director
By
Rod Travers
Executive Vice President The days of marketing and operations
co-existing in a contentious relationship have gone the way of
payphones and paper applications. This sea change in the industry is
occurring because young adults (that is, today's new customers)
demand it. This means that organizations must adjust to a new
reality or risk watching their top-line revenues shrink.
In line with this thinking are the concepts described in Jonathan
Baskin’s Branding Only Works on Cattle. Baskin makes the case
that buyer behaviors are paramount, and those behaviors are greatly
influenced by the buyer’s experience during the pre-sale interaction
(“Should I buy from this company?”) and post-sale delivery (“Should
I remain a customer of this company?”).
Here are five essential elements that organizations must have to
achieve this singularity of purpose between marketing and
operations:
- Understand the path customers follow to purchase your
products and services, supported by a visual roadmap of the
customer’s journey through your organization.
- Identify the most influential interactions in the customer’s
journey. Ensure that business structures and processes are
designed to deliver the highest level of quality and service at
those critical points.
- Anticipate and plan how your company will respond to the
variability and unpredictability of circumstances so that your
brand is not harmed by unforeseen events.
- Using the Capability Maturity Model concept of 1 (lowest) to
5 (highest) levels of performance, build metrics that measure
gaps between what customers expect and what you are delivering
in these three areas:
 | Brand Communication, ranging from Level 1, “Value
proposition is not clearly communicated,” to Level 5, “All
areas of organization understand the brand message, train to
it, and support their results with measures;” |
| Service Delivery, ranging from Level 1, “Processes are
ad hoc and chaotic, with success dependent on the competence
and heroic efforts of the people in the organization,” to
Level 5, “Continually improves process performance through
incremental, innovative and technological improvements.” |
| Knowledge of Customer Needs, ranging from Level 1,
“Knowledge of needs is based primarily on anecdotal or
second hand information,” to Level 5, “Knowledge of needs
based on ongoing formal data gathering from customers and
analysis of marketing trends." |
Monitor and report on your gaps, by presenting a simple
chart of the levels achieved across the organization for all
three of these areas.
Mind
the Gaps
Although this article focuses on
Marketing and Operations, actually all areas of the organization
must be engaged in delivering on the customer experience. We suggest
building a Linear Responsibility Chart, showing which areas are
responsible for what aspect of the customer experience. This helps
assure that all areas of the company are contributing toward adding
to both the top and bottom line and delivering value. |
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