How to Build a Customer Service Brand

Accord­ing to cus­tomer ser­vice guru and blog­ger Seth Godin, “A brand is the set of expec­ta­tions, mem­o­ries, sto­ries and rela­tion­ships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s deci­sion to choose one prod­uct or ser­vice over another. If the con­sumer (whether it’s a busi­ness, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a pre­mium, make a selec­tion or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.”

Your com­pany has a prod­uct or ser­vice that has a brand name, a brand iden­tity, a pur­pose, and con­sis­tent visual pres­ence as it relates to sales and mar­ket­ing. And, as Godin men­tions, your prod­uct has brand value, because cus­tomers are pay­ing for it, estab­lish­ing expec­ta­tions around it, and talk­ing about it. The value of the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment has become pow­er­ful and vital over the past dozen years as con­sumers have blos­somed into brand advo­cates based in part on online research and social media com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Just as cus­tomers develop a rela­tion­ship with your prod­uct, they also do with your Cus­tomer Ser­vice Department—a brand in its own right that sets expec­ta­tions and cre­ates mem­o­ries, sto­ries and rela­tion­ships with consumers.

Look­ing at your Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment brand, then, let’s reflect: is your ser­vice brand being rec­og­nized among your indus­try and com­peti­tors? Is it being viewed within the com­pany as vital as it relates to recruit­ing and over­all cor­po­rate brand­ing? Here are four ways to ensure that indeed, your ser­vice brand is a mir­ror of your com­pany mis­sion and brand identity.

When Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (CSRs) are first hired, they are required to attend train­ing before they begin to man the lines and han­dle cus­tomer inquiries. Is com­pany product/ser­vice brand train­ing part of that CSR ori­en­ta­tion? Ser­vice brand train­ing doesn’t mean you solely arm your CSRs with a list of your prod­ucts and/or ser­vices with bul­let lists of the prod­uct ben­e­fits and fea­tures. The ser­vice brand iden­tity is about how the con­sumer con­nects with the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment. So in addi­tion to prod­uct train­ing, CSRs must also be given skills they need to com­mu­ni­cate pos­i­tively and pro­fes­sion­ally with cus­tomers. Prepar­ing your CSRs with cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing to be your company’s first line of brand advo­cates is essen­tial as it relates to suc­cess­ful cus­tomer ser­vice. After com­plet­ing effec­tive train­ing like this, employ­ees will feel good about their accom­plish­ments and cus­tomers will rave about their excel­lent ser­vice. That emo­tional con­nec­tion is between the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment and the customer–an estab­lish­ment of what your ser­vice brand is all about.

In its sim­plest form, the com­pany brand is the spirit—the essence—of your com­pany. With­out good cus­tomer ser­vice, the spirit of the brand is lost. It is that sim­ple. And CSRs are a vital con­nec­tion to deliv­er­ing the spirit of the brand to your cus­tomers. “Sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments to cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and loy­alty rat­ings can be achieved once this con­nec­tion is made, assum­ing that your brand promise is well researched and meets cur­rent cus­tomer needs.” Brand train­ing for the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment should start with the mes­sag­ing they are deliv­er­ing to the customers—is com­pany mes­sag­ing con­sis­tent? Are pro­ce­dures in place that CSRs fol­low when it comes to cus­tomer com­plaints and/or prod­uct and ser­vice issues? Your CSRs are the face and voice of your com­pany. Busi­nesses today real­ize the value these front-line employ­ees bring. Moti­vate your CSRs through train­ing, so they can reflect the spirit of the brand every time they speak to a customer.

Accord­ing to a sur­vey con­ducted by Dimen­sional Research, good, con­sis­tent “cus­tomer ser­vice not only affects rev­enue, but has a long last­ing impact, with cus­tomer ser­vice rank­ing as the No. 1 fac­tor influ­enc­ing how much a con­sumer trusts a com­pany.” The bet­ter the cus­tomer ser­vice pro­vided, the more likely cus­tomers will share the expe­ri­ence with their friends. And as your rep­u­ta­tion for ser­vice builds, you have more to brag about in the media which will in turn, pro­vide more cov­er­age and attract more prospec­tive customers.

Exter­nal Cus­tomer Ser­vice brand recog­ni­tion has been estab­lished: cus­tomers and your indus­try are buzzing about the out­stand­ing ser­vice your com­pany pro­vides. So what about inter­nal depart­men­tal brand recog­ni­tion? A com­mon level of respect is cre­ated as acco­lades come in, and the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment con­tin­u­ally gets rec­og­nized for its excel­lent ser­vice.

A strong rep­u­ta­tion helps HR recruit for the Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment. Strong can­di­dates strive to work for suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies that have a pos­i­tive brand iden­tity and com­pany rep­u­ta­tion. Accord­ing to Dan Purvis, Direc­tor of Pub­lic Rela­tions at The Melt­wa­ter Group (see pg 12 of attach­ment), “can­di­date attrac­tion relies on hav­ing a cred­i­ble, attrac­tive brand, and you don’t want any­thing get­ting in the way of that.”

Now that you have the tools to set your Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment goals, cre­ate industry-wide recog­ni­tion, and estab­lish an inter­nal com­pany rep­u­ta­tion, you can put all these tips into motion. Now you can cre­ate a Cus­tomer Ser­vice Brand that stands for pride, rep­re­sents the sat­is­fac­tion of all cus­tomers, and sets the stan­dard for all Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ments to follow!