Customer Experience Branding

How does one link customer experience to their brands? Well, that’s just another part of branding, isn’t it? While many are still stuck on their website designs, others are taking this branding thing seriously deep and branding each corner of their business to build a truly cohesive brand.

We all know this famous quote by Jeff Bezos: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” And the people who will talk about your brand the most, are your customers. I learned that one happy customer will tell 2 or 3 friends about your brand and your services, but one unsatisfied customer, will tell the whole freaking world about your brand -in the worst way possible. So, yeah, customer experience is a big deal and worth planning (and executing!).

The customer experience is the result of the interaction between a customer and a brand, during a project, service, or other kind of relationship. So, you would think that offering great customer support would be enough to create the best customer experience ever. Well, almost. While great support is absolutely essential  and super valuable, that should be a given! If we’re planning on being “something else”, we need to step up the game. I’m talking branded customer experience, my friend!

Make a difference in your Customer Experience journey through branding

For example, more than exchanging polite emails with your customers, you want your emails to be designed from top to bottom:

• Do you have an email header?
• What about an email footer?
• What is the tone of your email and how does your writing style matches/compliments your brand?
• Did you ever give any thought to what font style and color you’re using in your emails and how it matches your brand?
• Do you have a “branded” opening sentence or word that is present on your business name or tagline? Something that immediately brings brand awareness and connects the customer to your brand’s world?

Yeah… a lot. And that was just about email. And not even everything about it! Now think about phone calls, invoices, newsletters, your blog posts and categories…  There’s a whole world of things that we can brand to make customer experience unique.

The purpose of customer experience branding is to go beyond and to be more. Why not say: to be better!? Being better by showing how much you care. Of course, there is an infinity of things that can be done and is nearly impossible for a solopreneur to get all of them covered at once (if at all).  But it is pretty much like social media: you don’t need all of them, just choose the ones that fit your needs and that you can nail, then tame that beast and make it freaking awesome and irresistible!

Customer experience should start the moment you attract a customer.

Ideally, it would end when your customer becomes your advocate. A basic customer experience funnel, would be:

1. Attract the Customer -that moment someone discovers your brand through Google search, a FB community, Instagram interaction, blog comment section, etc, and goes check you out.
2. Create Awareness – the potential customer is on your website or blog. A seriously good thing, already!
3. Encouraged Discovery – your website/blog layout is beautifully design with visual identity in mind, but also with user experience in mind (so that those call-to-action and conversion steps are well thought out).
4. Official Customer – when that visitor became a customer by purchasing your product or service. Yay!
5. Customer to Advocate – your customer concluded an unique experience that was really great. Now, hopefully, he can’t stop talking about it!

One last thing to consider when talking customer experience is:

What do you want your customers to feel in each step of their interaction with your brand?

• What should they feel when they first arrive in your website or blog?
• What should they feel when first reading the description of your services or products?
• What should they feel while interacting directly with you (customer support, social media convos, etc)?
• Finally, what should they feel when they have concluded the interaction with you and your brand? Confident, happy, satisfied…

New to branding? Listen to Episode 01 to get started with clarity!