Providing a branded customer experience is obvious in its necessity. Since a customer experience entails the sum of all customer interactions with your company, from awareness (via marketing), to research (and comparison to competition), use of the product or service and finally customer service and support where needed … it’s a big deal to handle it right.
But, what of branded customer experience? This of course is a different issue from providing solid and effective customer experience, but you will find that part of a good, and convenient as well as intuitive customer experience is a big part of providing a solidly branded one.
Nonetheless, let’s talk about what goes into branding your customer experience without being obtuse about it. This is something we need to cover, because a lot of attempts at branding experience results in all pomp and no substance, or some absurd model that’s just not convenient in the long run, and results in utter failure.
So, the first and probably biggest part of branding your customer experience is going to be your marketing approaches as well as your presentation for customer research. So, it is these which we will focus on primarily.
One of the fastest way to brand your experience through marketing in modernity is going to be through social and buzz marketing approaches. The use of social networks like Twitter to produce creative engagement and interaction with customers is a good way to create the first semblance of an identity.
Following this, when the customer goes to conduct research, a website with a distinct appearance and attitude (both in aesthetics and presentation) is going to go a long way to establish a brand with your customer experience as well.
You can further this by engaging the various third party blogs that discuss your company and your product/service and proactively addressing viewers of these blogs via comments and contacts as well. Along with this, a level of honesty with your comparison facilitation to competitors is also going to establish your identity and brand pretty solidly as well.
When it comes to your actual product or service, well, that’s not something I can really advise you on, because that’s very circumstantial. But what I can advise on beyond that is your customer service and support.
There are two ways to actively provide a brand identity through this, one being very convenient with your delivery models. This can be achieved by again engaging social media and convenient alternatives like custom help desks and chat systems as well.
Along with this, though, is the idea of implementing self service support where possible. Onboard systems like WalkMe allow this, and the image of convenience and hospitality that this “no mess, just handle it at your leisure” sort of mentality conveys will establish you as a brand more quickly than any other aspect aside from your marketing strategies at the beginning of the cycle.
There really are no best practice standards for creating a branded customer experience like this, but these strategies are the best solid ground for achieving this goal as much as possible for now.