Sunday, April 17, 2011

Processes and infrastructure to support service branding

It´s said that in a service organization involving employees and putting effort on internal communications in regards to service branding is essential. In comparison, in product branding, it is possible to promote products if the production process works seamlessly and provides the goods which receive a brand identity in the sales and marketing funnel. In a service organization, creating the brand identity, promise and providing information and education on the brand internally is not enough. Involving people should be much more extensive. In order to deliver the expected brand promise and experience, the essential elements in internal involvement is putting people to work. Creating relevant service processes and infrastructure to support the brand promise is needed in order to tie the actual promise to what is being delivered. Service processes are not implemented by sales and marketing but throughout the organization developing and providing the actual service experience. Physical infrastructure, ie environments and locations supporting the service processes are needed to build a coherent entity. Therefore the target of internal information sharing and communications should be partly to create understanding of the value propositions and promises but also to make sure that every employee implements the brand promise in their individual daily work. Managing the work of all employees towards the same goals and same direction is challenging. Building excitement is not easy but necessary to build internal understanding and just getting what the company brand really is all about, to finally showcase the unified experience towards customers.