Without a doubt, brand reputation is one of the most important assets you can have in today’s crowded business marketplace. But how can you build a strong brand reputation? And how can you make sure it remains intact through ups and downs?
Keep reading to find out our 5 tips for building and sustaining a positive corporate brand reputation:
1. Be consumer centric
Although this might seem presumable, many businesses neglect to deliver on their customer needs and wants. Remember that your customers should be in the spotlight, and that you should adapt your business strategy according to their changing needs. By adapting dynamically to their evolving requirements, you are definitely heading in the right road for building a positive corporate brand reputation.
2. Stick to your brand persona
Another important point to note is in regards to your brand persona. Stay loyal to your vision, mission and brand personality. This is why customers opt for your brand and this is what makes your brand recognizable and differentiated from competition. For instance, if you keep changing your visual identity, consumers will have trouble assigning a value to your brand. Yet, this does not mean that you should not improve and fine-tune your brand – it means that you should be building upon a consistent brand persona in order to establish real connection with your customers.
3. Have a crisis management plan in place
Despite all efforts made to avoid a communication crisis from occurring, things can still go wrong. That’s why you need to have a detailed and coherent crisis management action plan in place. It is important that you identify the most probably scenarios that might occur and devise a plan accordingly. Moreover, you should assign roles and responsibilities to your team so that you are fast to act in the unfortunate event of a crisis.
4. Focus on providing an excellent customer experience
Customer experience starts at the very first moment the customer interacts with your brand; whether it is an ad seen on TV, a POS material or the after sales service you offer. It is important that you identify and fine-tune all relevant touch points within the customer journey in order to enhance the customer experience. Some examples of customer touchpoints are;
- Business website
- Social Media
- Email Response Rate
- Guarantee and after sales service
- Customer Service (e.g live chat, phone centre)
- POS material
- Package and Delivery
5. Harness Word-of-Mouth (“WoM”)
Whether it’s online or offline, WoM remains one of the most efficient and effective ways of spreading information about your products and services. One of the main advantages of WoM is that it is free and spreads out through natural channels, without any significant effort from your side. It’s all about creating a buzz.
But how do you generate WoM?
By building long-term relationships with your customers. Your customers should feel engaged and your brand must matter to them. Once an event has triggered their attention, such as a pleasant customer experience or even a fast response rate, your brand will start enjoying the perks of WoM.