Ever been to one of those places that, in terms of branding, seems to do just about everything right? They have an identity that perfectly reflects who they are, entices and excites you to buy from them. Their website, printed materials, etc. are all top-notch - but their service sucks? So many businesses get caught up in branding, business tactics, marketing, etc. that they forget that customer experience is a HUGE part of good branding.

I recently went into Starbucks - now I don’t go there all that often anymore (Dunkin’ Doughnuts stole my heart), but I recently ran out of coffee here at home and needed to run somewhere close by to get my mornin’ fix. The people in the Starbucks were friendly, funny and just plain cool. I had sort of written off Starbucks because of my budget, but I found myself saying I’d definitely come back because I had a good experience with the people that worked in the shop.

I can’t say this enough - your brand is not just how you project yourself to the world, it’s how the world see’s you as well. Give your customers a great brand experience and hire good people that know how to work well with your clients or customers - they will be worth their weight in gold.

To any designers out there reading this, if you’re helping your clients to build their brand, encourage them to not only focus on the outward appearance, but the inward motivations of building genuine and sincere connections with the people they work with. Good service is good branding.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.