21 April 2010

By Ken Schmaltz, Marketing Director, Twist Marketing

Ever since I moved a few months back, I’ve had the feeling that the telephone company wants to take my money, but it doesn’t want to take my calls. Once a month, when I find my telephone bill in my mail box, I’m reminded that so far my future as one of its customers hasn’t been very friendly, which is the opposite of what its branding promises. And this is after I received a hand-signed note from the CEO along with a gift card to the Keg to show that they don’t have any hard feelings.

Why? It took two weeks and an email to the CEO to actually get someone—a specially assigned Executive Service Representative—on the phone to get a real human on the phone who could schedule a service call to figure out why my land line didn’t work.

Then, when the high-speed Internet setup CD they sent me had “an unrecoverable error,” it took another two weeks of dialling the 1-800 number, waiting on hold, hanging up and trying again the next night to get online. I also tried the web chat and email help (thanks to whichever of my neighbours has unsecure wireless). But each chat session I would get to a certain point describing the problem when the person on the other end would suddenly go offline. Nobody even bothered to respond to my emails.

Next came TV. To consolidate my monthly bills, I went with the telco’s Internet TV service instead of cable. Every day for a week I got emails saying someone would contact me to arrange for a techie to set me up—but no one ever phoned. I also got an email from “Doreen” saying the super high-speed Internet I had didn’t support the TV service, and to send her an email if I had any questions. Doreen never did reply to my queries. Again, I had to phone the exec service rep to get someone to come out.

The irony is that the real, live people that the telco sent to my home were more than friendly. They were fantastic. The TV guy even came back on his day off when downgrading my Internet to a slower (and cheaper) service and rewiring my 50s bungalow took longer than expected.

The telco in question invests handsomely in its branding, which is truly amazing stuff. It’s entertaining, engaging and friendly. It promises that if you use its services, you’ll have a friendly future. The problem is that they don’t deliver on that promise by creating a friendly customer experience from the time an order is placed through to when customers need help. The result is a gap between the branding and the brand that magnifies the company’s faults.

I have no illusions that dealing with the local cable company would be any better, but it hasn’t created the expectation that it would be better. Its branding promises lots of channels if you go with its cable TV service. Internet comes in slow, not so slow and fast. The main selling point of its Internet telephone service is that it’s just like a normal phone. They promise connectivity and content, and that’s what they deliver. Their branding isn’t sexy, but it sets realistic expectations. You’ll probably spend as much time on hold, but you won’t feel like you’ve been conned into it. And, interestingly, the cable company spends far less on advertising, yet is still taking market share away from the telco.

The Twist: Branding that isn’t aligned with brand sets the wrong expectations. If you over-deliver on what the branding promises, you should refine your branding to capitalize on the goodwill you’ve created. If you under-deliver on your brand promise, the more you spend on marketing, the more self-inflicted damage you’ll cause.

For more marketing articles, please visit www.twistmarketing.com/resources