REFLECTION 2: When Good Brands Do Bad

If you’ve been in business a while, you’ve likely learned how difficult it can be to win a new
customer. You can spend quite a bit of money and time marketing to consumers in the hopes of
landing even one sale, depending on your industry. Even when a first-time customer completes
a purchase, there’s no guarantee that person will be back to buy more.
Here are seven ways that you can ensure your company has a sizable share of long-term
customers.
Engage them
Long-term customers generally do far more than buy a company’s products. They connect with
the business itself, which incentivizes them to keep coming back. Through your website, email
messaging, and social media posts, make sure you’re engaging the customers and increasing
their personal connection.
Allow them to experience your brand.
Nothing can replace the experience of interacting with a company in person. When customers
can meet you and your team, while also seeing your products live, they’ll feel a stronger
connection than if they’d only purchased from your website and read your email messages.
Understand their relationship with your brand.
In order to better serve your customers, you need to know as much as possible about them.
Analytics tools can help with that but for those who are visually oriented, heatmaps may be an
even better solution.
Make them feel special.
No customer wants to feel as though he or she is just a number. This is one benefit that small
businesses have over much larger corporations. As your business grows, though, it can become
far more difficult to know each person. In your database, include the date of the customer’s
first purchase and a notes section where you and your staff can input small details that come
up.
Respond to every concern.
Even the most loyal customer can have problems. When someone calls for help, it’s important
to offer the same friendly, attentive service no matter how many times they’ve bought from
you. But if a long-term buyer has an issue, it’s important to flag the call for immediate attention
to avoid losing someone who regularly makes purchases.
A strong brand name is an invaluable asset; managers must know when to exploit it,
when to protect it, and how to tell the difference between the two. Because using an
established brand name substantially reduces new-product introduction risks, there is an
almost irresistible pull to “extend” brand names to new products. Doing so can be enormously
profitable, but it can be dangerous, too: In the worst case, an ill-conceived brand extension may
seriously damage the original product and preclude the establishment of another brand with its
unique associations and growth potential.
Yes, Good Brands Do Bad because the number one, most fundamental reason brands
fail is a lack of authenticity. As we always say, it's a madhouse out there. The marketplace is
crowded with millions of potential customers and as many competing solutions. Know who you
are, know what you do best, and know who you serve.
Warren Buffett’s famous quote on reputation goes like this: “It takes 20 years to build a
reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
Reputation is breakable and needs to be maintained, but with a little common sense and effort
you can manage your brand’s
There are other simple steps you can take to build or fix your reputation as it appears
within search results:
Own Your Past. Address the elephant in the room. Acknowledge what the company has
perceived to have done wrong. Apologize and have an action plan to make it right.
Control the conversation about your brand. And create an online crisis-listening program to
catch increases in negative conversation before they reach bloggers and online media.
Understand complaints your brand already receives. Use social media to clarify customer
misunderstandings, reducing overall complaints and building brand fans at the same time.
Adjust your social media response plan based on research, not emotion. Have analytics in place
to help make an informed decision. Surges in traffic from websites like Monitor employee
complaint platforms.
Be proactive to prevent issues from turning into a crisis. Use decision trees that include the
steps to take when an issue surfaces online or within the media for faster handling of potential
issues.
Limit potential surprises. Own variations of your website URL, including negative versions
(Yourbrandsucks.com).
Take complaints offline when possible. This ensures both a faster response for the customer,
and less visibility about the issue at hand.
Be quick to apologize to customer complaints. Remember that a happy customer tells five fans,
an unhappy customer tells 10, a fan who had an issue resolved tells 20. This is a great way to
build super fans.
Be transparent when handling client issues. Transparency here means telling the customer
what happened so they understand the issue; don’t make up excuses.
Fix what you can! Understand which elements of the complaint you are able to fix and do so.
Use this feedback to build a better mousetrap.
Use testimonials. Positive feedback from influencers can help boost any image problems.
Create quality subpages from your website. This will help push negative results down.
Reward loyal customers. Make your clients and supporters feel appreciated by giving them
exclusive content, products or experiences.
Be patient. Building a good reputation doesn’t happen overnight. And rebuilding a damaged
one is an even longer process.
The Internet has changed the way reputation is handled and perceived. While it takes millions
of dollars and years to build a reputable brand, it only takes 45 seconds to create a Twitter
account and potentially ruin an organization’s reputation online. In today’s world, nothing is
more important to a company’s health than managing your brand’s reputation

MAUREEN M. CALUAG
MSHTM