Who spoils a brand?
The product? The competitor? The customer? The publicist? The stockist? The retailer?
You could have chosen any of the answers above; and would have been correct. The fact is, anyone is capable of harming or destroying a brand. However, neither the building nor the collapse of the brand happens in a jiffy. Rejection by a person, society, or even the government does not wipe out a brand overnight. That’s the reason behind the revival of Maggi noodles this year and Coca Cola in the late Seventies in India.
So, do not get disheartened by one-off observations such as “Chivas Regal is soooo ordinary” or “Big Bazaar caters to the cattle class.” Provided, it is not a Chivas Regal or a Big Bazaar employee mouthing that statement.
About a decade ago I was assigned to make a caller tune. The company prided itself on customer relations that went much deeper than commercial considerations. I wrote the lyrics, set the tune, and got a peppy song recorded – “We are there for you, we care for you ...” Everybody was excited! And why not? Tailor made caller tunes were, and still are, rather uncommon in the brick and mortar industry.
The caller tune, naturally, was on each mobile connection in the company. Many-a-times motorcycle borne service engineers, executives on shop floor, or officials not in a position to take the call allowed it to go unanswered. Sometimes even repeated calls could not be answered. And when the recipient was able to return the call, it was perhaps without offering an apology and an explanation on why the call was not answered in the first place. Over the years the excitement turned into dismay. Customers started claiming, “You don’t care for us”. One fine morning the company coolly removed the caller tune.
I am very particular about using my official cell phone only for official purposes during the office hours. Once I took my car to Ford for servicing, and had to disclose my cell phone number. I made it clear that the number should not be called, and was assured about the same. However, within fifteen days I received a call about when I would like to book my car for servicing. I politely informed the caller that the car had been serviced recently. An apology, and the call get disconnected. But then, within a week I received a reminder with similar content. The onslaught continued unabated.
Ultimately I had to block the number. Though I still like the Ford car, I hate to receive a call, any call, from Ford.
Once a colleague, a senior sales engineer, received a call from a prospective customer. He got the details, and while passing them on to the appropriate engineer, made an observation, “Ki Rokum Log? Nije Ke Chutia Bolchhe (What kind of a person he is, calling himself an idiot)!” Chutia, an abusive word in Hindi, is a surname in Assam. If you laugh at a customer even before booking his order, what would you do when the time to serve comes, I wondered.
Sometime back a woman visited us. She represented a public relations agency. I took her around, explaining the high points and hoping that she would catch the USPs of our products, processes and facilities. As I was entering a shop floor, the guard looked at her, pointed a finger, and asked, “Yeh Kaun (who is she)? The woman was taken aback, and I had a tough time recovering lost ground.
Long ago I had read about an incident that refuses to fade away from my memory. A lady returned a packet of cheese to the seller, stating, “It is stinking.” The seller returned the money, saying, “Oh, is it?”, and tried to smell it. The woman never returned to that shop.
In all these cases, it was the employee who smothered the brand. Unsubstantiated claims, responding
in a bored manner, switching over to the vernacular – there are so many ways of upsetting the customer and spoiling the brand. Regardless of how it is projected, what matters is how the brand is perceived. Don’t spoil that perception; don’t smother your brand.
संदेश
