Eight : Ten touchpoints, three brands, one honest afternoon
Filed Under Blog
The brand texture audit. Seven parts of argument earn one part of practical work. This is the tool, and it is deliberately simple enough to run this week without a budget line or a research agency. Successful telecom branding does not begin with a rebrand. It begins with an honest look at what you already own.
When he said “The details are not the details. They make the design.” Charles Eames was talking about furniture, but he might as well have been talking about your SIM pack, your bill, your hold music and your counter height. Nobody falls in love with a category. They fall in love with the details of one brand within it, which is precisely why successful telecom branding is won in the small things almost everyone else has decided are too small to matter.
How to run it
Compare your brand against your two closest competitors. Score every touchpoint out of five for distinctiveness (could a customer tell it was you with the logo removed?) and out of five for delight (would anyone mention it to a friend?).
Do it honestly, do it with people who use the service rather than people who sell it, and do it in the same week for all three brands.
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Touchpoint:
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The ‘low texture’ default: |
The ‘high texture’ alternative: |
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1. First contact and acquisition |
A price promise on a poster |
An invitation with a distinct voice, look and welcome ritual to follow |
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2. Physical kit |
Generic SIM card, unbranded router, envelope bill |
Considered materials, weight, choreographed opening sequence and a bill that reads like a human wrote it to you |
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3. Retail environment |
Garish shop scheme, tethered handsets, queue tickets |
A room built to a proposition, with light, sound, materials and reasons to linger, like coffee and great product demos |
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4. Staff and behaviour |
Scripted, targeted on handling time |
Trained on the brand promise, empowered to fix issues or sell products and services on the spot |
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5. Voice and language |
IVR menus, legal boilerplate, “your call is important to us” |
One recognisable tone across every channel, including the apologies, written with a human, conversational metre |
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6. Payment and billing |
Machines that argue with bank notes |
Simplified payment channels, experienced as a fast, dignified, almost pleasant moment |
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7. Digital and self service |
Functional portal, buried settings |
An app with personality, clarity and a sense of ownership, updated with meaningful improvements, not the all too frequent, nano-level bug fixes |
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8. Service recovery |
Compensation policy hidden behind escalation |
Proactive contact, real authority at the first line, a helpful gesture conveyed with a human touch |
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9. Content, partnerships and activations |
Sponsorship logos on other people’s property |
Experiences only a brand like yours could credibly own and share |
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10. Signalling value |
Nothing the customer can display |
Objects, spaces, rituals or status that a customer will show other people |
How to read the results
Any row where all three brands score the same is commodity territory, and you are paying to compete there for nothing.
Any row where a competitor is clearly ahead is a repair job. Any row where all three are weak but one of them matters enormously to your audience is your opportunity, and that is where successful telecom branding is actually won.
Pick two of those rows, fund them properly and leave the other eight alone until they are working. Run the audit twice a year and the pattern of movement will tell you more about your progress than any tracking study.
Getting the visionaries back in the driving seat
None of this happens without the right people holding the pen. We need the visionaries back in the driving seat. The brave thinkers and the bold doers who want to deliver an extraordinary brand experience because it is rewarding in more ways than one.
Successful telecom branding is not really a marketing project at all, it is a leadership one. Great brands command loyalty not only from their customers but from their staff. They are fun to work with and to be around, and because of that they stand the test of time and command a greater share of the customer wallet.
That, in the end, is the whole argument. You cannot make connectivity visible. But you can make sure it is felt.
"The details are not the details. They make the design."
