What your consumers expect from you matters. Read on to find out tips on bridging the gap between brand promise and customer experience.
A distinctive brand promise with a well-executed consumer experience strategy can cut through the noise and create value in the minds of your customers, driving loyalty and higher revenue.
But crafting a solid brand promise can be tough even for the most popular brands—and aligning it for consumer experience can be even more of a challenge. 66% of customers have found a gap between brand promise and reality—meaning that many of these brands aren’t living up to consumers’ expectations as well as they have said they would!
In this post, we’ll take a look at understanding the importance of bridging the gap between brand promise and customer experience and how you can ensure that the experiences you are delivering are what your customers want.
Understanding the Gap Between Brand Promise and Customer Experience
Before we go into defining the relationship between brand promise and customer experience, we need to define the terms.
A brand promise is what your customers can expect from you, what you can and will do for all your customers.
Customer experience is all about your customers and how they actually perceive the brand. It measures how much you are delivering based on your brand promise.
Together, these set the stage for your brand identity and establish value in the minds of your consumers. When your consumers experience your brand promise, it reinforces your organisation’s reputation and builds equity. On the other hand, companies that fail to deliver on their brand promise adversely impact their reputation and brand value.
How You Can Bridge the Gap and Match Your Brand Promise To Your Customer Experience
Research from Gallup has found that only 50% of customers expect brands to deliver on what they say they will. Isn’t it unsurprising then that brands struggle to gain their trust?
Here are 3 ways organisations can minimise the gap between brand promise and consumer experience:
#1 Measure Your Brand Promise Against Feedback
What gets measured gets improved. Soliciting for feedback is one of the most powerful ways to check if your brand promise aligns with your consumer experience. Reach out to your customers and employees to see if your brand promise resonates.
Some questions that help you determine this:
Such data can be helpful in knowing the adjustments you need to make in order to align your brand promise with your consumer experience.
#2 Check-In On Your Overarching Marketing Strategy And Processes
Your processes operationalise your brand promise. Ensure that your marketing and business strategies align with your brand promise by keeping regular tabs and scheduled evaluations. By doing so, you reinforce the quality and authenticity of your brand and affirm the relationship between you and your customers. When you take the time and commitment to deliver consistent effort, your customer experiences will be better.
#3 Engage Your Brand Advocates
Aligning your brand promise to consumer experience isn’t just about fixing the pitfalls. It’s also about playing up the potential. The most successful brands focus on identifying and nurturing those who already love them—whether employees or the public — and learn how to make more customers love them. Skilled advocates go a long way in creating an authenticity factor for brands and bridging the gap between companies and consumers.
Conclusion
The connection between brand promise and customer experience is increasingly becoming more focused as consumers seek authenticity, value and partnership. Following the steps above, companies can find a way to bridge the gap in meaningful and sustainable practices for lasting impact.
Your branding and marketing strategy plays a crucial role in driving impactful customer experiences that align with your promise. Reach out to us to find out how we can help you bring more to your integrated marketing strategy today.
