I’ve been talking to various people about this recently. The changing nature of the organisation. With more people working remotely and in a consulting remit versus permanent employment, what happens to the customer experience of your brand? How do we ensure that the brand perception and experience is one? Tighter guidelines, Mr Brand Manager? Consulting is more independent by nature, and so do you think instilling more rules and boundaries is going to work? Not likely. And how are you going to police it? Employing people who are aligned to your values is not new news. But perhaps when it’s thought about within the context of what your customers’ experience, it is – employing people who naturally reflect your brand in their behaviours. Making sure consultants understand the brand, can apply it to their everyday jobs and still pulling this through to employment contracts and putting the metrics in place to safeguard it.
A similar situation is experienced in many of the health and wellbeing professions. Think about a personal trainer who has his own business and pays rent to train out of a commercial gym. Two brands. In many cases, you’re dealing with an independent-minded individual who wants to work for himself and is a personal brand in his own right. And you have the commercial gym brand. From my experience, this a one way street. The commercial brand wants compliance to their rules (not even their brand). And the personal brand wants to freedom to run and build a successful business. Recipe for disaster. Now how about both parties sit down and work out what they have in common and build on that, mutually respecting each other and helping growth of both businesses. I’m not actually talking about one on one. But including franchised personal trainers in qualitative research is a necessity in developing your brand strategy and keeping it on track to make sure your business is a success. And ultimately reaching your common goal, which I’m assuming is not dissimilar to mine. Encouraging the better health of people, brands and business.
Anyone have any examples of where this is working well? Or where you experienced a consultant/franchisee who was so far off your expectations of the brand that you’ll never go back again?
Image source: Dreamstime.com | Crashtackle
