I recently read an article about America’s most hated companies. Every year, 24/7 Wall Street publishes a list that invariably includes companies from the pharma, communications, travel, banking and retail sectors. Companies know a good reputation is vital to a company’s health and success. And yet they often overlook one of the simplest tools to help protect it.
The reality is, any number of issues can negatively affect a company’s reputation. Some problems are self-inflicted like failure to improve poor product quality, price gouging, bad customer service or management scandals for instance.
Barnett Helzberg, past CEO of Helzberg Diamonds had a simple and effective way to avoid these problems. He believed companies should regularly ask their customers three simple but important questions:
- What are we doing right?
- What are we doing wrong?
- What can we do better?
Of course, asking means nothing if companies don’t listen and make an effort to act on the feedback they receive. Customers generally know that all problems can’t and won’t be fixed over night, but the fact that a company reaches out to ask their opinion (and listens) can go a long way towards repairing a damaged brand image. Customers want to be heard!
This is equally important for companies with a strong brands reputation. A good reputation hard to come by and all too easy to damage or lose. Asking your customers these questions can be the key to stopping potentially damaging problems before they happen.
Customer research is usually one of the smaller line items in a company’s marketing budget and yet it’s often the first to go when the quarterly numbers fall a little short of projections. That could be a very costly mistake in the long run.
If your brand is hurting or you’re just looking to confirm you’re on the right track with your customers, we can help. Positioning and repositioning brands for success is our passion.
Tags: brand experience, chris hayes, Customer Experience, customers, reputation