Finding common ground with your customers can be extremely helpful, as discovering that your values and outlook are aligned can do wonders for your brand reputation. Customers will want to shop with you more, and they’ll also want to talk to others about you too. There’s no better advocate for your business than a customer or brand ambassador who is the perfect match to your brand values. So, what happens to those without clear brand values and how does this impact CX?
It’s not enough to define your brand values and then leave the rest to chance either, so ensuring your brand values have the right impact on a strategised customer experience is key. Unfortunately, some companies may have very clear brand values that resonate with customers, but still fall down when it comes to delivering great CX, whilst others may not have brand values defined at all.
Here, we’ll look at the impact defining brand values can have on CX and why it’s important for the long-term success of your business, customer retention, and brand reputation.
Ensure Your Solution Reflects Your Values
Your product and service should be aligned with your values, otherwise customers will take notice. How authentic a brand is will go a long way to creating trust amongst its customers, as it shows honesty and transparency. As many as 88% of customers say authenticity is important when deciding on brands they want to support and like, so ensuring what you say is aligned with what you deliver is crucial.
Customers want to have an emotional connection with brands more than ever before, so if they cannot find this connection with your brand, they will look for others more aligned. Whilst ensuring your products and service are reflective of your values, a brand needs to highlight and talk about what it is doing to support the values it holds dear. If you are keen to be more sustainable, what are you doing to support this? How can your customers find out more about any projects or initiatives you’re involved in? With 66% of customers finding transparency one of the most attractive qualities in a brand when looking to buy from them, being open about your processes and how your brand stands for more than just the value of its products and services has an impact.
With corporate social responsibility (CSR) extremely important, it is an ongoing process of being authentic and transparent. Here at Ventrica, we are very proud to be part of sustainability initiatives such as Treedom, so it is important for us to share this with our market to raise awareness. Building meaningful relationships with your customers rather than transactional ones will heavily impact CX and help build brand loyalty and a positive brand reputation. Your solutions need to be consistent after defining brand values to ensure integrity, or trust will start to erode.
Aligning Your Employees when Defining Brand Values
Everyone in your organisation needs to be on board with your brand values and not just C-Suite executives. The engagement of your employees is important to ensure CX remains consistent, especially when interacting with customers. If you promise to deliver high-quality CX and a friendly, attentive service, customers will quickly pick up if this isn’t happening. The employee experience (EX) has a key part to play in this, as if you have an unhappy or unmotivated workforce, delivering a great service becomes very difficult.
The voice of your brand needs to be communicated through your employees as they are the face of your brand too. Customers will interact with them whether it’s in person, on the phone, or through live chat and messaging, so if brand personality and values are not aligned with your teams, it will begin to show. 65% of customers say both a brand’s CEO and employees influence their decision to buy based on what they say, their actions, values, and beliefs. This represents a huge number of customers that take note of a brand’s voice and that can potentially walk away if they don’t feel connected.
Focusing on Your Brand Personality and Values
Brands have known for a long time the importance of not only defining their brand personality and values but also delivering on this consistently. There is a huge difference between companies that work hard on the connection between brand values and CX and those that do not prioritise it.
In a world where customers have more choices than ever before and omnichannel solutions to interact with brands, it’s become very competitive and crucial to stand out. It can be overwhelming for some to keep up with the shift towards delivering more than just a great product or service, with a focus on authenticity, integrity, and transparency increasingly important.
How a business conducts itself and its role in the bigger issues that matter to customers shouldn’t be ignored when looking to improve CX. 46% of customers have stopped doing business with companies when disappointed by their words or actions on a social issue, highlighting the impact brand values have on CX. Getting the relationship right isn’t simple, but hugely beneficial for companies when done well. 77% of customers buy from brands who share the same values as them, so understanding your customers completely can identify the values they have and help your brand align with them.
Start Delivering Great CX
It’s a complicated, noisy world your customers live in, so being able to highlight what makes your brand different and unique from your competitors can help give them a clear decision. You want to show why they should choose you and showcase the values that are important to your brand that resonate with them. The key then is to stay consistent, transparent, and to maintain integrity to ensure that customers can trust you in the long term. This all links in with the customer experience, so working on ensuring a consistent brand voice is delivered by your employees is crucial.
