BY SASIDHAR VAVILALA
Head of Campaign Management, Bankbazaar.com
It’s absolutely fine to be ‘a boringly reliable brand’ to a consumer than be a flashy one with all the hype fizzling out in no time for lack of delivery. Brand Indigo is one such, on which clients rely for transportation on time. Trust is the cornerstone of any endeavour. Every segment of business – product, process, employees, and moments of truth for the customer – contributes to building trust so much that eventually the brand becomes synonymous with trust. This trust is the intangible thread binding the organization together without which the business would collapse. Without trust, teamwork would be impossible. Entrepreneurship and innovation will be stalled as there would be no direction or ownership. Customers would consider quality as a hit or miss, and consider neither returning nor recommending the company. Spending billions of rupees on visibility and standing out on communications and positioning can completely backfire if the brand doesn’t deliver the promise. There are umpteen examples of a great branding effort delivering poor results for lack of delivery through the product, service, and overall experience. Over the years of building diverse teams and managing products for different businesses, I have realized that trust on a business is built on three props – thought, technology, and team behind it, what I call the three Ts of trust. It is important that organizations excel in all the three.
Thought: The first step in getting the attention of the customer and building that trust with them is by communicating a common shared belief. While every business hasits own mission, vision, and strategies, it is essential that these are sustainable. And this is possible only if they are customer-centric. How these vision and strategies add value to the customer should be the guiding thought behind every decision. It is worth answering the question: How are we uniquely making a difference in the life of the customer? Over time, al the differentiators will be emulated by others and the features get commoditized. However, what stays with the customers is trust. Boringly reliable trust.
Technology: Technology is the application of knowledge which helps translate and then ‘automate’ a vision into reality, minimizing the cost and effort permanently. Technology that is adaptable to the change, flexible to expand, and modular for quick modification without disruptions means process or system can be upgraded quickly from behind the scenes seamlessly. No one has to reinvent the wheel, wasting time and resources, as it is optimized and automated for future. For example, we at BankBazaar.com are able to integrate any new financial partner into our automated and modular system within two weeks. The more you interact, quickly reply, solve their queries, and ensure you are there to listen, you will be trusted.
Team: While strategy, direction, and innovation are critical, what makes them real and viable are the people who make it happen. A brand is where the team works ethically and fulfils its promises. There is a significant overlap of functions across organizations, especially in the area of Technology, Analytics, Product, Marketing, Finance, and Operations. The earlier functional lines are blurring and we get to see completely new designations and roles that never existed before. There is need for a genuine cross-functional mindset from every single leader and manager. It is extremely important to have an organizational structure and culture supporting this change.
To sum up, a brand is promise made by an organization to its customers and employees. A careful, balanced approach to developing these three Ts will go a long way in developing a reliable, trustworthy organization with high brand value.
@ FEEDBACK
sasidhar.vavilala@bankbazaar.com
