When it comes to branding, consumer trust is not acquired overnight. The world’s most prestigious businesses have developed and maintained their corporate images by instilling confidence in their customers, providing persistent communication and surpassing the highest of client expectations.
While handling corporate communications for a tenured staffing agency, I’ve become familiar with three key areas of business that are crucial for successfully portraying brand transparency. Focusing your sales, marketing and operational efforts on these aspects will inspire customers and clients to rely on and recommend your products and services.
Hold your brand accountable.
The first step toward improving transparency is recognizing the impact you have on your consumer audience. When a brand promises to provide a product or service, that business is responsible for either failing or succeeding to uphold what is being initially sold/marketed. Having empathy for those customers and clients who have faith in the company goes a long way.
The first efficient way to broadcast commercial transparency is by being dependable through unprecedented customer service. Treat people like people. While this is often easier said than done, we must hold businesses and employees accountable for their actions within the workforce. Make your clients feel special: Send a representative from your company to personally visit or meet with them. My favorite tactic is to customize marketing content using the target customer’s name. Another way to do this is by recognizing a customer’s birthday with a freebie or promotional discount.
Show honesty and reveal authenticity.
Don’t try to portray the company as something it’s not. Being straightforward and truthful in terms of what the business is and is not willing to do is essential for maintaining a positive brand image. As businesses and industries change, we must foster corporate transparency by being open with our clients, while remaining true to our brand’s purpose. In doing so, we will engender confidence in our customers, which regularly leads to business referrals.
An effective way to do this is to stay true to your company’s original mission statement. Create core values for your organization and its members to uphold. Don’t mimic another brand’s slogan or motto when your business’s industry presence and voice are already unique. I prefer to showcase real pictures and videos of our employees. Slowly eliminating sock photo content front your business website will automatically build trust. People want to see real staff members, not actors and actresses dressed up and pretending to be happy-go-lucky employees.
Modify public relations.
I cannot remember the last time I read a press release and was thoroughly excited to read it. Spice up your public relations efforts and showcase transparency by revamping corporate communications. Do you have something your brand would like to share with the world? Ditch the memos and writing formalities. Save these for when they’re necessary. Bring your brand into the 21st century and streamline communication with customers and clients to help your brand’s voice be understood more clearly. Adjusting the way we communicate with others opens the door for businesses to be seen as more than their logos, and will lead to surpassing brand expectations.
Rather than publishing a formal press release, live-stream or record a video for the company’s social media and website. Social media is continuing to pave the way for corporate communications between consumers and corporations. No one wants to jump through hoops just to speak with someone over the phone; all they want is for your brand to acknowledge their voice on Facebook or to get a response on Twitter — like a human being.
At the end of the day, business is business and people are people. Whatever you do, don’t forget to mix the two when it comes to building brand trust and showcasing the company’s transparency.
This article was originally published by Forbes.
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