Branding strategy expert Minter Dial and CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero discuss why companies should be focusing on customer service and branding these days.
Customer service is the new marketing, according to branding strategy expert Minter Dial.
The president and founder of Myndset Company said building trust is one of the biggest challenges companies face. Many organizations are depending on their marketing departments to reach out to their markets, but Dial believes they should be tapping more into their customer service—the only division that has the word “customer” in it.
“Within the entire organization, one of the key departments [that] is typically put offsite, delegated to some other country [is] customer service, and yet it’s the only department in the entire company that has the word customer in it,” Dial told CalvinAyre.com. “Customer service is representing the brand, maybe just answering the question, a concern… the questions that the customers are having, and if you can answer those with some kind of human interaction, you’re going to get a better engagement. Customer service is a way of fostering a stronger relationship with your customers.”
Likewise, companies must also focus on building stronger relationships with their people.
“Life is short, so why not work in an environment that is who you are, which means select carefully the company you’re working for and alternatively, as a company, look carefully who you’re hiring and do they fit who you are,” Dial explained. “If you want to keep these people, you need to find a way to make them engage in the mission of your company and give them a perspective that they can work there for many more years.”
It’s not always about the paycheck, according to Dial, especially among the younger people who want to feel that they are contributing something to the company.
“You want to make them feel like they’re part of a bigger mission than just making money, and if they are legitimately engaged and feeling the brand… give them some coaching because you know, just the pure excitement is not enough. You want to control how it’s being mastered out there, but that requires knowing who you are and what you want to say,” he noted.
For the online gambling industry, Dial said the success lies in upping the ante and coming up with strategies that will resonate not only with the audience.
“Branding is important in any industry… In our industry, it’s about being better than the others, and so there’s a massive opportunity in the gaming industry for some brands to really take it up a notch and craft a brand with a deeper purpose that’s going to resonate not just with the customers but with the employees as well,” he said.
