Does your leadership team understand your customer experience? Do all members of your C-Suite walk a mile in your customers’ shoes? Does your CEO walk a single block in your customers’ shoes? How often do members of your C-Suite work a day in the trenches alongside employees and interact with customers? If your answers to these questions are not positive, don’t despair – there’s help: A new book by Jim Joseph shares ten ways that your brand can inspire and improve your overall customer experience.

As the Global President of marketing communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe), Jim Joseph is an award-winning author of “The Experience Effect” series and an adjunct instructor at New York University where he teaches a graduate class in integrated marketing. He is one of the industry’s most engaging and entertaining commentators and is known for his quote, “Marketing is a spectator sport – let’s all learn from each other” and his annual #SuperBowlExp chat held on Twitter during the Super Bowl.

I strongly recommend Jim’s new book entitled, “The Conscious Marketer, Inspiring a Deeper and More Conscious Brand Experience.” The book begins:

“A brand should deliver an experience, and that brand experience should be beyond compare. By “experience” I don’t mean a thrill ride or pop-up store or a musical festival sponsorship, although any of those could certainly be an experience. A true brand experience needs to be much bigger and more complete than any of those single events. A full brand experience isn’t a one-off encounter but rather a seamless flow of compelling interactions that moves from moment to moment as consumers continually, and repeatedly, buy in to the brand’s premise and ultimately buy in to the brand’s complete offering. At that point, the brand has become so much more than a collection of its physical attributes; it has magically become an experience that engaged consumers just can’t live without.”

Here are TEN TIPS to implement so that your brand can inspire and improve your overall customer experience:

[1] Embrace and drive change. [2] Integrate art and science (aka, design/creative, data/metrics, and social media/digital marketing). [3] Speak up and voice your brand’s opinions – put your brand consciousness and empathy on display. [4] While every brand doesn’t have to make political statements, all brands need to pay attention to the news, aka social listening (for example, how many brands can you recall changed their logos across their social media channels for #BlackOutTuesday on June 2, 2020?). [5] The CEO is ultimately responsible for the entire business and the brand: he/she is the number one brand ambassador and sets the tone for all employees to follow. [6] Don’t get stuck in your own “Brand Bubble” – stay objective and don’t develop tunnel vision. [7] In times of crisis, get in front of the crisis and control the message. Don’t let someone else tell your brand’s story. [8] Always remember who your target customers are and remember to correctly position your brand to your stakeholders. [9] Don’t forget that your employees are critically important brand ambassadors and part of the overall brand experience. [10] Anyone can make a product, but it takes something truly special to become a memorable and long-lasting brand.

According to Jim Joseph:

“So, make sure that the brand’s consciousness is real and consistent, in addition to being relevant. Make sure the consciousness fits with what that brand stands for and how you’ve positioned the brand in the marketplace. And make sure that it’s always important and relevant to the consumer, each and every time.”

I challenge all brands, both big and small, to implement these ten tips. Not only will your brand inspire, but it will also develop a necessary understanding of the customer/brand experience.
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Image Credit: Debbie Laskey.