I always emphasise in my conversations about brands that the greatest challenge in sustaining brand leadership is complacency. When you become complacent, you start feeling self-satisfied and content, often leading to a lack of awareness of potential dangers or problems. It is complacency that encourages you to become too comfortable, leading to a lack of effort and potentially causing you to miss crucial opportunities.
We often use big words even to describe something that is straightforward. To justify a product’s poor output, we argue that “This is a big brand”. Does being a big brand justify below par performance? This is one of the most regrettable excuses that some brands give to indirectly justify their poor outputs.
Let me ask again – Does being a big brand justify poor performance or the brand has become so self satisfied that it believes that because of it’s bigness is enough reason for it to stay on top?
The truth is, in today’s fast-paced market, you snooze, you lose. Customers, who are the reason a brand becomes big, expect excellence and failing to deliver that excellence can have severe adverse consequences. Complacency can lead to stagnation and, ultimately, a loss of loyalty from customers. And when a customer goes, s/he’s gone.
REPUTATION DOES NOT EQUATE EXCELLENCE
Big Brands are often held to high standards and their actions are scrutinised by neutrals, their customers and opponents. Neglecting customer needs and market trends can lead to disruption and decline. It’s crucial for big brands to stay grounded, adaptable and customer-focused to maintain their position and reputation. The assumption that a big brand’s reputation alone will sustain it is a recipe for disaster. Continuous improvement, innovation and accountability are essential for success, regardless of brand size.
HIDDEN DANGERS OF BIG BRAND COMPLACENCY
Complacency in big Brands is a quiet killer. It leads them to stagnation, decreased customer satisfaction and ultimately, a decline in market position and reputation. In its quiet execution complacency may even make those who interact with customers on behalf of the brand become tone deaf (either unaware or finding nothing wrong in being tone deaf).
Loss Of Customer Loyalty
When big brands fail to meet expectations, customers can lose trust and loyalty (after how much time depends on the context), turning off or turning to competitors who offer better quality or service. Nokia suffered tremendous losses in the market because they believed they had sufficient customer loyalty to survive challenges from competition. Truth is if you don’t play your part that loyalty can dwindle. By 2013 Nokia lost 65% of it’s brand value due to complacency.
Customers are the lifeblood of any business and without their loyalty, a brand’s success is unsustainable. When big brands become complacent, they stop listening to customer feedback and neglect to address their concerns. This leads to decreased customer satisfaction, as customers feel their voices are not heard or are simply ignored. You will miss that voice when your brand starts struggling to stay afloat.
The complacent big brand sometimes may also take time to resolve a simple, basic problem, leading to more frustration from the customer. Many companies bill customers wrongly and it them months to rectify that error. Some of the reasoning includes absence of decision makers. Goodness. It takes a few minutes to make a deal but it takes months to rectify erroneous billing.
Their levels of innovation drop as they tend to end up not being the pace-setters but remain reliant on old methods that are surpassed by current innovations. They end up looking hopeless and helpless as competition seems to know what keys to press. Even when customers lament about the poor performance a complacent brand believes they’ve already conquered their customers minds. Inconsistent quality is another outcome of complacency, leading to a customer base that loses trust in the brand. Nokia remains the best example on this. I always also make this example about the evolution of access to music. In today’s world, purchase of music is not always per album or cd but mostly per song because of the latest innovations that involve sale of mp3s. Musica and CDs or CDs is no longer a need when you want a certain song.
Big brands should regularly engage with customers, gather feedback and address concerns. They should also track customer satisfaction. Innovation should be their middle name. By prioritising customer loyalty, big brands can reduce the risk of complacency and maintain a loyal customer base. If they are interested in customer loyalty, they should also cultivate a spirit of employee loyalty, or else the affected employees will thank the regressive big brand company, use their reputable background to enhance their Curriculum Vitaes and work for the progressive competitor.
If you think a big brand is above the rest and can never be overtaken I’d urge you to think again. Sometimes our wishes get spat at by reality. Look at the case of Blackberry – that above-the-rest leader in cellular telephony. Complacency consumed them mercilessly. The company failed to innovate and adapt to changing consumer preferences. BlackBerry stuck to its physical keyboard – remember? – ignoring the shift towards touchscreen-dominated smartphones. As a result, it’s market share dwindled and competitors like Apple and Samsung took over. The case of BlackBerry was a self imposed suicide caused by their commitment to methods that were not innovative or palatable to the target market and provided a textbook definition of complacency. Blackberry did not listen to customers. Indirectly, they became arrogant to their customers. I owned a blackberry phone and their levels of innovation were below I had to comply with the pace setters. BlackBerry ultimately called it a day and exited the phone business in 2016. Imagine if Blackberry were to come back today with their physical keyboard screen! So remaining a big brand goes with adjusting to the trend or setting a trend. iNNOVATE. INNOVATE. INNOVATE.
Complacency In Big Brands Destroys Reputations
A brand’s reputation is one of its most valuable assets. Missteps can lead to a decline in reputation, causing irreparable harm to a brand’s image and bottom line. Again, a decline in reputation can be triggered by ignoring the voice of customers and poor quality.
Considering that customers are not statues, are exposed to a market that is free with numerous options and are increasingly vocal about their expectations, big brands must prioritise reputation management. They should ensure that they positively influence the agenda of the messages that their customers are exposed to. Sitting back and giving inconsiderate customer service is likely to come back and haunt them when the brand begins to degenerate in gigantic terms.
Reputation and customer satisfaction go hand in glove. Never ignore your customers. This is when you start seeing counter-active customer disinterest in your product. Once customers start distrusting you, it may lead to lower sales, decreased investor confidence, decreased investment and inability to recruit appropriate talent. If your company and product reputation has been negatively affected, engage in a conceited effort to address the underlying issues and regain customer trust. Acknowledge and take responsibility for the issues and don’t just ignore them. Implement sustainable changes and prevent the errors from happening again. Public Relations is not just about words, it is also based on living up to your words. Calculate what you say to customers because they can hear what you say, sometimes they decipher it and may make you account for not living up to your word.
Big Brands must monitor their online presence as this does affect their brand reputation. Today, an unhappy customer can speak to millions in a matter of seconds. The revolution in media access tools does not encourage a docile customer whose only participation is just reception. This means that you should look at and analyse your customers’ behaviour, consequently engage your customers and provide proper feedback. The social media market (including Facebook, WhatsApp, etc) is extremely crucial to monitor, manage and Influence as it can make or break your brand.
CUSTOMER CENTRISM
Poor customer service is one of the early signs of a degenerating brand. Fighting with your customers, tone deafness and arrogance tend to go hand in glove with poor customer service.
Avoid Confrontations and clashes with Customers
The sad thing that some of the complacent big Brands tend to do is engaging in toe-to-toe battles with their customers. It’s not advisable.
Engaging in such confrontations has a huge chance of degenerating the brand’s reputation and customer loyalty. When big brands confront customers, it often escalates the situation. Between the two of you, (customer and brand) you will win nothing out of that exercise.
Confrontations are likely to escalate and backfire considering the size of the audience in front of which the whole unfortunate exchange takes place. As stated earlier today it is even worse with social media amplification that can even make that episode, sometimes edited, viral.
The customer may also feel disrespected and unvalued, which may cause loss of belief in your product. When big brands confront customers, it can also be perceived as arrogant and dismissive, eroding trust and credibility.
Instead, you should focus more on de-escalation and resolution than proving how better you are than your customer. I mean – these are your customers, not your competition. Listen more, hear customers out, don’t ignore them but acknowledge their concerns. Provide constructive solutions or alternatives to resolve the issue in contention.
Customers who feel heard and valued are more likely to remain loyal. Positive experiences can turn customers into brand advocates, driving word-of-mouth marketing.
Avoid Making Tone Deaf Decisions And Providing Arrogant Feedback
Ignoring or dismissing customer feedback can be damaging your brand’s reputation. Ignoring complaining customers while acknowledging those who don’t complain is dismissive, tone-deaf and arrogant. Failing to provide feedback to ‘difficult’ customers reinforces perceptions of insensitivity. Providing inconsistent customer service can lead to mistrust and reinforce negative perceptions against your brand.
An official acting on behalf of a brand is the brand, in the eyes of customers. Choose your steps very carefully. A misstep (real or perceived) may give an opinion that you wouldn’t like you or your brand to be know of. Treat all customers equally, be consistent in your customer service approach, regardless of their complaint history and show appreciation for customers’ feedback and opinions. Don’t make customers feel guilty because they complained. Make them feel that your take their complaints seriously with no ill-judgment attached. If they see that you are insincere, they can always pretend and opt to run into their shells whilst religiously ignoring anything that has to do with your brand.
Prioritise empathy over tone deafness. By avoiding tone-deaf feedback and prioritizing empathy, you can build trust and demonstrate that your brand values customers’ opinions.
The Customer is Always Right
People tend to mischievously misinterpret the meaning of this mantra. All that this is based on is prioritisation of customer satisfaction. Your staff should be empathetic when dealing with customer challenges, be flexible and adjustable.
BRAND PERCEPTION IS THE CUSTOMER’S TRUTH.
If you don’t see the depth and correctness of this statement, then I wouldn’t blame you if you have started preparing for your degeneration.
What brand owners ought to recognise is what a brand is in the first place, let alone what makes it big. One marketing guru used to tell us that all that she wanted was explanations that make sense. If in your examination script you replied, ‘A brand is the feeling people have about a product’ – that was enough to get full marks.
As a brand how do you think your customers, in particular, feel about your brand? If they are not happy – why? .What matters is the perception that they have of your brand.
When deciding to justify your output do you consider this reality?
As the African continent continues to experience rapid economic growth and technological advancements, building strong brands has become a crucial element for businesses looking to establish themselves and thrive in the market.
A brand is more than just colours or logo or a name. We abuse language and use slang that misrepresents the truth. For instance, pulling up a banner is always referred to as branding when that does not exactly represent the essence of the concept.
The feeling stated above is how much does the product or service promise in quality, reliability and experience to the customer and how far the customer to be capable of doing those. That is what your brand is.
What feelings do your customers have about you brand? That should be your daily enquiry.