There’s perhaps nothing more valuable than a customer’s trust. It’s what drives them to give your services a try, to recommend you to friends and to keep coming back time and time again. There’s no better way to earn and maintain that trust than through branding. While the colors, fonts and tone you use in your marketing are part of branding, the true definition entails every touch point consumers have with your business.
Branding can be tricky, but it becomes even more difficult to create and evolve across multiple franchise locations. Too many cooks might spoil the soup, but too many managers can spoil a brand strategy even quicker. Thankfully, there are a few strategies you and your team can employ to ensure that your branding is clear, concise and consistent across all of your franchises.
Defining Your Brand
Start by understanding your target customer. Who are they? How old are they? How much money do they make? What do they want most out of life? Answering these questions might feel silly at first, but they can help you better understand the psychology behind the folks purchasing your services or products. Only after getting into the heads of your customers can you truly define your brand.
Once you’ve determined who you’re selling to, choose a color palette, font, logo and slogan targeting your ideal customer. If it’s not clear what those choices should look like, it’s time to go back to the drawing board to better understand your goals. Most importantly, you’ll need to create a brand style guide to which all franchises and employees can refer back. Strict rules on the creative liberties you allow or forbid can give you control over your brand.
Uniformity is your key to success. Think about popular brands you see every day and how different you might feel towards them if their logos were altered slightly, or if the tone of their advertisements changed dramatically. Branding is all about earning trust, so consistency matters a great deal. While you may want to encourage local flavor twist on your branding, keeping certain aspects of your identity uniform is always a good idea.
Tools for Franchisees
In addition to your style guide, you may want to consider other strategies to ensure your brand is being upheld across franchises. Think about the way your employees communicate with customers. For example, if one location has an overly formal, polite relationship with patrons, a laissez-faire attitude from staff in a different location can come across strangely. Because consistency is key, brand uniformity should extend to the very way your employees interact with customers.
Consider your branding on social media platforms. Sure, you may use a different caption on Instagram photos than you use on Facebook or Twitter, but your voice should be locked in, recognizable, and consistent across platforms. Even deciding on which platforms to participate can be a question of branding. Get on the same page with your social media team to ensure your social presence makes sense.
Companies with strong branding often use professional call center services to ensure a consistent customer service experience for callers. Agents work from a script created by stakeholders according to brand guidelines to guarantee that callers receive the same high level of service every time they dial. Regardless of what experiences your customers might have with individual franchises or locations, you can rest assured that the call center employees will handle calls in a uniform fashion.
Consistent Branding, Consistent Support
The benefits of working with a call center don’t stop with branding. Answering services for franchises can give your employees the administrative support they need in busy times. Whether your business depends upon leads, appointments, sales calls or general customer service over the phone, a live answering agent can provide exactly what you require. Such services can free up your employees, giving them more time to devote to staying productive and on brand in other areas of the business. After all, your franchise owners deserve the best support available.
If you’re curious about answering and call center services for franchises, MAP Communications can help answer your questions. A leader in the industry, MAP has provided administrative solutions to franchise organizations throughout the United States since 1990. Our team is highly trained to provide excellent customer support and we even have a vested interest in your success, because we are 100% employee owned company. Never miss another call with the help of MAP Communications.
Start your free, week-long trial of our franchise answering services today by giving us a call or filling out this form.
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