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Strategic Brand Management

Individual Assignment







8/31/2014
Shivanjali Kamble
Reg no. 0149/50


On an average two thirds of the economy of every developed nation is the services sector. Yet
there are very few successful services brand. Contrary to this, considerable guidance is available
about building product brands. will look upon the what are factors that are critical to service
branding.

Understanding services

Characteristics of services


Service Encounter: Its the moment of interaction between the customer and the service
company, known as the moment of truth. This is most important part of the interaction between
the customer & company. The service encounter is the face of company. Whoever represents the
company in a service encounter is the company for the consumer. Thus these frontline employee
are most critical, and therefore need to be aware of the fact that they are representing the
company at large. Still we find the reality is quite the opposite. They are not properly trained to
handle uncertain scenarios, are often found lacking motivation and responsibility.

Thus we can see that services are largely dependent on employee consumer interaction. This
means that the services organisations need to be upside down. The whole organisation should
work for customer contact staff and thereby making the service encounter better. This a key
difference between services and a product organisation
Products can be copied easily by competitors. Services cannot. It all depends on the way its
delivered and consistently makes it more difficult to replicate over and over. It is an important
and sustainable parameter for differentiation.
Most of the literature available on services management, talks about following key issues.
the importance of the service encounter;
that the service vision is delivered to consumers by service employees
how the frontline staff need to responsive
the means of achieving this responsiveness
Inverted hierarchy

Understanding branding

What is a brand?
A set of symbols, words, slogans, values, colours, name that represents a collective meaning in
the minds of consumer. More than that brand represents a promise in the minds of the consumer,
a promise of consistency of bundle of attributes that the product or service is going to provide.
These attributes can be tangible or intangible. (Website: www.businessdictionary.com)

What is branding?
The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a service in the consumers' mind,
mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a
significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.
(Website: www.businessdictionary.com)

Differences in Product & Services branding
This brand promise idea is what separates product branding from services branding as the this
brand promise is difficult to maintain in a service due to its nature of variability.
It is important in successful brand building for services to borrow from product branding, since
the concept of brand is similar between both products and services, but what separates product
branding from services branding is how it is executed.
What product branding typically tries to do is increase consumer expectations about the product
through advertising. But as explained earlier about the importance of service encounters, it is
difficult to maintain consistency and meet the expectations every time
The value delivery system for products is internal, unseen by consumers. However services are
co created, and the value delivery is visible to consumers, who are active participants.
Quality perceptions about the product are based on what consumer get. But the quality
perception of a service depends on how they get it and what they get. Product branding process
therefore focuses on the technical outcome unlike services branding.

With the service sector on rise, the branding model used for services branding tend to borrow
heavily from product branding. However due to factors such as variability of services,
intangibility nature and several other factors which require all frontline employees delivering
high level of consistency at the numerous service occasions, the execution of a brand strategy for
services require special attention. The brand personality of services depend on the employee
facing staff and supporting systems while the marketing department and its tactics are central in
shaping the brand personality of a product offering.



The diagram depicted above (Leslie de Chernatony Susan Segal#Horn, (2003)) shows the way
critical factors influence the development of successful services brands. We can see that the
process starts from corporate culture. Corporate culture defines values and behaviour of the
service.
The brand promise is defined by the management in terms of these values can be portrayed to
grow its personality. All these factors such as service vision, the brand promise and consumer
expectations make staff understand their role as brand builder. Combining training with well
oiled service delivery systems, organizational processes (such as staff development) brings in
more consistency in the service encounters.

Important aspects of service branding include:
Service Differentiation
Service Quality
Constant Service Innovation - Figure out how to give customer more for less and how to
enhance customer experience.


Critical Factors in the service brand building

Customer Relationship
Customer loyalty plays an important part in Service marketing as it is in FMCG due to multiple
points of contact (service encounters) for buying of the product or use of the service which gives
multiple opportunities to consumer to evaluate the brand. eg. Telecom services - frequent
recharge and queries regarding tariffs or connectivity, Bank - regular transactions, account
handling, Fast food brands - regular hangout for snacks as well as for ambience. This interaction
is the real experience of the service for the consumer which needs to touch the consumers heart.
This is the deciding point after which consumer will be think on whether to retain with the
service provider or go for other. In managing this link between internal and external
communication, staff behaviour is very important. Brand needs to present itself well and develop
an emotional relationship with consumer. This stage to be designed out very carefully, staff
should be well educated, skilled and sophisticated. The staff behaviour and interactions with
consumers should be constantly monitored and innovated. Brand should also cater well the
extended consumption chain of the service brand. Beyond that brand should take self-initiatives
to engage customer through various programs, offers, innovations.

Eg. Tata Sky Direct to Home satellite TV service

An example of Indian service brand who understands this is Tata Sky. Tata sky in its first 12
months was able to acquire 1 million connections. This was because Tata Sky paid close
attention to every aspect of the service, from the first call made to the call centre or the purchase
of a set top box to the installation and the subsequent quality of service. The key ingredients of
this success mantra were:
1. 3,000 field service engineers were given training at least 6 months before the launch
2. I studied the methods of successful DTH platforms such as Foxtel Australia, Sky Italia,
BSkyB in the UK, and Direct TV in the US. People from these companies trained Tata Sky
employees on specific areas of specialised activity and expertise. This helped employees
adequate domain expertise and help boost their morale to handle uncertain customer scenarios
with relative ease.

Clear-cut Positioning
Positioning should be very clear in terms of what service the firm is offering and what benefit it
stands for. Amidst the so competitive world, firm should have clarity on what are we here to
deliver and what makes it special, its unique attributes for positioning so that consumer can relate
to it and interpret it in their needs. This positioning should be reflected through all service
encounter points with consistency to build the brand image in the mind of consumers. For this,
its necessary that whole the organization, mainly whole the staff who may come into customer
contact should understand what the organization stands for and what image the organization is
trying to build, so that they can support in the proper direction.

Eg. Life Insurance Corporation

One such Indian brand which have never thought of tweaking its positioning over the years is
LIC(Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi meaning With you inlife, with you after life).
The brand enjoys close to 100 percent brand recall and over 70% people have it has a first
preference for insurance, the category which is highly dominated by LIC. (Source: Business
Standard). An important point to note here is its clientele cuts across but rural and urban
consumers. Although it acts as a challenge, LIC has been successful in maintaining the
positioning through different ad campaigns for different consumers.

Another aspect on positioning is, it should not associate with the underlined platform of the
service, so that it can evolve with time. The organizations image should be in terms of its core
value, benefit. If it is more descriptive about the process of service it keeps no scope to upgrade
in the continuous evolving world.

Eg. Tata Consultancy Services

TCS started offerings from providing punched card services, providing bureau services to
providing softwares for enterprise solutions, but never identified itself with computers etc but
with Information Technology services offering sure consulting and business solutions.

Consistency in Service
The organization should be consistent across all the messages, service points about its unique
attributes, offerings, organizations image and thus consistent presentation. Customer loyalty
plays an important part in Service marketing as it is in FMCG due to multiple counts of buying
of the product or use of service which gives multiple opportunities to consumer to evaluate the
brand. Everytime the consumer interacts for the service, it should have a consistency in the
experience leading him to develop his belief on the brand and be loyal to it. Consumer Services
brands should have coherency between the brands values and staff behaviour, as well as
consistency between external and internal communication and staff behaviour.

Eg. Cafe Coffee day - Indian caf chain

One example of such Indian brand who has maintained consistency at all its service encounters is
Cafe Coffee day. It has been able to maintain consistent quality across all its outlets. Consistency
has not been just across product offering and qualities, but also across its promotions that
resonates the same brand positioning and strengthens it. CCDs strong consistency can be
attributed to not following franchise model, which allows it exert more control over the outlet

Core Values
Organization should clearly define its Values, a culture doing right things for customer. Values
are necessary for internal as well as external branding as well as loyalty. Values motivate staff to
believe in the organization, be passionate about their work and to deliver above the call as well
as be associated with organization for long term. Internal loyalty in this way, gives a sustainable
competitive advantage to the brand over its competitors. Values will reflect in customer service,
giving an experience to consumer for positive reinforcement about the brand. Thus Values of the
organization gives unique style to the brand performance and brand sustainability.
Successful services brands are characterised by organisations with core values which are deeply
embedded. When these values are enacted with conviction by the organisations management,
they are more likely to result in genuine staff conviction (Horn, 2003)

Eg. Indigo Airlines service

One of the core values that drive Indigo Airlines profit, in an industry where all the major
airlines are suffering losses, is being on time on every time. To start with management has
acted on this with conviction, it has installed Indigos 51 planes are equipped with Aircraft
Communications Addressing and Reporting System(ACARS), which is a digital data link system
for transmission of short, relatively simple messages between aircraft and ground stations via
radio or satellite. Anyone who has travelled by Indigo and any one of its competitors, one has
easily identify the differences between operating procedures be with check in, safety
demonstrations, or time between boarding the aircraft and flight taking off. More closer of the
operations,and interactions with flight crew or ground staff would reveal that everyone strongly
holds this value as a driving principle in their jobs and not just as a corporate guideline. It is due
to this that the people in the organisation are able to utilise the systems in place to the maximum
potential, achieving lowest turnaround time for its flights.

Use of Systems
Revolution in information technology has changed the way the brand offers its services. Good
supporting systems increase efficiency of the organization, is a hygiene factor to cut through
competition. Consistency of service across the frontline being an important factor, Systems can
help out to maintain the uniformity and standardization in the service offering. Incorporating
systems with the existing staff, making staff adaptable to the system and train them well for its
effective utilization in their support is an important aspect giving out the performance of the
system. Systems gives customers feeling of staying with advanced brand, staying uptodate. It
gives customers convenience in the utilization of service and the way to experience the brand.

Eg. ICICI Bank services

One such brand that has been successful in leveraging technology to improve its service offering
is ICICI bank. ICICI bank is one of the worlds fastest growing bank in terms of number of
customers (close to 300000 per year). The earlier systems at ICICI were very branch centric and
ICICI was not able to handle the growing customers and product offerings through the IT /MIS
systems in place. The new systems in place, offered ICICI to move from traditional banking to
virtual banking thus offering modern banking services to its customers. This has eliminated
duplication of processes like backend operations, training of staff, administration cost, and other
system related costs at branch levels. As a result, ICICI has clearly changed the rules of banking
in India and demonstrated how technology can be used to transform a banking business and has a
strategy for differentiation.


Conclusion
In this competitive era, Service branding has emerged as an important theme. The factors
Customer Relationship, Clear-cut Positioning, Consistency in Services, Core Values and Use of
Systems along with Service Differentiation, Quality and Innovation are important which
integrate the various criteria for success within a systems prospective of Service branding.
Building and Managing a service brand is value-dependent and service encounter-dependent.
Services brands are relation-based both internally and externally. Its stakeholders play a crucial
part in branding.

References

Leslie de Chernatony Susan Segal#Horn, (2003),"The criteria for successful services
brands", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 37 Iss 7/8 pp. 1095 - 1118
Leslie de Chernatony , Susan Drury & Susan Segal-Horn (2003) Building a
Services Brand: Stages, People and Orientations, The Service Industries Journal, 23:3
Experts Views About Defining Services Brands and the Principles of Services Branding
Leslie de Chernatony, Francesca DallOlmo Riley
Y.L.R. Moorthi, (2002),"An approach to branding services", Journal of Services
Marketing, Vol. 16 Iss 3 pp. 259 - 274