Now that you know about brand equity (discussed yesterday), what can you do to monitor it, measure it, and improve it?  You need to get the answers to a few questions to evaluate your brand equity.

How easy is it to work with your company?  Is there a cache to being associated with your firm?   Do you have the reputation that affords you the advantage you seek with your customers?

I am working with one firm that has just that cachet.  And, firms are trying to emulate it (OK, they are trying to fool the public) by using similar sounding names to attract their purchases.  We’ve even had to explain to an unhappy customer that we (let’s call us GreatCompany.com] can’t be responsible for their experiences with We’reAGreatCompany.com  or GreatCompany.us…)

What about when you goof up?  Don’t give me any BS- we all goof up on occasion.  That same company I just mentioned got overwhelmed over the holiday.  Even though we told customers that they had to order their product by X day to receive it by the holiday, things didn’t work out quite well.

We knew that our delivery time to New York was 1 day and Florida was 3 days.   So, four days before the holiday we only shipped Florida (and similar) orders.  To be sure the product would arrive in time.  Leaving the New York orders for later in the week.

But, when it’s not a holiday, our customers know we ship products within a maximum of 2 business days of ordering. And, they bought their “stuff” before the X day.  They had it down pat.  But, our waiting for the New York orders to deliver 1 day early wasn’t very good for a very few of our customers.  Because they were leaving a day or two earlier than the start of the holiday, expecting to bring their purchases as gifts for their relatives.   That meant failed expectations. Ooops..

We worked with them.  We explained our concept.  They understood we were trying really hard to deliver to all of our customers.  Unfortunately, that didn’t help their situation.  But, by our explanation, we kept them as customers- and they really understood that we wanted to make them happy they bought from us.  (Yes, we gave them an incentive, too, to try to make their disappointments less harsh.)

But, we still made other errors.  With a zillion orders going out the door, it seems that a shipping label fell to the floor.  And, instead of our warehouse crew verifying all the nearby boxes and their destinations, they slapped the label on the box to which they were sure it belonged.  And, Tom got a timely delivery of Bob’s order.  And, Bob got Tom’s.   Except that Bob bought the low end versions of our products and Tom bought the top end.  Obviously, Bob was really happy- and Tom was really pissed… But, again, we worked with Tom.   (Thankfully, there was 1 day left before the holiday, and at great corporate expense, we air-freighted this 36 pound purchase.  Obviously, we lost money on that sale.  But we did keep Tom happy, kept him as a customer, and even better- he told others what we did.)

Are you able to leverage your corporate reputation (or brand equity) to help with a product extension or new geographic location?  Your brand equity can help you extend your product sales, because folks know your products are good and you stand behind them.  That’s priceless when it comes to growing your business.

Is your brand equity greater than that of your competitors?  This is critical in your potential customer acquisition, your negotiating power with suppliers and vendors, and even in customer retention.  When folks know you have the ‘bestest’ and ‘mostest’, they won’t bother very much to find out what else is out there.   (It also gives you the ability to charge just a little bit more than your competitors, too.  That’s a real bottom line change.)

No, you can’t trade your brand equity on the stock exchanges.  But, it does translate to your true worth- and bottom line.

Share this: