10 Jul Channel the Brand Voice Right: Contact Center Outsourcing Challenge
Quick take: Channel the brand voice right in your customer service experience by knowing:
- Company Personality
- Style Guide
- Communication Style
- Customer Base
- Resolution Style
There are many challenges to outsourcing to a contact center. One of those challenges is channeling the company vibe so the customer service experience fits the brand.
Company Personality
We see this all the time in marketing. Brands like Dollar Shave Club have a playful, bold, creative personality. Their personality is key to their success. It extends to their customer service creating a seamless customer experience with the brand.
Dollar Shave handles customer service in-house. What about the company that outsources their contact center needs but still wants a seamless experience? Choosing a contact center or a customer service consultant, like The Workforce Pro, that makes learning brand personality a priority is vital.
Style Guides
If you’re a company seeking to outsource your customer service, have a style guide. If you’re a contact center offering outsourcing services, request one.
A style guide needs to have more than just a color scheme and logo, because a company brand is more than how it looks, it’s also how it sounds. A style guide ensures consistent brand voice and tone across all company assets. Urban Outfitters has a detailed style guide that is a great example of this.
Communication Style
Authenticity and clarity are more important in B2C relationships than ever. Customers relate to a brand voice and they can feel if something is off.
For a company that sells surfing gear and has a colorful, youthful vibe answering a customer service inquiry with “Duuuude! Great to hear from you! How can I help you catch your wave?” is perfect. That would not fit a company with an elegant vibe that makes high-end faucets.
An outsourced contact center represents their clients’ brand. The contact center needs to understand the brand’s voice to do this effectively. The target is for the customer to feel they are connecting with the brand directly.
What is the brand catchphrase?
Is the brand voice conversational or formal?
Edgy or elegant?
Upbeat and energetic or quiet and relaxed or something else altogether?
Is it a brand that uses vernacular or not?
Answers to these questions give a road map to communicating with a brand’s customers successfully.
Customer Base
In communication it helps to know who you’re talking to. Who is the brand’s customer? Most brands have a definable customer base. That base may surprise you.
Alienware, a high-end gaming company, has a customer base that evolved with them. No longer just for teenage ‘bros’, their gaming audience has grown up and so has the brand. Women make up half of their gaming audience and now their average customer is in their 30s.
The cannabis industry is another example. It’s gone from an image of hippies and their weed to tech execs and their weed.
Learn about the customers you will be serving and you’ll be prepared to meet their needs.
Resolution Style
Different companies offer different options to customers. As a business, make sure your policies are clear to those you outsource to execute them. As a contact center provider, ensure you have a solid handle on your clients’ preferences in customer resolution. Know how far a company will go for a customer to reach resolution and when that limit has been reached. This includes credits, refunds, replacements and creative customer loyalty incentives.
Taking the time to learn how to channel the brand voice right creates a successful partnership between contact centers and the businesses that benefit from their service.