Like Minds 2010 - brand lesson #4

It's taken a while to get this post out - February and Like Minds seem a long way away as I look out the window at Spring sunshine! The reason for the delay is that this topic has been bouncing round my head, in an interesting way, for the past few weeks. But now I've figured out my opinion, so I thought I'd share it!

It's the question of customer relationships with brands, and it came out of one of the afternoon panel sessions at Like Minds. It was a really interesting discussion, and there were two statements particularly that caught my attention. They're addressing the same issue - customer relationships with brands - but from opposite sides; The first the brand perspective, the second the customer perspective:
• "Brands don't want friends, they want customers".
• "You can't be friends with a brand".

Brands don't want friends, they want customers
Is that true? On one level, yes. The bottom line for commerce is that you have to make a profit. You have to sell your product or your service. So you need customers; you don't necessarily need friends. But who makes the best customer? A friend? Or a casual acquaintance?

Well, I'd consider a friend as someone you have some kind of emotional engagement with. A friend is someone who recognises that there is something about you that is special, or different, or better. Something they prefer. A friend is loyal.

So it's true, brands do want customers. But the smart brands want their customers to be friends.

You can't be friends with a brand
So that leads us neatly to our second statement. Can you be 'friends' with a brand? And do you want to be? I think, to a certain extent, it depends on the scale of the brand. If you're a consumer dealing with a national, or international, brand, you can't be a friend. They're too big and you're too small. Often you're not even a name to them, just a customer number. That's not friendship. But their scale is often fundamental to the service, or benefit of the service, they bring to you. If they weren't that big, they couldn't bring you those benefits.

But that's not to say that they can't be friendly - and this where many (if not most) large brands fail. Not only are you a number, they treat you like a number. You're of no value, because there are plenty more where you came from. So you receive poor customer service when you need to engage with them. And because it happens so often it's what customers expect, so when the brand does engage and does (genuinely) listen, it makes such a difference in your perception and experience of that brand.

I think an example of a big brand that does the whole 'friend' thing very well is Innocent. Their brand personality is very relaxed and easy going. Their tone of voice, conversational. They come across as very approachable. So big doesn't have to mean remote, distant and difficult to talk to. But it often is.

So at the other end of the scale - typically local and regional brands - why can't you be friends with a brand? When a company works on a scale (and has the right systems in place) that they do know who their customers are, you can have a closer relationship with them.

Now whether that relationship is 'friendship' is another matter. (Do I want to think of my accountant as a friend? Trusted advisor - yes. Honest, dependable, professional - yes). Exactly what kind of relationship is appropriate for different situations is a subject for a post of it's own I think.

So my advice to any business? Build a brand that builds relationships, because a customer who considers you a friend is a loyal customer. And loyalty is the key to success.

If you'd like to have a chat about your brand and what it can do for your business, call us on 01392 248107, or email jonathan@alderandalder.co.uk. It would be great to hear from you.

If you'd like to see a snapshot of Like Minds (in 3 minutes and 47 seconds), take a look at this film from Wide Eye Communication.