Well, if you’re a service brand, you’re part of the way there already…but what if you’re a product brand? Think about it?
- Product brands have users (consumption)
- Service brands have customers (service)
- Product brands obsess about product innovations (research)
- Service brands obsess about business operations (fulfillment, returns and customer service)
- Product brands create capabilities (features and functions)
- Service brands create experiences (memories, feelings and accomplishments)
- Product brands describe the attributes of their product (form, function, specification and differentiation)
- Service brands describe the attributes of their customers (wants, needs and affiliations)
It’s interesting to look back as a service and operations guy on a long career in a Product brand company (Microsoft). It’s even more interesting to look at the work I drove with superusers/influencers. The interesting aspect of that? Influencers intuitively convert product brands into service brands – it’s the end to end experiences they notice most. All the more reason if you are first and foremost a product company to learn how to obsess about your influencers and your operations – they can lead you to think more like a service brand.
And yes, as I started this, I do think brands that win will win based on service and the most immediate and actionable lens on the quality of your service is the conversations in social media…it’s time to listen, organize and engage!
Sean