"A brand is not just a logo, an advertising slogan, a product, a service, a building, an airplane, great leadership, or profitability. A brand is all of these. It is the fabric of the organization woven together purposefully over a period of time. And it doesn't just happen, as Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart so eloquently point out.
I had the opportunity to be the second CEO of Southwest Airlines when it was a fledgling company serving destinations in Texas. My role was to position the company with solid people, products, and a financial foundation for future growth with deregulation about to be enacted. One of my first priorities was to engage our senior management team in a visioning process. It was a small team of nine, including Chairman Herb Kelleher.
We went offsite to a conference room at a local university in Dallas, Texas, and I facilitated the session. The objective was to agree on a direction and pathway, and distill it down to a hundred words or less on what we were going to be when we grew up. After ten hours of spirited discussion, we were all drained mentally and took the evening off for a cookout at my home. The following morning we started refreshed and within an hour it became clear to all of us. We were not an airline.
We then wrote the mission/vision statement that was only fifty-two words long and easily understood by all our stakeholders. Taking the next step developing a culture to support the brand required spending a lot of time the following year spreading that gospel, one on one, one on two, wherever we could find an audience.
We then wrote the mission/vision statement that was only fifty-two words long and easily understood by all our stakeholders. Taking the next step developing a culture to support the brand required spending a lot of time the following year spreading that gospel, one on one, one on two, wherever we could find an audience.
You don't take a commodity, an airline seat, and turn it into a recognizable brand unless all of your teammates buy into and benefit from the proposition. Southwest has always believed in "hiring attitudes and teaching skills" and sharing the profits with all employees. We believed that if we treated our people as #1, they would treat our customers the same way. As two advertising executives from New York, Simon and Gomes, once said to me: "If you just sell a product or a service you will probably be known as a vendor or supplier. If you sell a vision or experience you will begin to develop a brand."
It has worked successfully as Southwest has been profitable every year for nearly thirty years, a record unmatched in a turbulent industry. If you are serious about building great enduring connections between your customers and the brand you represent, then Branded Customer Service will provide you both the road map and the Tool-Kit you need to become an on-brand organization and create the success Southwest Airlines, a brand pioneering company, has enjoyed."
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Branded Customer Service - The New Competitive Edge
Authors: Janelle Barlow, Ph.D. and Paul Stewart
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, California 94104-2916
www.bkconnection.com
ISBN: 1-57675-298-4, 1st Edition, Hardcover, Trim: 6-1/8 x 9-1/4. 264 Pages. U.S. Price $27.95
Copyright © 2004 by Janelle Barlow, Ph.D. and Paul Stewart |
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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