Appearing authentic when you communicate with your clients can be a challenge, especially when communicating during times of crisis where you’re trying to show people where you stand.
I want to spend some time going over some things you can do with your teams across your organization to make it easier to communicate with your customers and your clients, and just put out a more uniform and consistent effort when it comes to positioning your brand with how you communicate.
Define your Core Values
The first thing you want to do is make sure you have clearly identified and define what your organization’s core values are. Once you’ve defined what your core values are, it’s important to disseminate these core values, to all the people that are responsible with the communication with customers, whether they’re on the customer support side, on the phones, answering questions by email, even creating ads online or writing content for your website. Those core values need to be disseminated to everybody that’s part of your communication team and communicating with people outside of your organization.
It’s the Foundation
It’s going to be the foundation of everything that you write and everything you put out about your brand. So it makes sure you clearly identify and distribute those core values.
Listen First. Answer Second.
Another thing you want to make sure you’re doing, especially in times of crisis right now with all the different you know, negative things that are happening around us is empathy. Remember to always listen first and respond after. So rather than providing long winded answers or, sometimes I even see excuses. Just take the time to listen to the people that are talking to you ask them some straightforward questions and let them answer and let that answer they give you guide how you’re going to execute afterwards, what you’re going to do to solve their problem or what you’re going to do to respond to what they’re talking to you about.
Stick To Your Guns
The third thing right now is take a position and stand by it. With all the different things that are happening out there, many companies are really quick to just jump on and say, yeah, I support this cause or I’m against this, or this should be happening or I’m boycotting this or whatever. This kind of ties into the core values that you’re going to establish for your business and for your brand. If you’re a brand that wants to support certain philanthropic or social causes, define that from the get go so that you’re doing things more consistently and you’re not just jumping on to, or perceived rather as jumping onto a bandwagon for a new issue that crops up and seen as someone that’s not quite as genuine and authentic. If your branding and your values from the start show that you support a certain type of position, it’ll look a lot more authentic when you actually put out a statement or take some form of action in support of an issue or a cause that aligns with, with that.
Measuring How You’re Doing
One way to know you’re doing your communications well, and you’re branding yourself properly is to look at whatever you’re putting out and take away your logo and your branding. If people can identify and figure out that it’s you or your brand that’s talking, you’ve done a good job of establishing the tone or the reputation for your brand, because your communication is actually able to leverage and drive home who you are without actually sticking your logo or your branding onto that piece of communication.
If you want to chat some more about how you can improve how you’re communicating especially in times of crisis, like we are nowadays, feel free to drop a comment below or contact me.
I’d love to chat and discuss your ideas are able to talk to you soon, stay safe and healthy, everybody
