Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2014 | Page 34
Grow Market Lead
CMO
roundtable:
“Discuss the role of your brand’s
culture in creating, framing, and
developing your brand message
or image to customers.”
Amy Olson
Vice President of Customer
Experience/Marketing
The Maids
The Maids has more
than 30 years of experience in the highly
competitive residential
cleaning industry. We
know well the importance and challenges
of differentiating our brand in the market, and how important culture is in
conveying and creating a positive overall brand experience. Personifying the
brand culture starts at the top through
executive and franchisee leadership.
The personalities of the brand we
strive to convey through our culture
are professionalism and being detailoriented, friendly, and considerate. This
is exhibited first and foremost through
the customer experience provided by
staff. From the start of a customer relationship, we make every effort to ensure a customer’s brand experience with
The Maids is not left to chance, but is
carefully planned. To do so, all staff
are trained on our branded customer
experience, where every touch point is
outlined and orchestrated in a manual.
This helps make certain our customers
are delighted through every step of doing business with us, from their initial
phone call to the follow-up provided
after the first service and beyond. The
customer experience vision, promoted
through internal marketing material, is
to Wow every customer through personalizing, owning, and delivering an
above-and-beyond experience.
Additionally, our brand image is
exemplified through the professional
uniforms worn by customer-facing
staff members who provide service in
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Franchiseupdate ISS U E IV, 2 0 1 4
customers’ homes. Additionally, teams
arrive in branded company cars emblazoned with The Maids’ logo.
Finally, the ownership, management, and internal office culture within
franchise offices lead the way in demonstrating the brand. Offices are professional environments, with friendly,
welcoming atmospheres. Employees
are treated with respect and provided
with a great place to work, including a
healthy continental breakfast. Special
events in the lives of staff are celebrated
to let staff know they are cared for and
appreciated. Staff can then pass on the
same genuine enthusiasm and kindness
to their customers.
Rosemarie Reed
Vice President of Marketing
CruiseOne
CruiseOne’s reputation
as the go-to travel
agency for customers
worldwide began 22
years ago and has only
strengthened through
the years. We recognize
that our franchisees are our gateway to
cruise and vacation customers and that
there is a correlation between an engaged franchise network and profitability and customer loyalty. Therein
lies the challenge. How do we create a
knowledgeable, engaged network of
more than 900 franchisees and guarantee that the customer experience will
be the same regardless of which franchisee you work with? While we can’t
force our franchisees to embody our
brand culture, our end goal is to always
instill in them a sense of pride that will
resonate with customers and create a
positive experience so they become
lifelong loyal customers.
At CruiseOne, our owners are supportive of one another and do not view
each other as competition. One way we
accomplish this is by consistently sharing
success stories of how franchise owners
bring our brand culture to life—in our
internal quarterly agent newsletter, in
trainings, and on our peer-to-peer intranet. These stories include experiences
with local marketing and events, closing
sales strategies, coping with tough customers, building databases, and more.
They serve as inspiration to all franchisees when they are communicating and
working with their customers.
A marketing committee serves as
the liaison between franchisees and
our corporate offices. Since we in the
corporate headquarters are not working
directly with customers, this marketing
committee serves as our eyes and ears.
It represents the voice of all agents and
informs us of what works and doesn’t
work in enhancing the customer experience. They are advocates for our marketing programs and lead by example in
implementing the appropriate actions
to create a thriving brand culture.
Planning a vacation can be a very
stressful experience. It is our franchisees’ job to make it as painless as possible. Our slogan is “Dream Vacations
Start Here,” and we give our owners
the tools and education they need to
make this a reality for their customers.
We have award-winning training programs that teach our franchise owners
hard and soft sales skills that make the
customer experience seamless from
start to finish.
Why? This three letter-word means so
much to our brand. CruiseOne franchise
owners are more than sellers of dream
vacations. We always ask our owners why
they do what they do, and once they determine that, it enables them to have a
deeper connection with their customers
that cannot be found elsewhere.
Determining your franchise’s brand
culture is an exercise that should not be
taken lightly and which should steer
the course of all internal and external
communications. For franchisees to
personify it, the brand culture must be
ingrained from the onset and continuously reinforced. n