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13 recommendations to help retail customers find your outlets

How easily can your customers find you on the High Street?

Imagine that you want to visit a branch of Big Retail Company, but don’t know where the nearest store is. Searching on the internet, you land on the corporate website. Can you find the answer to your question?

I’ve looked at 14 FTSE100 companies who have a High Street or out-of-town presence to find out how easily a retail customer could find their nearest outlet using the corporate site. [Read more…] about 13 recommendations to help retail customers find your outlets

Are you referendum-ready?

referendum-choices

Based in the UK?

Exactly how will your company be affected by the result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU—whichever way it goes?

This is going to be a big issue over the next year or so, depending on when the date of the vote is set to be. It may even be this summer, according to comment over the weekend, which means less time to prepare than you might think… Communications professionals will need to set aside their own personal views on this topic, and think through what the stakeholders of the businesses they work for need to know—and we’ll need to plan for either future, whether it is In or Out.

Not every business will want to take a public position on this; but some might. And whether or not they want to take a position, CEOs are bound to be asked probing questions by journalists on this topic, and so will need to be prepared.

Investors will want clarification on key issues and risks (financial and operational); and the volatility leading up to the decision (and afterwards, if the decision is to be Out) is certainly a risk.

There’ll be internal communications to consider too: if the decision is to be Out, then this could have significant implications for employment law. Employees will want reassurance that their jobs will be safe, and their employment contracts still workable—and no doubt this could affect your employer brand too.

There’s a lot to think about, so Communicate have organised a conference to help senior communications professionals develop their strategy for the EU referendum. It will give people the opportunity to talk to their peers in confidence and to hear expert advice and relevant case studies.

There’s a great lineup of speakers, including a session with communications professionals who helped their clients through recent referenda in Greece and Scotland (remember those? That should be fascinating…)

Called Referendum Ready?, it will be in London on 26 January – find out more on the Communicate events page.

Should Corporate Communications continue to Go App?

corporate-app
Recently I went to a Communicate conference, where the topic for discussion was mobile apps and what is considered best practice for corporate communications: should we continue to use apps for corporate communications or is there a better alternative in the form of responsive technology?

I was treated to presentations from Adobe, Barclays and Nestle amongst others. Following a discussion on the latest trends, companies shared their approach to apps and where they fit in their digital strategies. The following post summarises the major talking points from the day, including some of my own thoughts.

The role of apps

Apps are used to engage with a variety of audiences such as customers, buyers, job seekers, investors and analysts. They can also be used on a situational basis, such as to support a product launch, to reinforce a concept or initiative, and in a crisis scenario. Increasingly, apps are being developed for internal usage.

Arguably, the most successful and most used are those that are customer facing. With these apps there is more potential to create additional revenues, improve processes and increase customer satisfaction. In the case of Barclays, their online banking apps have been successful in offering customers the ability to do their banking on the move, improving the speed of service and reducing the number of people in branches. Meanwhile, in the third world, they are the only point of access to banking for customers.

Building a case for responsive technology

Traditional corporate apps—can we say ‘traditional’ about these already?—typically offer visitors the ability to view a share price, access reports and view the latest news. The question is whether you need an app to achieve this on a mobile device. Do the apps provide a return on investment and are there other channels you could use to deliver the same information?

With the growing range of devices and operating systems on offer, companies will be tempted to move towards a one-size-fits-all responsive solution for their digital communications to save costs and reduce complexity. Unless you develop an app for every operating system, there will always be an audience who is isolated and cut off from your offering, while serving all audiences through the means of apps would be extremely expensive.

Through the development of a responsive template, it’s possible to leverage that template across all devices and operating systems. It also keeps pace with the ever changing technology, whereas apps must be continuously upgraded to meet the demands of new operating system versions. Measuring and promoting is also better through the responsive approach, where analytics and SEO can combine to monitor performance and ensure content is visible.

Conclusions

There is no right or wrong answer. Companies need to evaluate how well they are engaging with their audience and to measure the success of the platforms they are using. While the responsive model reduces cost and complexity, there will always be a strong case for using apps where they can deliver some additional value, increase revenues, reduce costs, streamline processes or lead to reputational enhancements.

Looking ahead, it is likely that companies will use both apps and responsive technology in a coordinated and combined offering, serving and engaging all stakeholders in the process. The balance between the two will depend on the company itself, its industry and the on-going communication demands of its many stakeholders.

Necessity is the Mother of Reinvention

corporate rebrand = metamorphosis

There are lots of reasons why a company might choose to rebrand:

  • increasing globalisation leading to confusion in the minds of customers
  • acquisition or merger of two companies – or a spinoff – necessitating a change
  • significant change to the business – products, services, direction, scale…
  • the need to differentiate from competitors
  • occasionally as a result of a crisis
  • and no doubt there are more…

Such a big change isn’t usually decided on a whim, but is driven by necessity. And corporate brand metamorphosis certainly isn’t easy. It would definitely be worth getting some expert advice!

As always with the Communicate Magazine conferences, the upcoming Transform Conference is intended to help people facing the implementation of such a major project, providing practical ideas and case studies based on the experiences of the line-up of speakers.

For this conference, the speakers are drawn from corporates, governments, charities and corporate advisors, and include: Unilever, Hays, Dave, AkzoNobel, The Co-Op, Aviva, Santander, Holcim and many more.

There will be discussions on communicating the changes internally, on protecting intellectual property, dealing with cultural issues, reputation management, visual identity and fonts, brand architecture and reinvention without damaging brand heritage. It sounds fascinating – the only issue, as always, is choosing between the different streams of discussion.

I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of a history of the world in 1000 fonts, which is the topic to be covered by Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag – brand values and visual identities from the Romans onwards! On the other hand, guidance on how to execute a new visual identity across multiple brand touchpoints in multiple departments across multiple regions sounds essential, and as a former project manager I can imagine just how complex such a programme could be. (This session will be led by Gideon Wilkinson from Endpoint).

I’ll just have to hope that Communicate have decided to video each session. Or that I can find a time-turner before October.

The early bird period for this conference is nearly over, so you’ll have to act fast (before the end of August) if you want to make a saving on the conference fee. It’s going to be at the Hotel Russell, in London, on October 21 – and it’s an all day thing (not surprising, given what they plan to cover). More details here. Looking good!

Use Your Website to Promote Your Culture

Some of my posts touched on the importance of Corporate Cultures. Culture affects how employees behave. It also has an influence on how the company is perceived by external stakeholders. So making your Culture visible is imperative and an effective method is to simply use your website.

Some of the “Best Companies” lists published by magazines, consultants and other sources are useful sources of competitive intelligence to get started. However, “Best Company Cultures” ratings are virtually non-existent. I was able to find one in Canada. It is Waterstone Human Capital’s Canada‘s 10 Most Admired Corporate CulturesTM . The 2007 winners are —

1. WESTJET AIRLINES LTD. www.westjet.com
2. FOUR SEASONS HOTELS INC. www.fourseasons.com
3. BOSTON PIZZA INTERNATIONAL. www.bostonpizza.com
4. ROYAL BANK OF CANADA. www.royalbank.com
5. YELLOW PAGES GROUP CO. www.ypg.com
6. MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. www.mapleleaf.ca
7. MANULIFE FINANCIAL CO. www.manulife.com
8. PUROLATOR COURIER LTD. www.purolator.com
9. TIM HORTONS INC. www.timhortons.com
10.TORONTO DOMINION BANK FINANCIAL GROUP www.td.com

Step one would be to visit the websites of the top rated companies to get some ideas on how to organize your Culture section. Visit the top company, WESTJET and you will see the essential ingredients –

You need to post a short description of the Culture statement, mission vision and values. You could stop here but anything that reinforces these items should be included.

If you visit Toyota Motors, a company that appears on various “Best Company” lists, you find a more glitzy and subtle approach. TOYOTA MOTORS

There are some issues with the Toyota approach, the essential ingredients not as explicit as WESTJET. You have to search to find any mention of culture. I finally found a culture statement buried in Environment Section . Toyota has a good story to tell, they just need to flaunt it.

The lesson learned is that if you want to display your Corporate Culture, keep it focused and make it easily visible.

Fuzzy Search: Corporate Use

Yell: fuzzy search

You will have noticed that Google asks whether you really meant to search for “Your Search Term”, and suggests that perhaps you meant “A Different Search Term” instead. This is, of course, because people get the spelling wrong, or only know part of the term they are looking for. And, of course, different companies can use different terminology for the same thing.

People searching on your corporate site are just as likely to get things wrong as people using Google. Perhaps they search for ‘jobs’, when everything on your site is called ‘job openings’, or for ‘AGM’ when you’ve called these annual events ‘Shareholder Meetings’, and then leave, frustrated, when they don’t find what they want.

This fuzzy search option at Yell is an interesting solution to the problem of visitors not knowing what to search for. It is the only place I have spotted a fuzzy search on a corporate site.

If you’ve seen any others, do please let me know.