What Great Brands Do

Great Brands Design the Ideal Customer Experience

Seven brand-building principles

In her book WHAT GREAT BRANDS DO author Denise Lee Yohn highlights The Seven Brand-building Princicples that separate the best from the rest in the marketplace.
Here are a few examples from recent client engagements and research on how we've seen leading brands apply these seven brand-building principles within their respective industries.

#1 Great brands start inside

They cultivate a vibrant corporate culture around the brand by engaging employees in who they are and what they stand for.

+For Example

G Adventure travel company gathers its tour guides from around the world to celebrate CHANGING PEOPLE's LIVES.

Zappos focuses on training its employees on what it means to be servant leaders placing others before self, doing what's right for the customer even if it means potentially losing the sale.

#2 Great brands Avoid Selling Products

They focus on developing engaging customer experiences that create an emotional connection with their products and services.

+For Example

lululemon decided to focus on building community by offering free yoga classes in its stores.

lululemon places their focus on educating its customers, not selling. In fact it refers to its retail sales associates and contact center staff as 'Educators'.

#3 Great Brands Ignore Perceived Trends

They challenge and anticipate trends, rather than follow them. They differentiate themselves via unique business models.

+For Example

Southwest Airlines ignored sophisticated rewards programs in order to offer lower fares to its passengers.

G Adventures offers guarenteed bookings so that if for any reason you have to cancel you can book again selecting one of the many small group adventure tours they offer.

#4 Great Brands Don't Chase Customers

They know that if you stand for something clearly, some people will love you and some will hate you.

+For Example

Harley-Davidson embraces its identity as the vehicle embodiment of 'freedom', 'inidividualism', and 'rebellion'.

#5 Great Brands Sweat the Small Stuff

They overcome silos to create a unified customer experience across cross-functional departments.

+For Example

Disney recognizes that in order to deliver a great customer experience, small touches can make a BIG difference.

#6 Great Brands Commit and Stay Committed

They sacrifice short-term profit to maintain brand integrity and deliver on their brand promise.

+For Example

RAD Power Bikes continued to offer its popular ebikes at pre-tariff prices to fulfill its purpose of making its ebikes accessible to everyone.

#7 Great Brands Never Have to "Give Back"

They make a positive social impact by creating shared value and being 'sustainable' not just talking about it.

+For Example

Patagonia asks you to repair your torn jacket rather than buy a new one. Or choose to trade it in or sell it at special Worn Wear website.

Great brands realize that crafting a branded experience is both a necessity and a competitive advantage.

CX Courses

Our Client Work

Ideal State Customer Journey

Great brands design the ideal state customer journey

In a recent Forrester Research report it was determined that while 64% of companies had mapped the current state customer journey only 26% of companies had mapped the ideal state customer journey.

Customer Centric Solutions: Current State Journey vs. Ideal State Journey

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Schedule a quick chat to learn more about conducting an Ideal State Journey Mapping SPRINT

Branded Experiences

Infusing the brand into the customer journey

In our work, we focus on helping companies find ways to infuse the brand promise and their core values into the customer journey as it unfolds. Helping consumers not only discover their product or service, but, the brand itself, building an emotional connection.

Our Client Work

Learm more about branded experiences we've been creating for clients across industries:

Ideal State Journey Mapping Sprint

Creating a Branded Experience

We help you and your team envision the ideal state journey by applying design thinking principles and experience design methods to visualize the ideal customer experience.

Pre-workshop

→ Define what success will look like (desired outcomes)

→ Define what a branded experience looks like and feels like at each stage of the journey

→ Assemble cross-functional team

→ Schedule the workshop

→ Prepare current state journey framework

→ Perform initial CX Thoughtstarter research

Workshop

→ Present focal areas (problem statements)

→ Frame problems as challenge statements with desired customer experience outcomes

→ Seek inspiration for CX Improvements using Lightning Bolt demos

→ Construct initial solutions concepts leveraging Storyboarding Methods

→ Capture the Ideal State Journey (doing, thinking, feeling)

→ Share out initial Solution Concepts

Post-workshop

→ Consolidate ideas from workshop

→ Synthesis and frame-up each solution concept along with the branded experience it creates

→ Refine both current state and ideal state journeys

→ Create an inventory of potential CX improvement opportunities

→ Prioritize based upon customer desirability, technical feasibility, and business viability

SPRINT DURATION: 3 to 4 weeks

We've taken the Design Sprint process, created by Jake Knapp from Google Ventures, and refined it so that it can be applied to solving for multiple pain points (unmet customer needs) across the entire customer journey.

As an outcome of the Ideal State Journey Mapping Sprint you have an inventory of visually crafted solution concepts and storyboards to inform your CX Roadmap for creating branded experiences across the customer journey.

Ready to schedule an Ideal State Journey Mapping workshop?

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Benefits REALIZED FROM IDEAL STATE JOURNEY MAPPING SPRINT

Customer Centric Solutions: Benefits from Ideal State Journey Mapping

Achieve organizational alignment on what the ideal customer experience looks like and feels like.

Learn how to use structured ideation methods to inspire creativity in improving customer experience.

Create an inventory of both tactical and strategic ways to improve customer experience at different stages of the journey.

Gather inspiration from brands across industries on how to deliver simple, effective and engaging customer experiences.

Bring together cross-functional teams (business and technology) to collaborate and conceptualize new solution concepts.

Envision the ideal state journey based upon new and improved signature moments throughout the journey.

Client Testimonials

what our clients have to say

Customer Centric Solutions: Canada Goose Testimonial

“We had found that for a lot of our customers the post-purchase experience, knowing how to pack it, store it, clean it was very important to them. The Ideal State Journey Mapping workshop helped us identify different ways to improve customer experience across pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of journey.”

— Pat Louis, Senior Director of Customer Experience

Customer Centric Solutions: G Adventures Testimonial

“This was the first time we had performed an exercise like this bringing cross-functional teams together to envision the Ideal Customer Journey from dreaming about a small group adventure to researching and booking it to preparing for the trip to travelling with a small group to telling others about it afterwards.”

— Lyndon File, Director of Customer Experience

Our Client Work

Want to learn more about other clients we've worked with to envision the ideal customer journey?

Case Studies

A couple of recent engagements

Ready to define the ideal state customer journey?

Schedule a quick chat to learn more about how conducting an Ideal State Journey Mapping Sprint can help you rebuild lost momentum around your CX initiative.

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Great Brands Design the Ideal Customer Experience