Protecting Brand Value: Walking the Talk After the Sale

Abstract

Brands determine marketing activity effectiveness, drive marketplace performance, command premium prices, and, ultimately, impact shareholder value (Ailawadi et al. 2003; Keller 1993; Srivastava et al. 1998). Building brands that customers value is the work of marketing departments. The latter frequently staff brand managers to coordinate a given brand’s marketing activities, deliver brand-development objectives, and be accountable for brand performance (Low and Fullerton 1994). However, a more traditional marketing department-based view of managing brands is narrow. In reality, brands can be built (or destroyed) by employees company-wide, as employees interact with various stakeholder groups (De Chernatony 1999; King 1991). All customer interactions (customer experiences) have brand implications (Brakus et al. 2009; Grace and O'Cass 2004; Sirianni et al. 2013). These interactions are especially crucial for brands in a services context, wherein front-line employees represent—or become—the brand in human form (e.g., Long-Tolbert and Gammoh 2012; Morhart et al. 2009). When the customer experience is suboptimal, the brand is held in the hands of customer service personnel or front-line call-center employees, for example, far from the reach or formal authority of marketing and brand managers. Before the sale, marketing communications (e.g., advertising, salespeople) naturally lead customers to expect positive brand experiences. After the sale, however, things can go wrong. Service failure is inevitable (Bitner et al. 1990; Hart et al. 1990) and can quickly destroy slowly developed goodwill and long-standing relationships (Bitner 1995; Gassenheimer et al. 1998).